Building a Sand-Mill in the Sea of Micro-Moments

Companies, to shape Customer Journeys, must develop strategies and anticipate touch-points able to guide users proactively through a path: the Sand-Mill.

The Sand-Mill Model is the framework that helps us connect the dots: by implementing it we can generate relevant touch points at the right time and guide users through the path we have built.

To implement a complete Sand-Mill we will need to:

• Attract users to the Content Funnel
• Continue Journeys in the Reacquisition Wheel
• Allow users to build a solid Advocacy Base

Let's see how to do it in this article.

Attracting users towards the Funnel

Modern Customer Journeys take shape in the Sea of Micro-Moments, as a succession of touchpoints, points of contact between brands and companies.

These paths are not linear, but unpredictable and fragmented into many personal micro-moments.

The first goal in building a Sand-Mill consists in attracting users towards a path built to align the personal (and unique) purchasing journey that users are following in the Sea of Micro-Moments, with the sales path built by the company: the Funnel.

 

Potential customers can approach the Funnel mainly in three ways:

• By word of mouth
• Actively seeking information
• Discovering the brand in entertainment spaces

Word of Mouth

When they perceive a need, users often turn to their peers who may have been in a similar situation, to learn from their experiences and seek advice, streamlining the decision-making process.

The power of word of mouth has been increasing thanks to the possibilities offered by smartphone connectivity, which not only facilitated conversations among acquaintances (making it possible to talk and chat with friends and family even on the go), but also greatly expanded the reach of the phenomenon, allowing for immediate consultation with other users within online communities.

Today, horizontal conversations among consumers are one of the most powerful means of communication: people trust their peers more than ever and the best source of influence on new potential customers turns out to be the army of satisfied buyers who have become advocates.
That's why user-generated touchpoints cannot be ignored, and building a solid Advocacy Base should be one of the cornerstones of every strategy.

The opinions of others can influence the user's idea of the best way to approach a situation and therefore confirm (or undermine) the initial attractiveness of a brand. These interactions are represented by the intersections between different waves in the Sea of Micro-Moments and can lead to a deviation in the Journey, influencing the actions following the conversation itself.

Companies must be able to capitalize on the power of word of mouth and help each user build touch-points for their Advocacy Base.

 

Information search

When planning a purchase, it is now natural not only to consult friends and family, but also to turn to the incredible wealth of information available in the digital universe, in micro-moments.

Consumer-users delve into a flow of searches to ensure they make the best choices.

Google data (Think with Google, 2017b) highlight the fact that people actively seek advice (turning to their devices) regarding all product categories.

Searches containing the word "best" have increased by 80% between 2015 and 2017. What's even more surprising is that the most consistent increase occurred for products traditionally considered of "low consideration," which were traditionally associated with the idea of a shorter and less demanding purchase path (for example, "best toothbrush" grew by 100%, "best umbrellas" by 140%, "best deodorants" by 60%).

 

Answering the conscious question

While distrust in traditional advertising risked leading companies to no longer have access to their target market (Kotler et al., 2016), brands can rediscover themselves as allies in the purchasing process, providing real information and suggestions, nurturing potential customers with information.

Making the brand easily identifiable and identifying the moments when people are looking for guidance allows brands to offer the right advice whenever people need it (Think with Google, 2017b).

Today, brands have the opportunity to intercept a conscious demand through organic positioning and advertising on search engines.

Levels of awareness in information search

Searches can show different levels of awareness of the demand.

1. Users with a low level of awareness carry out searches that do not directly concern the products or services offered by the brand, but are more generally a manifestation of the need or issue for which such products provide a solution.
   
   
2. They can carry out generic searches regarding a category of products to compare alternative solutions.
   
   
3. They can involve the product directly.
   This category also includes research triggered by some company marketing activities aimed at creating awareness about the product. These manifest a very conscious demand.
   For example, a Google search highlights that if 84% of Americans always have their smartphone by their side while watching TV and two-thirds of them actively use it to seek further information on products they have seen in TV commercials (Think with Google, 2015).
   Even out-of-home advertising billboards, newspaper and magazine ads, and promotions at point of sale represent stimuli that can trigger searches for specific products.

Being present in micro-moments of search

In all these cases, to be considered relevant, capture attention and differentiate from competitors, brands will first need to be present in the corresponding micro-moment to the search conducted.

Strategically, we can analyze the search intent of buyer personas, to understand which keyword combinations could lead them to navigate the Sea of Micro-Moments.

Becomes relevant to complement the company website with a blog that promotes search engine positioning by addressing broader topics (in order to build content for the entire Funnel).

Providing users with the information they are looking for, through relevant and contextualized content, allows to establish meaningful relationships at key touchpoints. By sharing their knowledge, experience, and familiarity with the topic and industry, brands have the opportunity to position themselves as experts in the consumer's mind.

Finally, it is important to consider that when users seek advice, they not only turn to their real social circle (friends and family) or virtual one (on social networks, social groups, or forums), but they often resort to web searches to find reviews.

Having a strong Advocacy Base becomes, once again, extremely useful: user-generated touchpoints can enhance the attractiveness power of the Funnel in Sea of Micro-Moments.

 

Entertainment Spaces

If the cases seen in the previous point describe the possibilities of encounter between brand and consumer in queries representing a more or less conscious question, in entertainment-related micro-moments (“I-want-to-be-entertained”), instead, brands will be able to intercept the latent demand of consumers who do not know they want something.
This demand is awakened by a stimulus that reveals (or reminds) its existence.

By studying their target audience, and carrying out a detailed profiling based on interests and behaviors (impossible on traditional media), with tools such as Social Media Advertising brands now have the opportunity to introduce new products to users who fit the target profile.

If Google helps find what is already known (sometimes in part), the "flow" (of social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter) allows to discover objects, content, and ideas that users have not deliberately chosen to see. This is similar to what traditionally happened while browsing a newspaper or a magazine; the difference lies in the fact that it is possible to choose the target with surgical precision, related to interests, profession, age, previously carried out activities, and many other parameters.

Furthermore, sponsorship methods aimed at a "look-alike" audience allow reaching consumers who share interests, passions, and characteristics with the company's current clients.

This audience will be made up of users who, although they have not yet come into contact with the brand, have similar characteristics to those who have and, for this reason, are more likely to be interested in the offer compared to a generic audience.

 

The Wheel: continuing the Journeys with the Sand-Mill

A Funnel is not enough: we need to build a complete Sand-Mill.

The goal, in the Wheel of Re-purchase, is to continue the Journeys started in the Funnel.

The daily life of people continues to be immersed in the Sea of Micro-Moments, even after they have become customers.

They will continue to receive other stimuli and follow other Customer Journeys, concurrent with the one with our company.

Keeping this in mind is essential to remind us to continue creating useful contact opportunities (touch-points) for users.

To build an effective Wheel of Re-purchase, it is necessary to build some Relevant touch-points in the following stages after purchase, including product usage.

Strategically, we will need to build paths to guide users to get even more value from our company, moving them to the next Levels of Value.

We can do this by leveraging the advantage we have started to build by gaining user trust and remaining Top of Mind in our category.

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Building an Advocacy Base in the Sea of Micro-Moments

The Advocacy Base consists of user-generated touchpoints that support our brand.

These touchpoints are also immersed in the Sea of Micro-Moments and therefore have the opportunity to intercept new users and connect them with our brand.

Building a solid Advocacy Base allows you to create a virtuous circle by enhancing all 3 drivers that attract users to the Funnel:

• The power of social circles and peer conversations constitutes the intrinsic value of the Advocacy Base. Today, horizontal conversations among consumers are one of the most powerful means of communication: people trust more than ever in their peers and the best source of influence on new potential customers turns out to be the army of satisfied buyers who have become advocates.
• The search for information also involves actively seeking reviews, especially in the stages of the Journey closest to a purchase. Easily finding good reviews about a product or brand increases the chances of approaching it. On the contrary, not finding any (or finding bad ones) raises suspicion among users.

  This is why reviews are a powerful user-generated touch-point.

One of those touchpoints that not only makes the Advocacy Base solid and contributes to increasing user trust, but that can be used by the brand to make its Funnel more attractive. Reviews can be highlighted and used in all content developed for the Bottom of the Funnel: product sheets, sales landing pages, and BOFU ads, for example. The spread on social media and in entertainment spaces is amplified by users' ability to continue the relationship with brands, tag contacts to report offers or share information with their network. In this way, it will not only be the brands producing content to intercept users in the Sea of Micro-Moments: users themselves will also be able to become enablers of a touchpoint between company and customer. Brands have the opportunity to stimulate the sharing of these contents by developing a real strategy to maximize the organic coverage achieved by user-supporters who build the Advocacy Base.

Conclusions

One of the advantages of the Sand-Mill Model is that the framework is contextualized within the Sea of Micro-Moments.

In fact, today's customer journeys are all different from each other and take shape in the Sea of Micro-Moments as a succession of touchpoints between companies and consumers.

È proprio all’interno di questo contesto che le aziende, per poter crescere in modo efficace e sostenibile, devono costruire un Sand-Mill con un Funnel attrattivo, una Ruota del Riacquisto appiccicosa e una solida Base dell'Advocacy.

Il Funnel è lo strumento principale per intercettare gli utenti durante i loro Customer Journey e ci consente di allineare il loro personale percorso d'acquisto con il percorso di vendita che abbiamo costruito.

La Ruota del Riacquisto ci consente di mantenere gli utenti coinvolti, continuando a veicolare touch-point rilevanti e mettendo le basi per generare nuove occasioni d'acquisto. La strategia che utilizziamo nella costruzione della Wheel of Repurchase is fundamental for maximizing the Life Time Value and therefore the growth of our company.

A solid Advocacy Base can be built both by satisfied customers and by other user-supporters who sympathize with our brand and support it by generating touch-points in the Sea of Micro-Moments. As we have seen, these touch-points are incredibly effective and allow to make the growth of the brand sustainable, increasing the attractiveness power of the Funnel.

 

Sources:

Brambilla, M., Diegoli, G. (2016). Mobile marketing: new relationships, new customers. 

Edelman, D. C., & Singer, M. (2015). Competing on customer journeys. Harvard Business Review, 93(11), 88-100.

Google (2015). Micro-moments: Your guide to winning the shift to mobile.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2016). Marketing 4.0: Moving from traditional

to digital.

Think with Google (2015). Second-Screen Searches: Crucial I-Want-to-Know Moments for Brands.

Think with Google (2016). How mobile has redefined the consumer decision journey for shoppers.

Think with Google (2017). Winning the consumer electronics shopping moments that matter.

Think with Google (2017b). Micro-Moments Now: Why you should be the adviser consumers are searching for.