Service Providers

Marketing for the micro-moments

KimRoccoIncreasingly, I find myself turning to my smartphone for information on any given day’s most important questions: How do I switch out windshield wiper blades? How can I prevent a squadron of woodpeckers from turning my home’s exterior into a bird condo? What’s the best fertilizer for my tomato plants? My guess is that like most consumers, you also rely on your smartphone for the answers. The times when we turn toward our devices for immediate answers are referred to as micro-moments, and according to Google, take place on average, 150 times a day1. During micro-moments we want to learn something, do something, discover something or buy something. And the key point to know about micro-moments is that consumers want and expect fast, relevant results.

Does your dealership have the mobile content that delivers the results powersports consumers are expecting? Evaluate your marketing efforts by putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Identify the micro-moments during the journey that take them from being a buyer to a long-time dealership customer. Some of these may include need-to-know, need-to-do, need-to-go and need-to-buy, moments, among others.

Fifty-one percent of consumers have purchased from a company or brand other than the one they intended, because the information provided on search was useful2.

Based on your evaluation, will your mobile presence deliver? If you don’t have a mobile website, you’re probably out of the game — with Google’s mobile search algorithms, sites are ranked and results are delivered based on mobile-friendliness. A responsive site with good content will give you the best opportunity to be found during a search and deliver a seamless customer experience.

Before customers are ready to purchase a vehicle, they satisfy their need-to-know moments by conducting research. Sixty-nine percent of smartphone users are more likely to buy from a business with a site that helps them easily find the answers to their questions 3. Most of our industry’s website providers help you by providing the unit specs that aid in your customer’s research. Go a step further. If a consumer wants to know more about the dealership they are considering purchasing from, can they get that info from your About Us page? Do you have an up-to-date Staff page listing brief bios highlighting employee expertise and experience?

During a customer’s need-to-go moment will your dealership come up in a location search? If you want to literally drive traffic to your dealership instead of a local competitor’s, your address and contact information must be easy to locate from a mobile device. Review your website’s metadata and content, optimizing your site for local searches. If your dealership changes hours seasonally, review the hours currently displayed on your website. Also claim and review your Google business listing for accurate location and current hours.

Don’t overlook the how-to moments. They present a great opportunity to set yourself aside from the competition. Ninety-one percent of smartphone users turn to their phone for support while performing a task4. “How to” searches are growing 70 percent year-over-year on YouTube5. Create and publish simple DIY videos on YouTube.

And remember, the key point to know about micro-moments — consumers want and expect fast, relevant results. Deliver your customers directly to the answers. Get away from listing all of your dealership information on your homepage. Move content to dedicated pages optimized with specific metadata and keywords to help search engines with indexing, leading your customers quickly and directly to the info they’re searching for.

1 Win Every Micro-Moment with a Better Mobile Strategy

2 Micro-Moments: How Consumers Rely on Mobile to Meet their Needs

3 Give Consumers Relevant Information in Their I-Want-to-Know Moments

4 4 New Moments Every Marketer Should Know

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5 Help Consumers Get More Done in Their I-Want-to-Do Moments

Kim Rocco is the director of Marketing for DX1, the complete dealership management platform for the powersports industry. DX1 gives dealers access to everything they need to manage and market their dealerships, including DMS, website & online marketing tools. Dealers save time and eliminate frustration with the efficiency of one login, one dashboard and a single database where customer and inventory data is stored.

Website: www.dx1app.com

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One Comment

  1. Kim,

    Well done. To fully engage your audience and drive action,messages have to reach customers at exactly the right time and through the right channel. There’s been a great deal of talk about real-time email marketing — a strategy that offers a solution to the conundrum of right message, right time, right place. As data continues to grow, so does the sophistication of real-time marketing. Real-time email marketing uses real-time data to create highly targeted and timely content that fulfills consumers’ expectations of instant gratification and personalization. The success of your real-time email marketing strategy depends on one crucial aspect: data… Behavioral Data, Geographic Data, Demographic Data. Real-time email marketing allows you to extend a solution to your audience at the right place and at the time they need it most. By using behavioral, geographic and demographic customer data, you can ensure your real-time marketing messages yield favorable results — immediately.

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