How can inbound marketing be used to adapt the Moments of Truth for optimal new customer acquisition?
Sep 28, 2020
10 min read
If the influx of the internet has revolutionized the modern era then you can’t deny the fact that Google products have also played a significant role in changing the world in various ways. More than 1 billion people use Gmail every month and there are around 98.5 million Android users from all around the world. But, the one product that has made the most important contribution is the Google search engine.
In the year 2011, Google published a research paper that stated the fact that the modern-day search engine has modified people’s behaviour. This change in the behaviour of customers has modified the way businesses market their products to the customers and has led to a trickle-down effect on all the customers. This research has been named as a completely new marketing strategy that is being called ‘Moment of Truth’ or MoT.
Moment of Truth is basically a marketing lingo that is used to address the opportunity a potential customer or customer has to form any type of impression regarding a brand, company, product, or service. In the modern era, Moment of Truth is being used by marketers for building customer-centric and positive outcomes.
Why MOT matters so much for marketers?
In the year 2005, the First Moment of Truth was introduced by A.G. Lafley, Chairman, President, and CEO of Procter & Gamble, and then the second and third Moment of Truth was introduced in the year 2005 and 2006 respectively. Wondering how these Moments of Truth are related to current marketing?
Stimulus- First Moment of Truth- Second Moment of Truth
The first stage is the stimulus and at this stage, the customers simply become aware of the product through ads delivered on the offline platforms. It is the stimulus that makes a customer realize that they need a certain kind of product and this can be as straightforward as buying a soap because the customer has run out of it.
Then begins the First Moment of Truth and it is the stage where the customer is confronted with a service or product in a particular store. At the same stage, a brand realizes the level of customer penetration it has and its non-monetary ROI.
The Second Moment of Truth is the review or simply a feedback given by a consumer regarding a product. A customer can turn out to be a brand advocate at this stage by sharing the product, company, or brand details on social media platforms.
And finally, there is Zero Moment of Truth where a user conducts online research regarding a product or service before buying it and as a marketer, you must have understood how important this stage is for the company. Since all the customers have moved online, they can easily get a wide array of information in the form of reviews, ratings, product features, and group discussions regarding a product. If a marketer succeeds in creating a positive impact on the customer during this moment then it will act as a magic wand for the company.
Source-Unsplash
The rise of a new step in the sales funnel
The Zero Moment of Truth has introduced a new step in the sales funnel and it lies between advertising and in-store app purchase. People from all over the world now use Google for researching a product before making a buying decision. Before buying anything, people would be searching ‘Which will be the best soap for sensitive skin? Which laptop has the best RAM?.
In addition to this new step, there was a sudden rise in the number of sources people were using for gathering information regarding a product. In the year 2010, people were only using 5 sources for analyzing a product’s performance but in the year 2011, people started using around 10 sources for the same purpose. This is why MoT matters more to companies now more than ever since the customers can gather loads of information about your product with just a few clicks.
How does Marketing Automation support the Moments of Truth?
There are different types of strategies that you will need to use under marketing automation for winning the new Moments of Truth. If you really want to make your firm successful then you just can’t ignore this new step in the sales funnel. Here are some of the top marketing automation strategies that you can use in order to win MOT.
Understanding what customers search for and then delivering it
When any type of stimulus or any type of information regarding the product appears, the customer will start researching the product. You need to understand the psyche behind a customer’s searches in a search engine. This simply means that you will have to find the keywords, especially long-tail keywords in order to understand what the customer will type in the search box. Following are some of the tools that you can use for keyword research:
Since your keywords can easily evolve, you will need to keep tabs on them and one of the best ways to know what customers are searching for is to go through different forums and Q&A platforms like Quora. In addition to this, you just can’t ignore YouTube because when people research your product or company through YouTube, you need to provide them with relevant information.
Advanced contact analysis
If you start using advanced analytical tools, you will be able to understand your customers in a much better way and you will also be easily able to identify:
- The main source of website visits of customers
- Which marketing actions triggered the customer to take an action like subscribing to your newsletter?
- Which type of content is generating leads?
With the help of analytical tools, you can identify ZMoT and that will help you to streamline your marketing efforts. By analyzing the behaviour of your customer, you can easily build a buyer’s journey model and analyze the diversity in a detailed manner. You can also optimize your content on the basis of what the customers actually need and then answer all their important questions.
In addition to this, analytics will also aid you in identifying lead leaks because this is the point where you have maximum chances of losing ZMoT. If you focus on your customer preferences, you will be able to discover the things customers are looking for and what is it that you need to improve upon.
Recommendation engines
Many times, people will reach your website unintentionally during their research. After visiting your website the customer might feel overwhelmed with the wide array of products you offer and this will make it difficult for the customer to navigate through the website to collect relevant information.
This is why you will need to properly customize your content. You can begin by suggesting a completely different set of content for the freshman and use different types of predictive engines in order to suggest the most suitable product to the customer.
If you really want to win the race of ZMoT then you will have to make sure that you are fast and you will need to master the art of adapting to changes on a frequent basis. In the world of ZMoT, speed will always beat perfection and this is why you should never be afraid of failures.
By using proper marketing automation strategies, winning over this new step in the sales funnel will become a lot easier for you. The type of approach that you will use for every marketing automation technique mentioned in this blog post will vary since it will be different for different companies. Connect with us and allow their seasoned experts to tap into the actual behaviour of the customers and make them succumb to your product while they research about it on the online platform.
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Direct-to-Consumer E-Commerce: Making the Breakthrough
Source: Pexels D2C (Direct-2-Customer) brands have a unique position in the market where they bring their product or service directly to the customer, often at the doorstep. D2C e-commerce has become prevalent in recent years. Just take a look at the performance of the D2C market in the United States in recent years. Also, note that there is a sharp increase in projected sales in the D2C market. Why D2C Brands? As per data collected by Statista, the top reasons given by customers for opting for D2C brands are: Lower Prices How are D2C brands able to provide better prices than their competitors? It’s simple. By owning the delivery chain and eliminating the middleman, they are able to provide similar products at a lower price. Often, they can do so in a way that enhances the customer’s experience as well, for example, via doorstep delivery. Dollar Shave Club offers a convenient option for male grooming at lower prices. Their products do not sacrifice quality to do so. They have merely opted for a streamlined and minimalistic approach that, when combined with owning their supply chain, lets them be able to provide customers with high-quality products at a cheaper price. Incredible Customer Experience Speaking of convenience, free returns are also a defining factor for customers opting for D2C brands. Free returns provide the customer with a sense of security and trust. In return, D2C brands that do so come across as trustable and get a chance to gain loyal customers. One of the best examples of this strategy is David Kind, an eyewear brand that provides an incredible shopping experience at the home of the customer. David Kind allows the customer to pick multiple frames and try them at home with no obligation to buy and with no delivery charges. Innovative Ideas to Spark the Growth of Your D2C Brand Show That Your Supply Chain is Trustable Why should a customer opt for your brand instead of a brand that may have existed for longer? Providing free try-out options like David Kinid does, without any obligation to buy, is an excellent way of providing exactly such an option. D2C brands must also assure the customer that nothing wrong would happen during delivery and that if it did happen, the matter would be resolved quickly and without hassle. One could also provide compensation in cases where the supply chain does provide inconvenience to the customer. The modern customer values convenience highly. False promises on that end might come to bite brands back in the future in the form of negative reviews which may ruin an incredible number of sales. Provide Your Product as a (Subscription) Service While a new idea, it’s not entirely uncommon to now provide a product as a subscription service. For example, Sleepy Owl is a D2C brand that provides subscription-based coffee deliveries. One can today find subscription services ranging from groceries to sports equipment and facilities. The writer of this article is personally engaged in the latter and has had a fantastic experience. When one returns to the data collected by Stastia regarding the top reason people opt for D2C brands, one finds that the common theme is great customer experience. Create a Loyalty Program Providing farm-fresh dairy to customers? Why not provide every 7th glass of milk free? The loyalty of a customer is worth far more than the occasional cost of a free item. Take the example of Adore Me, an women’s intimate apparel brand that runs a loyalty program rewarding customers after every five purchases. Go Digital to Become Even Cheaper Physical store locations cost a lot of money. A vast majority of sales of D2C brand occurs digitally anyways. For example, 83% of boAt’s sales come from online marketplaces. D2C brands might do away with physical stores completely. A brand that has embraced this idea is DSTLD. It does not have any physical locations and sells luxury apparel using “ethically sourced” materials. You may also opt to become semi-digital. Cloud restaurants are popular in many cities now. They only pay for the kitchen space and sell their delivery-only food digitally. Create an Authentic Communication Channel With Your Customers The customer sees the same logo on the delivery person that they do when scrolling through the e-store of a D2C brand. Customers expect authenticity and accountability at the end of D2C brands. To uphold this expectation, D2C brands must ensure that an authentic communication channel is established with the customers. Consider customer service as important as any other facet of your business. While automating customer service is helpful, do not overdo it. Integrate a chatbot but also ensure that human assistance is readily and easily available if the customer chooses to opt for it. Encourage feedback on your products. Launch social media campaigns that encourage the active involvement of your followers. Provide a Quality Supply Chain Experience to Create Loyal Customers One of the biggest fears of customers while ordering from a D2C brand for the first time is potential problems in delivery. Create a system that provides the customers with regular updates on the status of their delivery. Make it easy for them to ask questions about their delivery. Include an interactive and easy-to-navigate FAQ section Make it easy for customers to ask for human assistance A good experience in this area would not only create a recurring customer but also one who suggests your brand to others via word-of-mouth. Update the UX/UI of Your E-Store Did you know that you only have 50 milliseconds to make a good impression on the visitor of your e-store? The Giant Hummingbird takes longer than that to flap its wings once. A lot of sales happen subconsciously. That is exactly the level of mind that brands should aim to impact with the design of their websites and collaterals. It’s really about how your brand makes the customer feel rather than how they think. How does one go implement these ideas and more in their marketing strategy? Effective Digital Marketing for the D2C Brand of the Future Social Media Marketing for Attracting the Modern Consumer It is incredible how platforms such as Facebook have not hit a peak and begun to decline. According to Statista, the number of monthly active users of Facebook continues to grow. Consider now that Facebook is beaten in growth by platforms such as Tik Tok and Twitch, which are far more popular with younger audiences. Essentially, your brand needs to find where your niche audience feels most at home. The numbers do not matter in social media marketing as much as the relevancy of those numbers. For example, take a statistical analysis of a hypothetical LinkedIn post by a sports-apparel company named Abibas (it has a peculiar logo containing 4 stripes). The analysis tells that the audience being reached is medical professionals of both genders aged 60+. Abibas must market to audiences in the age range of 13-30 to make the most impact. Ensure that your social media marketing strategy is highly relevant and effective. Social media is not only effective in being the top funnel of your marketing strategy, but it is also essential in engaging existing customers and boosting customer loyalty. Audit Your Website For SEO Ensuring that every single area of your website is SEO friendly is one of the most important things you can do for your brand’s visibility. Combine this with content marketing to successfully promote your brand to a niche audience. Marketing to Younger Audiences Here are a few ideas that would help you market to younger audiences better. Opt for social media websites that star short videos for marketing. The younger generation prefers shorter forms of content that are featured on websites such as Tik Tok and Twitter. You can turn to the polar opposite as well to market to the same audience: long-form live streaming or video/audio podcasting. Younger audiences tend to leave live streams on Twitch or podcasts on platforms such as iTunes open while they go through the day. Marketing on platforms like Tik Tok, Twitter, and Twitch is powerful because it comes across as authentic and delivers your brand’s communication in a way that is most relatable to young audiences. Use Paid Marketing to Gain an Edge At the lower end of the funnel, paid marketing is one of the most effective ways for your brand to generate sales. It is very important to ensure that your paid marketing campaign is highly cost-effective and yields results of tremendous proportions. The best ways of doing this are: Using effective keywords Bidding intelligently Writing a highly enticing call-to-action Leverage Word-of-Mouth Reviews “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon D2C brands stand in a unique position where they serve a brilliant customer experience compared to their rivals. They must promote word-of-mouth reviews consistently. After all, it is a highly effective way of marketing that 92% of consumers feel is important. Referrals are a good way of promoting the same. You may opt to provide people with discount codes or cashback on a wallet in your e-store upon referrals, for example. This is an incredible time for D2C brands to push for more. The modern consumer prefers the authenticity presented by D2C brands and the convenience presented in their services to traditional businesses. The best way to create this growth is by experimenting with innovative ideas, such as providing free try-on options at the homes of potential customers and marketing on platforms such as Tik Tok and Twitch. These ideas are effective in not only gaining new audiences but also in establishing trust to gain their loyalty. ...
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Make the Most out of Voice Search Optimization: Effective Tips & Tricks
Voice search is one of the important features given to us by the advancement in the field of technology, increasing ease of life every single day. It is here to stay. The number of people using voice search has been steadily increasing, and while it's still not as popular as mobile or desktop searches, it is a strong future growth driver for your site. If you are not optimizing your website for voice search yet, it's high time for you to start doing so. Tips and Tricks for Voice Search Optimisation Voice search is here to stay. It's high time you start optimizing your website for it. It is a growing trend that has been around since the beginning of the 21st century, but it's only recently become mainstream. Voice searches are more natural and easier to use than typing, which means that people are using them more often than ever before! This makes them an ideal way for you to engage with your customers in new ways — whether they're looking for products or services online or just looking up information about themselves. 1. Voice has many advantages Voice search is a convenient, fast, and accurate alternative to typing. It’s also more natural and intimate than typing because you don’t have to look at the screen as much. Voice search can be used in many situations where typing would be difficult or awkward—such as when you need to type quickly while driving or cooking dinner with friends. You can also use voice search instead of typing when your hands are full (like holding a baby), trying not to wake up your partner by making them listen too closely during late-night movie marathons, or just wanting one less thing on your mind! 2. Get Reviews to Boost Visibility Voice search is a new way to interact with the web, and it's become important to get reviews. In this day and age, reputation management is more important than ever before. For example, you can use social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter to ask people for their opinions on your business or product. You can also post photos of your products or services in order to increase visibility within those communities as well. When it comes down to it, positive reviews are just as much, if not more important, than negative ones when trying to optimize voice search optimization efforts online! 3. SEO SEO is a very important part of digital marketing which needs to be done right. It's the practice of improving the visibility of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO is not just about making your website relevant to your audience but also about making sure that you're ranking well in Google and other major search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and more. When it comes to voice search optimization, SEO takes a great precedence. SEO isn't something that can be quickly done overnight; it takes time, patience, and effort over time to improve rankings on SERPs which means that if you're serious about getting top rankings for your voice searches, then make sure you follow these guidelines below: Ensure all links on social media platforms have been optimized properly with title tags only containing keywords related to the topic at hand - no extra words such as ‘the’ or ‘and’. This will help increase CTRs (click-through rates). 4. Long-tail keywords Long-tail keywords are more specific and relevant to the user than short-tail keywords. They're easier to rank for, which means you can use them in your organic search campaigns and get better-paid advertising results (like Google AdWords). Long-tail keyword optimization is important because voice search is becoming increasingly popular—and it's already overtaken the desktop as the world's favorite online search. In fact, according to a report from eMarketer, over two-thirds of all searches were conducted via voice devices by 2020! 5. Understanding the Intent Voice search is a conversational medium. It's not just about finding specific information but also about how you can use the results to narrow your search in order to find exactly what you're looking for. For instance, I'm interested in buying some running shoes online but don't know which pair would be best for me based on my personal preferences (e.g., size, color). In order to help guide me through this decision process, Voice Search Optimization will show me related queries from other users who've made similar purchases before so they can give advice based on their experiences with those types of products. 6. Build natural links to your website It is vital that you build natural links. There are multiple approaches to undertake the said task; Use high-quality backlinks from other websites in your industry or from pages that have similar content to yours. For instance, you have an article about how to manage social media for business owners. In that case, it's likely that other pages on Google would link back to yours because they want visitors who are looking for information like this as well—and those people may be more likely to click through and visit the site if they see multiple links pointing them there instead of one dead end page with no direct connection whatsoever!. Link out from sites relevant in some way—for example, if there is a query "how do I start my own business?" then linking out could be beneficial since many people might use voice searches while doing research online (or even just browsing). This will increase traffic towards those pages, which means higher rankings over time due directly to SEO efforts themselves. 7. Make it Mobile-Friendly Voice search is more popular on mobile devices than on desktops. Mobile users are more likely to use voice search as well, so it's important to create optimized content for your target audience. 8. Optimize for local Search Local search has been a growing trend in the past few years. Optimizing your website for local search is essential because it provides you with more information about where people are searching, which can help you rank higher on the SERP. For example: If someone is searching ‘Chicago restaurants near me’ or ‘Dallas restaurants near me’, they will see relevant results to their location. This means those businesses will have an advantage over other businesses that aren't as well-known and/or haven't invested time into creating content specific to local areas. In Conclusion Voice Search Optimization can be a pain in the butt, but it doesn't have to be. The key is to understand the way your customers use voice search and then optimize your content accordingly. And in case you find yourself in a stick, reach out to Saffron Edge, a renowned digital marketing agency for your business needs! ...
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Mapping Content To Your Buyer Journey
Are you expecting a profitable customer experience on your website? Your content marketing strategies would do more than just what is expected if properly implemented. If you are still battling to win buyers from your e-commerce stores or traditional online businesses then inventing the content mapping formula could be the only remedy. Mapping relevant contents that would add distinction and clarity to your customer's journey, hence softening the whole process. How does it work? Content mapping helps businesses in several positive ways, right from the point of brainstorming for the right content until the point of actualization of your aims. The buyer’s journey is more like a framework that recognizes the buyer’s advancement via the point of research through decision making. And finally, the point of purchase culmination, and is triggered by the right content mapping strategy. In order to achieve the best content mapping strategy, there are several criteria that are necessary to fall in place. Some of these criterion includes; Your Persona pain, problems and queries Every one of your personas will have a marginally distinctive buyers excursion paving the way to making a buy or speculation with your business. All things considered, the inquiries each of those personas ask all through the procedure will contrast between them - and will likewise be different over the three phases of the purchaser's journey, too. This stage somewhat focuses at the mindsets of your personas, what is their various reasons for visiting your platform, what benefit would they derive from your content and the percentage of satisfaction they would get from the solutions offered to them. Keeping in mind that personas are looking for instructive, seller unbiased content that is engaged around a specific issue within reach or potential open door. In this stage, your audience are most inclined at knowing if you have the solution to their problems and whether at all it is solvable by chance. Your Content type or Format Your content type has more role to play in this stage of buyer’s journey. Generally speaking, contents in specific stages of a buyer’s journey is sure to perform better and faster than a bunch of others. One astonishing thing about this stage is this, a good number of people are more comfy and would rather choose topics in advanced education. Therefore, content types such as e-books, tip sheets and guides tend to be the widely used since it undoubtedly produces a great result. If you should talk about the consideration stage, lots of personas have seemingly identified their individual worries and are now convinced to read more on the curative solutions to them all. Do you optimize your buzzwords? Content mapping journey is more like another different subject in an institute's course outline for a year. The reason is that it seems to appear smaller but in actuality has more extensions that imagined at the beginning. The word “Buzzword” comes into play in this stage of buyer expedition. Buzzwords are those words that fires up the whole content structure, you can alternatively refer to it as a call-to-action word. Since it serves more of that purpose when incorporated in a content. Some good examples of Buzzwords are “Learn”, “identify”, “choose”, “hire”, “troubleshoot” etc. Incorporating these words into contents would helps to create customer/audience awareness. ...
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