The Human Connection in a Digital World

Social media and emerging mobile technologies have forever changed the landscape of human interaction and consumer behavior. Today's battle for hearts, minds, and dollars is won (or lost) in micro-moments—intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occur throughout the entire consumer journey. It's fractured the consumer journey into hundreds of real-time, intent-driven micro-moments. Each is a critical opportunity for brands to shape decisions and preferences.  

Consumer Engagement Is Shifting Toward Micro Moments

What exactly are 'Micro-moments'?

Micro-moments are moments when consumers act on a need, e.g. to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something or buy something. They are intent-rich moments where decisions are being made and preferences shaped.

Google recommends marketers consider four key moments and explain the importance of Moments in relation to mobile devices:

"We turn to our phones with intent and expect brands to deliver immediate answers. It’s in these I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, I-want-to-buy moments that decisions are made and preferences are shaped”.

Research presenting the increasing importance of these four 'Moments' is summarized below.

I-Want-to-Know Moments Someone is exploring or researching, but not yet in purchase mode. They want useful information and maybe even inspiration, not the hard sell. Curiosity can be triggered by anything and satisfied at any time.

I-Want-to-Go Moments People are looking for a local business or are considering buying a product at a local store. Being there means getting your physical business in their consideration set in that moment. Our digital lives connect us to our physical world

I-Want-to-Do Moments These may come before or after the purchase. Either way, these are “how to” moments when people want help with getting things done or trying something new. Being there with the right content is key. We seek instruction for just about everything.

I-Want-to-Buy Moments These are huge, of course. Someone is ready to make a purchase and may need help deciding what or how to buy. You can’t assume they’ll seek you out; you have to be there with the right information to seal the deal. Mobile assists in purchases across channels.

So is the sales funnel really dead?

What Google is actually revealing is that the early major stages of activity in the sales funnel are different now than how it used to be before. The *way* we research, the sources, methods and devices is much more complex. What remains common is that fewer and fewer people logically progress through the stages, the first and second moments of truth.

Measuring What Matters

While all channels matter, mobile drives the digital bus today. It has become the connective tissue across the online and offline world, driving valuable actions like store visits and phone calls that directly impact your bottom line. 

As micro-moments (especially on mobile) fragment the consumer journey and create new forms of engagement, they also challenge our assumptions about the value of “touchpoints” across media

For instance, it may no longer make sense to plan your media strategy channel-by-channel for TV, radio, and digital. Are desktop and mobile separate digital channels that compete against each other? Not any more. Consumers move seamlessly across many devices en route to conversion, so credit can’t just be given to the device in use when the “buy” button was clicked. That undervalues mobile’s role in the big picture. Mobile calls for a more ambitious goal: to actually connect the dots between all screens, channels, and media types. That also means organizing your teams around this new way of thinking.

To rebuild your strategy, reframe your measurements. Connect the dots of micro-moments in three ways

Connect the Dots Across Screens

Don’t let these traditional metrics distract you from what’s really important: sales, revenues, and the bottom line. Your KPIs should measure the sum of all of your digital marketing inputs against proft contribution. Don’t just measure the immediate response to the last campaign seen before making a purchase.

Connect the Dots Across Channels

Measuring how digital influences offline behaviors can reveal insights about your valuable customers and how they purchase. AdWords Store Visits Reporting offers insights to help you measure and optimize how online channels draw shoppers into your store.

Connect the Dots Across Teams

Does your company have a digital team, a call center team, a brand team, and local and store merchandising teams? Do they all have different incentives? For many companies, the awkward answer is, “Yes.” Awkward because micro-moments aren’t a “performance thing,” and they’re not a brand thing. They’re not even just a digital thing. They’re a consumer thing, and that makes them everyone’s job.

To create closer collaboration, you may need to rethink how your teams are organized, where they sit, and how they interact. To improve marketing in today’s mobile world, you have to mix the silos and unite incentives.

This will make measuring the whole consumer journey much easier.

Resources Intent vs Demographic,  Smart Insights, Think With Google.