Talk: Zero Moment of Truth and Influencer Marketing
Last November, Creactivitat attended an event organized by Barcelona Activa with the collaboration of Harbour Space University, at which Stephanie Schwab, as an executive directive of the agency Crackerjack Marketing, discussed the power of influence marketing and its ability to determine users’ final purchase decision. In the context of this talk, Stephanie Schwab introduced the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) concept to reason about the paradigm shift around this new commercial trend.
The ZMOT is a term that Google conceived in 2011, through the work: Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. It’s the conception that users tend to make purchase decisions well before they get to their final point of sale. As Stephanie Schwab explained, through the omnpresence of smartphones the client’s purchase conduct changes. Potential customers of products and / or services are reported online about something they may be interested in. Specialised pages, comparators and / or people with advanced knowledge about them are now directly influential in these users’ purchase decisions.
Influencers are more and more focused market niches and are followed by a high number of users on networks. With the loss of brand credibility, an opportunity will be opened for these experts, who are called by companies to “sell” their products. A devolution of power, with all the actors involved in the purchase process clearly benefiting. That’s what Stephanie Schwab called 3W: gain brand, gain merchants, gain consumers.
To face this, companies are forced to adapt their marketing strategies to the conduct of this new client profile and put at the centre of the process to influence. The brands start to investigate the online habits of their target public, to know what interests they have, who their direct influences are and what networks they are currently with. It’s these companies that currently work for the influencers, offering them value content, up-to-date and optimized to answer their target public’s questions and needs. A context that leaves these influencers as mediators between firms and end consumers, thanks to confidence that they have earned among a niche of potential customers for these brands.
Abel González Department of Marketing