Mobile devices, and especially smartphones, have revolutionized the way we use the internet. Online searches are now faster and more focused than ever before, often taking only a minute or two. Being able to provide what users are looking for in a quick, digestible manner is the core of online marketing today.

The brief moments people spend online are referred to as “micro-moments.” Google has divided these into four categories, one of which is “I-want-to-do” moments.

‘I-Want-To-Do’ Moments Defined

One of the reasons why people go online is to learn how to do something. The time they spend online researching how to perform various tasks is concentrated and brief, so to fulfill their needs (and increase the odds that they’ll come to your brand), you need to make sure the content you publish online is designed to quickly provide what people are looking for.

Scenario

To break down “I-want-to-do” moments, let’s look at a common scenario. Suppose Penelope has spotted a bit of mold in the sink that grew over the past week while her roommate’s dishes were sitting there unwashed. She knows that mold is difficult to remove, but she’s not sure what to do about it.

So she pulls out her smartphone and does a quick search for “how to remove mold.” She doesn’t have much time to spend researching this, so she’s likely to go with the first promising-looking result that comes up.

Making the Most of the Moment

Most of us know that mold is pretty difficult to remove, generally requiring certain chemicals. But who’s going to let Penelope know what she needs? If your content is well designed, it will be you. To satisfy her need in this moment, your content should:

1. Be optimized for search engines so it comes up high on the list.

2. Provide answers quickly in a digestible, easy to navigate format.

3. Give complete, reliable information.

The challenge is doing all this in one piece. Our skilled digital marketing experts in Dallas can help you there. Contact Accelerate Online Marketing for help working with “I-want-to-do” moments today.

Online reputation is an important aspect for not only large enterprises, but small businesses as well, and it’s an area that’s often neglected. So the question is, how can you improve your online reputation, or even establish one if you don’t already have it?

Some of the basics that can help you get your name out there are your Facebook page, your website, and Google Plus page, to name a few. But how can we get positive reviews and customers raving about our business?

That’s what digital reputation is about: getting customers to give you five-star reviews. Of course, it’s essential to have a good service/product, but that doesn’t seem to be enough these days. We have to ask our customers appropriately to give us feedback and reviews.

There’s a lot of different ways you can go about doing this, but we have come up with a system that really works and is effective: We don’t ask our customers to give us reviews. Now, that may be counter-intuitive, but that’s not what I’m going to lead with. As soon as a customer comes to my store or I go to their location to provide a service, I don’t automatically ask them to review my performance. Frankly, a lot of customers are turned off by that and they don’t think they would benefit from it.

So instead, I ask them for their feedback. Feedback doesn’t have a positive spin to it. It could be negative or positive, and it urges the customer to give their honest opinion. That’s the differentiator. Asking for feedback rather than reviews. I don’t want that feedback to go on the web because I don’t know if what my customer will say will be positive or negative. So we take that feedback internally and we have a system that allows us to decide whether or not that feedback was positive, negative, or neutral.

If the feedback was negative, we need to put that into a customer service group where they get an apology e-mail, and once that has been sent out, an actual customer service rep will call them asking them how we can best resolve the situation. That way, we catch them before they have time to get angry, go on yelp or any other review site, and write something negative about our establishment.

Once we resolve all of the issues with the negative feedbacks, we look at the positive and neutral ones. For the neutral ones, you can decide if you want to reach out to them or not. The ones that have great, positive things to say are the ones that get a follow-up e-mail thanking them and requesting them to share their positive feedback on their social media accounts, our Google Plus, or Yelp pages.

Depending on the industry, you can pick which social media and review platform works best. This way, I’m controlling my digital reputation. I’m not artificially inflating who I am. I’m handling customer feedback by asking the ones who have great things to say about my business to promote those things publicly.

When you want to go somewhere, such as to eat or to find something you need for a project, that’s what Google defines as ‘I-want-to-go’ moments. Finding places to go has become a massive function of online searches, so being able to take advantage of those moments is vital to attracting customers.

‘I-Want-To-Go’ Moments Defined

In many instances, ‘I-want-to-go’ moments involve “near me” searches. In other words, someone might search for “restaurants near me” or “hardware stores near me.” By and large, these searches are more generic than specific, so very few people are going to be looking for your brand. Instead, they’ll be interested in whoever is closest who can satisfy their needs.

A Scenario

Let’s take an example. Suppose Mr. Jim has a hankering for some waffles one Saturday morning. He also kind of wants to eat out rather than fix them himself. He pulls out his phone, and he asks Siri to search for “waffles near me.”

If you serve waffles, you want to make absolutely sure your restaurant comes up on that list. If it doesn’t, Mr. Jim is not paying you a visit. If it does come up, and if your site presents the quick message that your waffles are more amazing than anything ever (or if they at least look appetizing enough that Mr. Jim’s stomach screams “WANT!” to his brain), he’s likely going to visit you ASAP.

Making the Most of the Moment

To make the most of these ‘I-want-to-go’ moments, you need to remember a few things. These are:

• As stated, most “near me” searches are for generic keywords, not specific brands.
• Customer loyalty is nowhere near as important in these searches as convenience and instant satisfaction.
• Half of those who conduct these searches will visit the store within 24 hours.
• Roughly one out of five “near me” searches results in a purchase.

So the question now is whether your brand has the online presence needed to come up on “near me” searches. If you want help establishing that presence, contact our team of Digital Marketing Rockstars at Accelerate Online Marketing.

Recent research conducted by Google has shown that people are no longer going online for extended sessions of research. Instead, their internet usage is described as ‘micro-moments,’ or quick instances of online activity in which they actively search for specific information.

‘I-Want-To-Know’ Moments Defined

Some of these instances are called ‘I-want-to-know’ moments. In these moments, a person uses a device to search for answers to questions, whether out of a desire to make a better decision or simply for curiosity’s sake. These moments might be broken down as follows.

A Scenario

Suppose you’re relaxing for the evening in front of your TV. A commercial comes on, and it makes some astronomical claims about a product’s capabilities. You don’t really feel like you need the product itself, but if it’s all it claims to be, it might be worth looking into. And after all, you kind of wonder if it actually does everything the commercial says it does.

So you reach for your phone and ask Siri to pull up some reviews. That moment is when your question needs to be answered, and you’ll probably stick with whatever information you find—positive or negative.

Making the Most of the Moment

If the company is smart, they’ve probably published some content about their product that will work within this moment. The response they tailor for the question you have (something like “Is this thing legit?”) needs to have these qualities:

• It must be concise and quickly digestible.
• It must have a genuine tone that is consistent with the company’s other advertising.
• It should be informative. If it provides no value in the first few seconds, it will likely go ignored.
• It should be optimized for search engines so it ranks high on the list.

A wise company will have incorporated content onto their site that will provide the answers you are looking for. Those answers will be quick, succinct, and informative.

Now, if you’re a company looking to make the most of ‘I-want-to-know’ moments, internet marketing services like Accelerate Online Marketing can assist you, so contact us today.