Meet The “Micro-Moment”

According to Google, 61% of smartphone users say they’re more likely to buy from companies whose mobile sites or apps customize information to their location. Mobile searches are becoming increasingly important along all steps of the consumer pathway. Search drives both digital and physical actions, from immediate purchasing to supplying critical information that influences in-store decision-making. Google is addressing these immediate, search-based connections between business and consumer, defining these micro-moments as “critical touch points within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends.” These critical, hyper-contextual events are increasingly being utilized by businesses to make an instant connection in a consumer’s moment of interest or need.

Businesses and brands are taking advantage of the vast amount of information provided by mobile data, and are developing innovative, hyper-specific marketing angles to reach their ideal audience at exactly the right time. Google features a litany of case studies in their recently released ‘Micro-Moments: Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile’, where one of the earliest standouts for succeeding in the micro-moment world was Red Roof Inn’s limited-budget campaign to target travelers whose flights had been cancelled. Red Roof Inn anticipated the immediacy and stress of the all-too-frequent situation, and was able to utilize flight-tracking data to trigger targeted search ads to stranded potential customers (achieving a 60% increase in bookings across non-branded search campaigns). While audiences currently identify with brands based on an alignment or attraction to the “lifestyle” that they promote, micro-moments are creating a shift. The success of micro-moment campaigns hints that brands may not need to capture attention with an exhaustive lifestyle-oriented strategy — rather, businesses are increasingly finding success by masterfully scrutinizing consumer behavior and targeting.

Much like the contextual and immediate nature of a micro-moment touchpoint, brand adoption of micro-moment ‘thinking’ will depend on technological savvy and informed creativity. Complementary, comprehensive and versatile approaches to mobile will continue to define successful strategies. There seem to be innumerable opportunities for brands to implement micro-moment thinking; discovering the true, essential needs of the consumer and utilizing the best method of directly and immediately communicating the brand’s capabilities remains a challenge.

Here at Delucchi Plus, we are anticipating the mobile shift and bolstering our capabilities to meet the needs of today’s changing audiences. Our sentiment analysis and audience identification expertise provide contextualized demographic insights for our clients, ensuring that brand and marketing strategies are perfectly positioned to reach and resonate with the ideal audiences. Additionally, our SEO services can help our clients make a forward-thinking commitment to these search micro-moments, optimizing to immediately meet the relevant needs of potential customers.