Micro Moments and Mobile :: Good for B2B?

By now you have no doubt heard about the importance of mobile and maybe you’ve even heard of micro moments. But in case you need a quick refresher:

Mobile is important for every brand and every audience.

How important? Just consider these stats courtesy of Google’s Micro Moments: Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile.

• 87% of Millennials always have their smartphones at their sides
• We spend 177 minutes on our phones each day
• Mobile sessions are short: averaging 1 minute and 10 seconds

If one of the goals of marketing is to be where your audience is…well, clearly you need to have a strong mobile presence.

But what does that mean—to have a “strong mobile presence”? To give you a sense, watch the following video from Google:

The idea behind “new-day-new-start moments” or “this-isn’t-quite-working-out” moments is the notion that, for the most part, consumers are largely living their lives blind to brands and advertising and messaging—until they need it.

Some readers may be thinking—hey, this isn’t me. I’m not a consumer brand—I’m B2B. My target audience is old—I’m not after Millennials. I can get by without mobile.

Some of that might be true—but it’s dangerous thinking.

Let’s start first at debunking the notion that your audience isn’t a Millennial audience. Reframe your reference around this (via MarketingCharts.com):

• 43.5 million people in the U.S. are 25-34 years old
• 40.5 million people in the U.S. are 35-44 years old

Surely, some of your target audience falls into one of these brackets, which—interestingly enough—overlap with what the Millennial generation is (which can be broadly defined as individuals born in the late 1970s/early 1980s into the 2000s).

Next, let’s look at whether you should focus on mobile and micro moments even if you would consider yourself a conservative, B2B business. Not only has mobile search surpassed desktop search in general (2015 was the first year for this), but your B2B target consumer is spending more time online before engaging with your brand directly (Google estimates 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search).

In “micro moments” terminology, many of these moments are the “I-want-to-know” kind. The B2B consumer is researching and gathering intelligence, looking specifically for useful information relevant to them.

With that in mind, how well does your web presence stack up?

Here’s a couple tests.

First, check your site for its mobile compatibility in general. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test is free and it provides a quick analysis on how mobile-friendly your site is. Just follow these steps:

• Click here.
• Enter your site’s URL in the “Enter a web page URL” box.
• Click the “Analyze” button.
• Review your results.

How did you fare? Even if your site passed that test, take this one step farther. Check how well your content positions in mobile. To do that:

• Grab your mobile device and open a web browser.
• Run several searches for the most-searched topics for your brand or category (Google’s Trends is a good resource to learn what your most-searched topics are, but you should also use your own analytics).
• Review your results.

Now how confident are you that you’re serving up useful and relevant content to your target audience when they need it. If you’re satisfied with the results of both of these tests—that’s great; well done. But if not, make it a priority to start addressing your mobile weaknesses.