Mobile has become an indispensable part of our daily lives; most of us – and Millennials in particular – are really attached to our smartphones.
Sometimes at the point that it becomes an addiction: a lot of smartphone users admit that they get anxious when they don’t have their phone with them. According to several surveys, we check our phones 150 times a day: very short mobile sessions no longer than 1 minute, dozens and dozens of times per day. It’s like we are speed dating with our phones!
Every day we use our smartphones to check our emails, read the news, send photos or chat with friends on social media, not paying attention to all the distracting and irrelevant messages of brands. But then there are other moments – marketers call them micro-moments – when we turn instinctively to our devices to act on a need to learn, find, do or buy something. They are rich-intent moments when we are taking decisions and our consumer’s expectations are higher than ever. We want things right away and expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are searching.
During these micro-moments, we are open to the influence of brands. The quality, timing, relevance and usefulness of their messages can have an impact on our buying decisions. A recent research conducted by Google and Ipsos found that 82% of smartphone users consult their phone while they are standing in a store deciding which product to buy. One in 10 of those end up buying a different product than they had planned.
Micro-moments are becoming the new marketing battleground. The challenge is high: the time to capture attention and interest of the users is very small as micro-moments occur during lulls or complement simultaneous activities, such as waiting in line, commuting, walking, dining, shopping, relaxing or lying in bed. The brands that have the right strategy for understanding and meeting consumer’s needs in these micro-moments will succeed.
And what about consumers? Studies reveal that the impact of mobile device use on impulse buying is huge. Will micro-moments reinforce this trend and stimulate irrational purchases? The answer is in the question. Be good at money: beware of your emotions during your micro-moments and take time before buying something, especially if it’s expensive.
