Monday, September 19, 2011

How the Zero Moment of Truth Affects Small Businesses

By Brett Kishkis


The first moment of truth (FMOT) traditionally has been what advertisers labeled as the initial impression of a product or service. In the past, you would find the first impression of any product through an advertising campaign or by discovering the product in a retail environment. This had long been a barrier that each product or service was required to climb over prior to getting sold.

Because of the web, we currently have the ‘zero moment of truth’ (ZMOT). This is where customers discover the product itself or an advertisement for it. You then seek out testimonials and competitors' prices on the internet prior to making a decision to purchase. This is particularly crucial since customers can look at your competition as well. Around 70% of shoppers in the U.S. alone examine reviews prior to making a purchase. Additionally, there's no such thing as a product that is too minor or too inexpensive to get around zero moment of truth.

This is due to the fact that it is much simpler than ever before. Prior to mobile phones as well as the web, people would just study high price products including vehicles and pricey electronic devices. Today, it is fast and simple to find online reviews with a smart phone when shopping. These actions that occur prior to shopping may cause your company to forfeit a deal and a competitor to realize a sale. Having a barcode application can make this super easy.

Word of mouth marketing has returned and is much more potent than in the past. Actually, it has gone from one-to-one to one to a million. Customers have mind-boggling strength. With technologies transforming at an extremely fast tempo, individuals will proceed to acquire power. The way forward for search relating to search engines will depend more about what customers feel. Google’s entry into social networking and its plus one button are illustrations of this. In the future, Facebook likes as well as plus one's will matter considerably in search engine results.

It is essential to make zero moment of truth a top priority. There are numerous solutions to exploit this. Initially, understanding your own product or service on Google Trends provides you with details into what your potential customers are trying to find. Secondly, you ought to take a look at your goods, services, and company name with Google Keyword Tool. This may expose most challenges that your potential customers are attempting to fix.

ZMOT affects all products. There is no product that is too small for ZMOT to matter. 3M, for instance, has over 3,000 comments just for scotch tape.

Your happiest customers have the power to help you with ZMOT. Blogs, video, and social media all help in this regard. Look at how many people that are reviewing Apple’s products on YouTube. Betty Crocker benefits every time someone makes a video of a recipe that uses one of their products. Every business should have a YouTube strategy. Not for direct selling. Rather, offering something that searchers will find helpful. YouTube is also the second most used search engine.

If you get some negative reviews, there is no need to worry. In fact, some negative reviews are beneficial because they make your products look realistic. If every review is 5-stars, shoppers will believe that your reviews were fabricated. This is, in fact, true at times. Look at books on Amazon that were just released. You’ll find a bunch of 5-star reviews on or before the release date. For these to be real, the consumer would have had to buy the book and was so inspired that they read it in one sitting. Then, they immediately went on Amazon to review it. This is highly unlikely.




About the Author: