The Zero Moment of Truth is basically painting a picture or telling a story. You are building up a character that you need to look more impressive, most kind, more professional, more whatever it is that sells your service or product in a better way than they other guy.
I split digital marketing up into 2 camps.
Eyeballs
This is what you see some marketing "gurus" on YouTube claim is their claim is the "secret to digital marketing". This can be summed up as the actions taken to get ATTENTION. Gary Vee talks about this, attention as a commodity, but that's not the end of the story. That is only one part of the equation, because you have the second camp.
Wallets
This is the all important why that influences the buying decision. In 2020 especially(we have seen statistical increases in this since the inception of the internet), we see how access to information at our fingertips naturally changes how people make buying decisions. ZMOT is wallets. Before the internet, there was a traditional 3 step model of marketing.
This held true for generations of marketers. The consumer sees a tv commercial for a product or service at just the time they needed it, they go to the business and buy the product or service, then evaluate their experience by the value they derived from their purchase.
The advent and development of the internet, and the massive increase in information accessible to consumers, has radically altered this model. Some of the most successful companies in our world today have taken advantage of this change in some way.
- Amazon sell products with hundreds of reviews and star ratings.
- Netflix provides top 10 lists and star ratings.
- Yelp, Google Maps and Apple really thrive on presenting consumers with information from others that alters what the next consumer will do with their money.
The Zero Moment of Truth is an additional step in the dropped right into the traditional marketing model between stimulus and shelf. Marketing has become more complicated when eyes alone don't mean customers. That's basically what specialize in, turning eyes to wallets at a higher percentage and with more reliability.
Let's classify some aspects of digital marketing to get a clearer picture.
SEO is Eyes
SEO is giving Google more reasons to include your content and hopefully conversion points among the best results in search queries. That's all it really is. Ensuring your have the right content and authority on your website that Google deems you as the best resource to solve whatever problem was typed by the consumer. You are getting eyes on your website in much the same way a billboard or magazine ad would get more eyes on your product or service.
So what is your website, eyes or wallets?
This one is definitely wallets. You have their eye because they got to your website, now can you deliver an aesthetically pleasing and smooth enough user experience to get that conversion? That is the whole reason you should have a website. It is there to convert eyeballs to wallets, to show potential customers why you are the right solution to their problem, so make conversion and branding the main focus of your website. Why are they going to choose you and how can they do it quickly?
PPC, Social Media Ads, or display ads?
Paid ads, whether it is paid ads on Google or Bing or Yelp or Facebook and Instagram, those are steroid shots of eyeballs. The reason you run those ads is so that people see you and engage with you. You aren't Coca-Cola, so your ads are not there to subconsciously build a more favorable opinion of your brand. Your ads should be about engagement and conversion, leading them to your website or other conversion points.
Review sites?
These can have an impact of the amount of eyeballs you get, but they are really fundamentally wallets. This is the most direct way consumers will compare your product, service and company to your competitors. This is the easiest, yet most overlooked, way to build loyalty to your brand, generate referrals, and display customer service in a way nearly all of your competitors can't. Answering reviews on ALL of your review sites ensures that potential new customers see how much you care about your current customers, and people love to work with businesses that they know cares.
More great ZMOT content to come!
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