3 Ways Brands Can Make the Most of “The Moments that Matter” to Consumers  

In the age of a mobile universe, we, as marketers, have the opportunity to be a part of consumers’ most meaningful moments. And if we can understand more about the moments that matter most to people, we can deliver experiences that matter more to them.

Someone, somewhere is experiencing a life milestone in this very moment: a marriage or death, a birth announcement, a relocation, or a new job. These often once-in-a-lifetime moments make a far greater impression on a person than your average moments, and they serve as pivotal stamps on the timeline of a life.  Millions of people connect on a daily basis around these extraordinary moments by sharing them with the social media world.

This is a simple, yet powerful idea. If a brand or a business can understand more about these “highlight moments” and why they matter so much to people, they have the opportunity to deliver a much more meaningful experience to the consumers who are living these moments. In other words, as a brand, you have the opportunity to participate in these moments and enhance their meaning. By connecting with your customers in this meaningful way, you can leverage the marketing opportunity around these moments – a crucial strategy for your business.

Thus, think about these key points while marketing to the moments that matter to your consumers:

The Mobile Device
The power to almost instantly share a meaningful moment from a mobile device signals a revolution. Brands are the content creators inside of this revolution. Thanks to the mobile device, we now live in a highly personal media world of passionate moments and life highlights.

In past decades, these meaningful moments were simply captured by photograph backdrops or aired on the nightly news or written in a letter or newspaper, and often the information was not immediately ingested by the intended audience. The opportunity to share so easily was not available. Mass communication is available all day, every day. Sharing has drastically changed.

As a moment is happening, we are witnessing it: whether it be a breaking news story, a friend on their honeymoon, or a newborn baby reaching growth milestones. We are getting the news instantaneously from our mobile device and on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. Twitter has become a main source of news for the majority with live updates available by the second. The opportunity to be a part of and engage with someone meaningful moments is available at the end of our fingertip.

The Sales Brain
People tend, during a big life moment (whether of their own or of a friend), to have a more positive feeling towards content on a mobile screen. This challenges us to understand the “sales brain” as marketers. As brands, we need to learn to be personal during these moments. If we understand more about why these specific moments matter to people, we can deliver personally relevant experiences that matter to them and encompass their feelings.

Precision is key. We need to be direct and on-target, delivering exactly the right message at exactly the right time. For example, a female consumer is recently engaged to be married. Time is of the essence to interact with her as a consumer and share how your brand can or wants to be a part of this special experience (think wedding invites if you are a paper brand, bridal party gifts if you’re a small business, honeymoon destinations for a travel company). Any brand can engage with almost any consumer’s moment. However, the key is to go about this in a precise manner.

Thanks to the mobile revolution and social media, we can now know things about our consumers that we would otherwise not. Mobile has created a highly-personal media world based not only on a person’s demography and context but also on their individual passions, behaviors and interests. We can now sell to consumers based on their interests, rather than the sometimes narrow demographic into which they may or may not fit.

Once-in-a-Lifetime Moments
Those once-in-a-lifetime moments are the consumer experiences you need to work to capture and ultimately monetize. People who are experiencing these big moments tend to be much more active on social media (think newborn baby, college graduation, buying a home, etc.).

We have moved away from the concept of sharing only the largest of life’s moments to a day where people are creating and consuming many moments continuously. When you think of marking to the meaningful moments en masse, something the magnitude of the Super Bowl is happening on Facebook and Instagram every minute of every day.

Finally, in the mobile universe age, the manner in which moments are experienced and shared has changed drastically. For example, think about one’s birthday celebration: in the past, a birthday was celebrated with a few close friends and paper invitations to the party.  Nowadays, however, the consumer wakes up to potentially hundreds of messages on Facebook with Happy Birthday wishes and shares the day’s events across several social media platforms.

While people have always had these meaningful moments in their lives, marketers have never had the opportunity to insert themselves into the consumers’ experiences with such ease until now. The ability to share information at rapid-fire speed is giving brands the opportunity to capitalize on and leverage these very important, highly-personal, uniquely relevant moments. Delivering the right creative to the right person at the right moment has never been easier.