Micro-moments marketing: Can brand’s leverage this in-vogue marketing concept?

• The aim of micro-marketing is to tap into 'intent-rich' moments.
• Dinakar Menon, Business Head, Big Trunk Communications tells us how micro-moments can be leveraged to tap on customer’s intent and drive business and also when its is best avoided.

We live in a digitally-connected world. People spend over 5 hours on their smartphones every day. The number of people who own smartphones is increasing every minute. Internet penetration is almost over-arching and data is becoming cheaper with each passing day.

How does all this impact the customer? Well, let’s look at a digitally connected customer and how she runs her day.

She wants to purchase a new smartphone as the current one is giving problems. What would she do? Of course, she would “Google” the best available smartphones, try to check out the stores in her locality which have the smartphone she prefers, and seek out reviews on her digital community through Facebook and other social media channels. She would then try to compare prices and buy it through an Amazon or Flipkart. She might have quickly used “Youtube” to find videos about the phone and watch it before making the purchase.

The concept of Micro-Marketing is to tap into the above mentioned 'intent-rich' moments. Such moments are a boon to marketers. While it is not as easy as it sounds to identify and leverage micro-moments for the benefit of the brand, the following key tricks can enable marketers to get this right:

1. Understand what’s on the customer’s mind (A strong SEO Strategy) – Brands ought to use their digital prowess to figure this out. If you track and analyze what the customer searches about your brand, it will help you understand the micro-moments in which you should garner her attention. A strong SEO strategy will help to get the customer directly on the desired landing page of your website. You can remarket to them till the prospect converts into a customer by creating a consistent omni-channel experience from there on.
   
2. Be there. Be useful. Be Relevant – Contextual targeting through paid ads: Search is a crowded space and with the top three spots being occupied by the brands that spend well on Google Adwords, most brands will have to figure out other ways to tap into these micro-moments. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Linkedin etc. do also enable brands to be present in those micro-moments when the prospects need the brand. Paid ads can not only enable the brand to show up at the right time, it can also ensure that the messaging is apt, relevant, creative and clear. This is a great value add for brands which work with a good digital marketing partner to creatively garner mindshare in these micro-moments.
   
   
3. Leverage Data and build customer journeys (Analytics based mobile marketing)
   

The fact that customers will see the brands on their mobile phone is no longer a surprise. Brands must ensure that their content is optimized and responsive across mobile devices. In the age of apps, mobile marketing can induce actions from the customer and those actions can be collated and transformed into insights over time. These insights can help build customer buckets and respective journeys. How does this help? It can congregate customers who are alike in terms of their preference based periodic actions. It can take this cohort of customers and then design micro-moment marketing campaigns. For example, if a particular set of your customers buy groceries from your app on the first day of the month, mobile marketing will enable to capture this intent-rich shopping moment well and marketers can curate micro-moments into the customer journey to convert the customer’s intent into purchase and accelerate business.

While micro-moments can be leveraged to tap on customer’s intent and drive business and brand recall, there are instances when micro-moments marketing is best avoided.

The 'micro-moments' that you may NOT want to tap

There are some micro-moments which brands may not want to tap. A classic example is the recent campaign “Wuhan Se Yahaan Le Aaye” by Amul showing the Amul girl wearing a mask. It invoked a lot of negative reviews from the audience. They were quick to relate the campaign with the Corona Virus epidemic and found it to be very insensitive. While Amul will live another day, such campaigns could be best avoided by brands that are making a mark.

Brands have also tried to integrate their campaign ideas with shocking micro-moments such as the tragic death of Basketball genius Kobe Bryant. The “micro-moments” marketing campaigns created around this incident was at the receiving end of the customer’s ire as they viewed the campaigns as being insensitive and opportunistic.

There will be immense opportunity to ride topical waves and enhance recall for your brand so skirting controversial micro-moments may not be a wise strategy and brands should stay clear of such micro-moments.

Is there an ideal Micro-Moments Marketing strategy?

Brands needn’t worry about the ideal strategy. They are best served if they focus on:

Understanding Customer journeys: If brands can understand a day in the life of their customers, they would know what they seek out and when. Understanding the customer’s digital journey and preferences and creating those micro-segments for customers is the bedrock of these campaigns. The journeys are best understood by analyzing their search patterns, the words that they associate with your brand and the experiences they share.

Listen to them. Carefully: Social listening provides immense fodder for brands to analyze moments and classify them as “intent-rich”. Once these moments and the customer journeys are reviewed and analyzed together, it delivers rich micro-moments and messaging possibilities.

Be the first to know and leverage: Once you get the above in order, keenly observe trends in the digital space, scout for topical conversations and curate micro-moment messaging around the same. The possibilities of success with such an approach to micro-moments marketing is very high.

Technology and Analytics – The hygiene yet essential ingredient

Brands need to understand that digital technology will be the key driver for micro-moments marketing. The contact databases, marketing automation, customer segments etc. should be in place and brands should have the capability to schedule and execute campaigns in real-time to best leverage these micro-moments. A few seconds delay in loading your landing page can translate to an opportunity loss of millions of dollars.

The data generated as part of campaign results should be analyzed and reused. The value of the data generated from micro-moments with regards to customer’s/ prospects preferences, interactions etc. is pure gold and will enhance the hit rate and success of subsequent campaigns.

-- This column has been written by Dinakar Menon, Business Head, Big Trunk Communications