Mobile Micro-Moments—The New "Now" for Brands

Mobile has transformed the way we consume media, interact with products and services, and make purchases. At the same time, mobile has also become the first point of access to the internet, and therefore huge range of activities and opportunities have opened up for marketers that was previously inaccessible. This revolution enables brands to connect with the right message, with the right person, at the right time.

"Micro-moments" have become the new battleground for brands. Thanks to mobile, micro-moments can happen anytime, anywhere. In those moments, consumers expect brands to address their needs with real-time relevance. Brands must respond with personalized contact and interaction experiences.

According to the Kleiner Perkins 2013 Internet Trends Report, we check our phones 150 times a day. More recent data from Comscore and Flurry Analytics says that we spend almost three hours per day on our phones. Mobile sessions average a mere 1 minute 10 seconds long, dozens and dozens of times per day. 82% of us use our smartphones to check purchases we’re about to make in a store (Google/Ipsos, March 2015) and 91% of users turn to their phones for ideas in the middle of a task.

According to Google, these are:

• I-want-to-know,
• I-want-to-go,
• I-want-to-buy, and
• I-want-to-do moments.

These are loaded with intent, context, and immediacy, and constitute a huge opportunity for the marketer that knows how to seize them.

The consumer decision journey has been broken into hundreds of tiny decision-making moments at every stage of the purchase “funnel”—from inspiring vacation plans to buying a new blender to learning how to install that new shelf. Think about your own behavior and you’ll see that’s true. Foot traffic to retail stores has declined, but consumers spend more when they do visit because they’ve done their research and made decisions before ever setting foot in a store. This is particularly true with car purchases. Before, a buyer visited many—even dozens—of showrooms before buying a car. Now consumers spend a lot of time doing online research and then visit three or four dealerships tops. The same thing is happening on websites
using a desktop or laptop. Consumers typically spend less time per visit but convert to a sale more often. In many ways, micro-moments have become the footsteps that lead people to your store or desktop ecommerce site.

According to Google, there are three essential strategies that can help you win micro-moments:

• Be There. Anticipate the micro-moments for your users, then make it a point to be there to help when those moments do occur.
• Be Useful. The information you present has to be relevant to consumers’ needs at that moment and must connect people to the answers they seek.
• Be Quick. Micro-moments are called that for a reason. Mobile users want to know, go, and buy swiftly. Your mobile experience needs to be fast and frictionless.

Google gives this example of a well-thought out approach: Red Roof Inn mastered all three strategies in one simple campaign. When the company realized that flight cancellations were leaving 90,000 passengers stranded every day, its marketing team developed a way to track flight delays in real time and trigger targeted search ads for the Red Roof Inns near airports. In essence, the ads said: “Stranded at the airport? Come stay with us!” They committed to those “I-need-a-hotel-ASAP” moments and delivered with relevance on what people needed. The result: a remarkable 60% increase in bookings across non-branded search campaigns.

The bottom line is this: if you can be there at the critical moment a consumer makes the "buy" decision, you’ll get the sale. Mobile is the perfect medium for this, and Blue Iceberg can help you move the needle with mobile engagement.

Stay tuned for more in our next piece coming soon.

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