Do you remember the sales and marketing funnels of the past? Do you remember how leads were generated by marketing and passed off to sales? Of course you do. In fact, many companies still rely upon a separate marketing and sales funnels. One is responsible for lead generation while the other is responsible for closing sales. However, digital marketing takes a different approach to funnel management, one that’s predicated on piecing together the small micro-moments of a customer’s journey.
Understanding Micro Moments
So, what are micro-moments anyways? Simply put, they are the small steps that a customer makes as they move from an interested prospect to a paying customer. These small steps can occur very quickly or gradually over time. Understanding these small steps helps digital marketing teams understand the customer’s journey.
Digital marketing professionals have learned how to piece together these micro-moments. They understand that it’s critical to engage the customer every time that customer initiates a micro-moment. Every time an action is taken, a follow-up is provided. The more the customers are engaged, the more likely they are to purchase.
Micro-Moments are Tied to Real-Time Online Searches
Real-time online searches are the essence of these micro-moments and they tend to follow a common theme. Is this product good for me? Show me why this product is good for me? What do others think of this product? What information is available online about this product? Does it really make sense to buy this product? Can I do without? I didn’t plan for this to happen so now I need the product.
Now, each of these questions and situations can vary from one product or service offering to the next. However, they each represent a different step in a more complex digital marketing buying funnel, one where today’s prospects no longer follow a linear progression from one stage of the funnel to the next. Instead, they bounce in and out and their journey is driven entirely by their real-time experience. They learn to buy based on the feedback they get and it's the feedback they receive that initiates another micro-moment that pushes them one-step closer to buying.
Tying Micro-Moments to Your Market and Buyer Personas
None of this helps if you can’t define the typical micro-moments taken by each of your buyer personas. You then want to engage those personas with content that addresses these micro-moments or requests for additional information. First, understand your audience. What makes them tick? Second, define your buyer personas. Who are these people? Third, map out the micro-moments for each persona and tie them to specific keywords and colloquial phrases used in online searches. Fourth, structure your content around addressing each of these micro-moments.
Using Micro-Moments in Content
You don’t need to look too far for sources of these micro-moments. You have existing data from customers. You know the keywords and keyword-phrases most commonly used in searches for your products and you know these search terms vary from one buyer persona to another. You also have social media. Ultimately, you can piece together these micro-moments and ensure your digital marketing strategy continually engages your customers along their journey.
The problem we have encountered for most organizations is the ability to track the micro-moments in a CRM or other relational database to trigger some micro-moment content.
To recap, these are the points that will lead to success?
- Good content: this includes offer and/or thought leadership whitepaper
- Mechanism to capture leads
- Creating buyer personas
- implementing trigger based communication tailored to the buyers interest
In the end, it's all about understanding the small steps a typical customer takes online before making a purchase. Understanding those steps helps ensure your content and digital marketing strategies are aligned to these all-important micro-moments.
If you want help piecing together your buyer persona's micro-moments, then contact us .
Written By: Doug Milnor
