ZMOT and Micro-Moments
Google's guides (treatises) to getting online customers
We actually think that Google themselves have done a great job of engineering some thought processes that can help. We hope you like this content. You might think it's quite relevant to how to shape your strategy of getting SEM customers.
Micro-Moments was published in 2015. ZMOT was published in 2011. You should be shocked at how contemporary this content seems and yet how old it really is.
Fortunately, your competitors probably haven't yet taken full advantage of these concepts any more than you have. This is strategy. Not a cook book of recipes. It was written for the world. Try to remember that Google is serving lots of markets that may have little to do with how your market works. And there are dozens of ways to market though Google that are completely different from the way that you might use it. And so they put out a lot of content.
This is two distinct sets of information, but we think they work together well. Because they do a great job of helping you to understand the mindset of the buyers searching on Google every day. And they do a great job of getting you to imagine new and different ways to engage with those potential customers. Ways you might not have been thinking about.
Getting your SEM-imagination rocking
If you've already read much of our "content", you should be pretty surprised that we're recommending these treatises on Google-think. Truth be told, most of this Google-think strikes us as a bit complex and relevant only to companies that can afford to attack using several media strategies simultaneously. That is not how it works for most SMBs.
HOWEVER.
What it does do is give you a very broad and interesting array of strategies to think about that any SMB can use to think more imaginatively about how they might connect with their potential customers using Google search marketing. You may not have television commercials to back up your SEM, but you might have email campaigns. And the thought process might be quite relevant. The analysis, features, strategies, case studies they use are very good at causing you to think. Then you can go about seeing what might apply to your marketplace.
What is ZMOT?
ZMOT is a treatise on the various ways potential customers (commercial or consumer) go about engaging with providers to do the research and eventually procuring the goods and services they are seeking. ZMOT is an ongoing project with lots of "Think With Google" type of content that is continuing to be published well into 2022. But the major ZMOT treatise (which we still find quite valuable as a reference) was published in 2011.
ZMOT helps you understand the shift in thinking as your potential buyers graduate to real buyers. We're not quite as excited as ZMOT suggests to engage our potential buyer (read: Pay For Clicks) before they graduate. But we want to be ready, willing, and clicked on when that real buyer is ready to really buy.
But whether you are waiting like vultures (as we would suggest) for your potential buyer, or approaching it like ZMOT would suggest and looking for engagement points that will improve your long-term odds of getting conversions, this material will help you to understand what you can do to win. You might agree with Google (and many SEM experts) that you need a much longer perspective and multiple points of engagement to get buyers. Either way, we might agree on the value of learning all about ZMOT.
What is Google Micro-Moments?
Google defines micro-moments as occurring, “when people reflexively turn to a device – increasingly a smartphone – to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something."
What's the problem we're trying to solve here? The problem is mobile. Understanding mobile phones. Trying to figure out how to use mobile devices to get clicks and customers. In some industries (pizza and ride-sharing) this is pretty self evident. But for most of us, especially if we sell something fairly complex, it is not a simple job to figure out how to use search marketing successfully on mobile devices.
The basic MM treatise does a good job of presenting the overall MM theme. The overarching theme for getting customers on mobile devices is this:
- Be There: You've got to anticipate the micro-moments for users in your industry and then commit to being there to help when those moments occur
- Be Useful: You've got to be relevant to consumers' needs in the moment and connect people to the answers they're looking for.
- Be Quick: They're called micro-moments for a reason. Mobile users want to know, go, and buy swiftly. Your mobile experience has to be fast and frictionless.
We may not even be sure how many customers are really looking for what we offer on mobile devices? Do people really lease big construction equpment on their iPhone? Do grad students really research PhD programs on their iPhone? So the problem is: How to get a model for how customers can use mobile in your market and how to create SEM campaigns that take advantage of that?
MIcro-Moments does a very good job of explaining what you have to do to win mobile searchers. Anything that makes you want to know more about how your potential customers search for you on mobile: We're all for it.