I was reading an interesting update on Forrester Marketing 2016, where companies & marketers were asked to take cognizance of micromoments. I don't disagree fundamentally with this theory but I was thinking how do marketers prepare & adapt to this new paradigm.
One of the top questions that came to my head was - How do marketers really identify these micromoments? In an increasingly walled garden world of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon- many customers' micromoments are happening, as I write this, in different digital platforms independently. Not only that, there are ever so many billion micromoments that happen offline in a customers' life and how do marketers make sense of it?
My premise is that it is now increasingly becoming O2O(Offline-to-Online & Vice-versa) world, marketers need to look at this very differently. Here's my view of how this should be looked at:
Intent-driven micromoments - Some digital platforms naturally fit into intent-driven micromoments. For example, Google is a great example of a digital platform where "billions of intents" are searched by customers. People don't search for a product, they search for a need.They can be searching for a home, for a restaurant, for a car, for a college education, for naming a baby to be born, comparing a product to be bought, for a holiday etc. etc. In a customer's buying cycle - the trigger, consider & search- happens here. Marketers need to find a way of dominating "intent-share" at these micromoments.
Sharing-driven micromoments - Google, as a platform, does not naturally fit into this micromoment as customers don't share their moments there. A digital platform like Facebook fits here far more beautifully & perfectly. It is not difficult to see people sharing their convocation photos during the current season, their holiday, their child's birthday, their family get-together etc. etc. Sharing-driven moments provide opportunities for marketers to blend brands with their customer's life needs and see how they can be a part of these different micromoments. Marketers need to find ways of dominating "sharing-driven moments" & align it with their brand's storytelling.
Experience-driven micromoments - Some digital platforms like Twitter, Facebook, blogs fall here as customers share their experience - good and bad - here. For example, tweeting about poor govt. services is becoming a norm and governments globally are encouraging this. The same is with product performance, customer service, product support etc. where again experiences are largely drive this micromoment and is shared with world outside. This micromoment can be a new business opportunity for a competing brand and retention opportunity for the incumbent brand. Again, marketers need to find ways of dominating "experience-share" micromoments.
The above are largely only online micromoments but as a marketer, one needs to find offline micromoments, which they can own, that are contextual in the households they have been bought again & again. Be it thro' embedded IoT & other "service-led" mindset transformation platforms, marketers need to find new solutions here.
Finally, in this battle for the customer & the micromoment, the other question to be asked is, who owns the data of the micromoment & privacy related issues need to be addressed very carefully by marketers. Doc Searls, in his book talks of intent casting, where customers play a role in sharing their intent and brands then need to play a reverse role of fulfilling the micromoment.
Managing the customer micromoment is far more complex & deep than one can think of. And marketers need to rapidly innovate to gain share of this micromoment in their customer's life thro' relevant platforms and contextual marketing.