The Similarities Between Football Analysis And Web Analytics

What Does Football Analysis Have In Common With Web Analytics?

Plenty!

Give me a chance to entertain you a bit, and inform you a bit, and teach you a bit about how soccer games can be analyzed almost as accurately as we analyze the performance of websites using Google Analytics, or other digital analytics tools.

In a previous article I spoke about attribution in Google Analytics using some famous Spanish soccer teams as examples. 
I am sure that article was a bit difficult to understand, so I will try harder to make this one a bit easier for those who know little to nothing about web analysis.

I want to draw your attention to the recent European Champions League match between FC Bayern Munich and Real Madrid that took place on April 29, 2014.

It was a very close match but it ended 4 - 0 in favor of Real Madrid.

What was that again?!

If it ended 4-0 for Real Madrid, then why would I say that it was a very close match?

Well, I said so because I am an analyst not a mere football fan.

I do not base my understanding of the game on just the outcome of a few matches, but I try hard to understand every separate event that takes place within the 90 minutes of the match as they occur, and discover patterns and meanings that repeat themselves across a wide number of football matches in general.

This behavior in digital web analytics is like focusing on micro-conversions instead of focusing on macro-conversions.

Okay, here’s a quick description:

Macro-Conversion – 
This is something that occurs on a website that is very important to your business, like a transaction (e.g. someone purchased a pair of shoes on your website); or it could be an additional subscription to your blog, if you are a blogger. It may also be that a visitor to your site, found and used your phone number to make inquiry about your services. 

Therefore, in soccer, we can say that a macro-conversion occurs when a goal is scored. That should be simple enough. 

Micro-Conversions – 
Now these are measurable steps that a visitor takes on your website on the way to a macro-conversion.  
It is important to measure micro-conversions because it will give you a clearer picture on how to optimize your website as well as your marketing campaigns in such a way that they help your visitors along their journey to macro-conversions more easily.

Examples of web micro-conversions could be when a user visits your website and sees some shoes you are selling, and then clicks to see a larger image of the shoes. Or when the visitor also clicks on the Special Price Offer button for the same pair of shoes. 

Such actions give you insight into the fact that that customer is at the very least mildly interested in those shoes, even when they did not end up purchasing it.

So, micro-conversions in football would be the things that happen during the build up to a goal.

1. a defensive interception from Sergio Ramos, who gives a quick and accurate pass to Angel DiMaria,

2. an even quicker one-two by DiMaria with Karim Benzema through the left flank,

3. Next a spectacular left-footed cross from DiMaria down the left flank.

4. Headed down by Gareth Bale for....

Cristiano Ronaldo to blast the ball into the net for a goal. Which would be the Macro-conversion in this case.

I hope that was easy to understand?
(For a much deeper comparison of Analytics and Football Analysis, see my other article here ◄)

Cristiano Ronaldo' enjoyed a lot of fantastic assisted balls from Angel DiMaria during the LaDecima season , after Carlo Ancelotti's reprisal of the Argentinian's role in the team.

Now back to the matter at hand:

Why I say the game between Bayern & Real Madrid was a very close one.

It is simple, most soccer pundits today, begin to analyze football from the Final score, and then go back to explain the game with that bias.

I do the opposite. 

I rate a team’s performance by the events of 90 minutes, often times irrespective of the number of goals scored. 
In fact, I often try to assume what would have happened if no goals had been scored... how I would describe the game then.

In fact, most of the members of my community True Football Analysts have gotten used to (or tired of) me arguing about this issue over and over again by now.

I have come to accept that, there was, there is, and there always will be a significant amount of luck that affects how goals are scored in soccer.
And one goal that goes in by luck can easily change how the rest of the match plays out. 

For example, how many times does Sergio Ramos score two headed goals in a month? Not to talk of in one match? 
Yet, by the time Bayern Munich tried hard to reply those two goals, all that happened was they suffered a painful counter-attack goal from Cristiano Ronaldo.

Does this suddenly mean that Bayern have suddenly become a poor team?

Certainly not! 

Or does it really mean that Real Madrid play so much better than they did against Bayern at home (in Spain) where they won by just 1 - 0 ?

Of course not!

The stats of both legs of the tie (from UEFA.com) are almost completely identical.

In game 1 Real Madrid had 7 shots on target and only 36% ball possession. While they had the exact same numbers in game two as well....Only this time, 4 of those 7 attempts ended up becoming macro-conversions in instead of 1.

But what I find to be so amazing is the fact that Real Madrid’s chances created in the first leg looked much more dangerous (to me) than at least 3 of the ones that went in in game 2 (you may need to refer to highlights of both matches to understand what I mean here).

Now, I believe that Real Madrid deserved to win both games, no doubt. Ignore the fact that I am a Madridista (since 1990). 
Yet, doing proper analysis helps me to develop a system of understanding patterns that may happen repeatably, and hence, make football matches reasonably more predictable to me. Doing proper analysis is also tons of fun for me. :-)

Analysis Is For Predictability

But, anyway, at a certain level, football can be indeed very predictable:

Imagine, if you lined up a star-studded squad like Real, Bayern Munich, or Barcelona against a Canadian secondary school soccer team? You can bet there is going to be a 15-0 thrashing in that one.....

But things start getting less predictable as we gradually reduce the disparity between each sets of players.  We look at second division sides with professional footballers: they would also most likely be thrashed by Madrid, but not as badly as the Canadian high school squad. 

Then you come to the lower class LaLiga sides like Osasuna and Rayo Vallecano. 
We always expect Real Madrid to thrash such teams as well, but it doesn’t always happen like that. Occasionally, the Osasunas actually get to beat Madrid.

And when we come to opponents like Barcelona or Bayern, that's when we see the predictability really blurring out.

This is the stage when you need to pay greater attention to the finer details of a match, in order to know why a team may have lost or won. 
If you want to keep winning the big games, you would need to learn how to properly analyze.

Your accurate analysis is what helps you optimize on these fine details and improve your team.
I honestly doubt that many professional coaches today do that so well. :-)

It Is Really About Increasing The Chances

But anyway, in web analytics, we optimize our site based on what we have learned from the customer journey and behavior. 

We examine their clicks and behavioral trends on our websites, and this gives us context on what they may have been trying to do or why they are not doing it. (Notice I use that word may, quite frequently)

By properly analyzing the micro-conversions in the analytics reports, we are able to increase our chances of knowing what is actually going on with the visitors on our sites. And this can lead to us taking concrete steps towards helping customers to actually purchase something. Or score a goal. :-)

Just like a good coach will do in football match to ensure that he increases the chances of his team scoring goals and preventing others from scoring against them. 

It requires proper analysis.
And for that, you need a healthy dose of skepticism in your system. And if you can get that by drinking something, then I suggest you do so before becoming an analyst.

Proper analysis for me is about understanding of the proper context of each scenario. You should not just assume that because you recently increased your Facebook advertising, it therefore means that Facebook is responsible for the soaring page views and micro-conversions on your site.

You must painstakingly try to know what other stuff could have possibly affected your site's popularity.

Practice Makes Perfect

So here are some examples of the micro-conversions needed to maintain repeated victories in football. 
Can you try to imagine what could replace each one when it comes to your digital marketing campaigns for your business?

1. You would need to work on your team’s ball possession. This is built through team work, good individual ball control across the team, and confidence.

Forget the fact that FC Barcelona had better BP and lost to Bayern Munich over two legs some last year, or that Bayern Munich had even better BP but lost to Real Madrid over two legs this time. 
The truth is that both of these clubs win a lot more matches than they lose. And they almost always drive the fear of God into most of their opponents hearts with this dominant ball possession.

2. Other micro conversions include having players who constantly LOOK UP while they move with the ball, to spot the best positioned players to pass the ball to. 
They shouldn’t just pass to the first one they see. 
So not all passing is good passing.

3. It pays to have some players who are very good in the air, with heading balls. Both in defense and in attack.

4. Accurate shooters (who usually keep their shots below the crossbar, and often close to either sides of the posts).

5. Great dribblers are also very good in unlocking tight defenses, by causing them to panic and commit fouls, and also by drawing them away from marking the dribbler's team mates.

6. Ball Winners who recover quickly to help the defense are a very precious commodity indeed.

Trying to keep your team playing with these elements intact and working, is a very difficult task indeed (Especially after your team has won so much and achieved so much very recently). 

But the truth is that any team that consistently tries to maintain a highly optimized set of micro-conversions would find itself winning almost every game it plays. 

Eventhough it may experience the occasional unfortunate 4-0, 3-0 or even 7-1 defeats, the reality is that, if you can analyze a team’s micro-conversions very well and do the required "engineering" to improve them, then you would be a winner MORE times than a loser. And the same goes for websites.

If you can identify the weak links in their passing game, how they fail with ball control, or where they fail in ball winning or why the strikers don’t finish properly, then you are on your way to becoming an outstanding manager.

Likewise, if you are frequently reading your analytics reports in the right context to know...

- where your websites visitors are coming from?
- how many people actually visit your website?
- are they all human?
- which of your pages do they usually seem to gravitate towards?
- which websites sends the most visitors to you?
- how many of your visitors leave immediately they arrive?
- how long visitors spend on your pages on average?
- can you know if people ALMOST bought something on your website?

If you do stuff to answer these kinds of questions, or at least hire someone who will do them conscientiously for you, then you'll gradually become an insightful businessman in your industry. Believe me.

But at the end of the day, let’s face it, neither Jose Mourinho, nor Pep Guardiola, nor Carlo Ancelotti, is going to desire to manage a club like Sunderland in England or Ancona in Italy. 

No way! 

They are going to move to teams that are already packed with gifted players like Angel DiMaria, Frank Ribery, Oscar, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Leo Messi. 
The same way it is generally better in online marketing to use digital analysis along with great marketing strategies and paid (but track-able) advertising campaigns.

Thanks for reading.

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. I will surely read them and get back to you. 
Also visit my other, deeper article on the same subject.

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK OUT THESE LINKS:

1) We are True Football Analysts 

2) We have a Facebook Group (the facebook Group is now closed, but if you send two of the Admins, Tal Baryosef or myself a private message saying that you found us through this blog post, we will surely let you in.

3) We also have a much younger GooglePlus community which is open to the public and currently needs level-headed soccer enthusiats as Moderators. Take a look.  

Why I Love The Internet

Yesterday, I watched the TED-Talk interview featuring Google CEO, Larry Page, and I discovered this inspiring 2 minute video of Zack Matere, a Kenyan farmer who used simple searches to cause awesome change in his environment. 
watch here ►►►African Searcher

It almost brought tears to my eyes as that Mr Matere's community in Kenya did not have much access to the internet. Just like I feel frustrated that many Nigerians still do not have that much access to it as well.

My frustration comes from the fact that (just as Zack Matere in the video) I have known for a while, how simple searches can cause a dramatic change in your life. And how that change can affect people around you. 

Search has been the thing that has given me hope since 2005 when I first started to become actively involved with the internet. Social media is great too, but Search has kept my insatiable thirst for knowledge constantly hydrated. 

Through Search, my business partner and I discovered amazing things about printing and improved the quality of our lives by leaving our regular jobs to become pioneers in the digital print marketing industry in Nigeria. 

Through search, I was able to magnify my education in cognitive psychology, improve my knowledge of marketing, and appreciate certain aspects of modern branding and advertising that my lecturers back at the University of Lagos just weren't able to teach me.

A more recent example was the day that I decided to search the term, "Nikola Tesla" after watching the movie, 'The Prestige' for perhaps the fifth time. 
I not only got to read amazing things about the legendary scientist, but I also discovered Tesla Motors - an American automobile manufacturing company - a carmaker with a difference.

I got to read some of the blog articles of Tesla CEO Elon Musk (born in South Africa by the way) and immediately became a believer in the Tesla cause. Musk may not be the richest man in the world, but to me he is an entrepreneur to be emulated. The most remarkable one I currently know.

So search led me from a simple curiosity about the depiction of Nikola Tesla in a movie, into discovering fascinating human aspirations in SpaceX, Hyperloop, and awesome cars that I expect and HOPE to change the world forever. 


Anyway my point in all of this is that the internet has been a great source of possibilities, inspiration, hope, and happiness for me. And living in this present Nigeria with all of its.....issues, I just cannot imagine how my life would have been without the world wide web and without search. 

I hope and pray I would be able to touch more and more people's lives like Zack Matere did in Kenya, with the little knowledge I have about the internet. And hopefully, those people would be able to touch other people's lives by sharing the knowledge that they in turn gain from their own unique searches.

EDIT (11/14/2017) :
To follow up on the inspiration I got from Tesla, let me just add here that I've since got a Green Card and moved to the USA in DEC 2016, and thanks to how much I had learned about Tesla (thanks to Search), I now work at Tesla. 

Zero Moment Of Truth Part 2 : The Enthusiast

In my prequel to this post, I did a few introductions and tried to give you some ideas as to how important it is for you to take the Zero Moment Of Truth seriously. In this article I am going to try to guide you into thinking with a ZMOT mindset, and in to realizing how that can greatly improve your marketing efforts. 

The idea behind this second part of my post is to try to start you on a journey of becoming a ZMOT enthusiast like myself. Because by first becoming enthusiastic about the ZMOT, you would indeed learn much quicker, what you need in order to gain the necessary advantage for your business, your brand  or your product in this new digital age. 

Now some of the actual experts of this topic like Jim Lecinsky, Todd Pollack and Brian Solis have released articles and books that actually explain this concept much more indepth. 
But the dimension that I bring as a very keen enthusiast, is such that anything I write, I try my possible best to make you (the African reader) understand what we are talking about, and how you could easily bring it into reality in our environment.

1. Mobile Is A Must

One day, I was asked a question by a hopeful blogger. He asked, "Even if people want to use the internet to read and learn, the NEPA (electricity) problems in Nigeria make it so difficult for most People. So how can I find people to even read my blog?"  

So I told him that there was a relatively easy way to fix that problem. But he quickly added, "and you know that most people cannot even afford laptops or iPads".
So I said that that was even what makes my solution more of an advantage for him, if he could implement it.

"So what is this magic solution of yours"?

And I told him to have a mobile optimization plan! 

I know that may sound too simplistic, but then just try to wrap your head around the scenario that the vast majority of websites in Nigeria (I cannot say much about the rest of Africa yet) don't account for mobile users. 

And yet, from a marketer's perspective, you wonder why mobile internet is not more or less compulsory in Nigeria. 

No wonder Facebook usage in Nigeria is so phenomenal?
Because Facebook is one of only a few websites known by Nigerians to have a version that is comfortably responsive to mobile phones of different screen sizes. This point cannot be over-emphasized.

Meanwhile, the reasons why Americans and Europeans use smartphones to surf the web may be indeed very different from the reasons why Nigerians do. Nevertheless, what is certain is that smartphones have become key players in this whole global online struggle for our attention. 

Therefore if you are doing business and you wish to attract large amounts of people (whether American or Nigerian; whether for your corporate branding, or for lead generation, or for online retail) your website has to be able to communicate clearly through a mobile phone interface. Not to mention the added advantage you get as a mobile phone user can instantly make a call to your business, or at least store your phone number, when he sees your contact page on your site.

2. Social Media Re-visitation

Ever since people realized that social media networks were useful for marketing, we have been seeing people just going about dropping links and promoting stuff everywhere like crazy. 

Some of us have clearly forgotten the "social" in this whole social media thing. So we spend so much unnecessary energy dropping links all over the social sites, presuming that others are using the internet for the purpose of searching for promotional links to click on. 

ZMOT mindedness makes you a lot more creative and much more effective with your social media marketing campaigns. It opens your eyes to see what many other digital marketers don't see. It will help you remember or realize that you yourself don't go around looking for links to click on.

There is always an important trigger that gets you to click on a link. 

Zero Moment reasoning also protects you from coming into that irrational mindset of those marketers who would do anything to see their website rank on the Top of Google Search result pages; As if ranking on the Top of search automatically means that people would throw their hard earned money at your website.

A ZMOT minded marketer understands that there are more than one way to catch a fish. 
For example, I can show you a nifty way of using a combination of Facebook, Google+ and Youtube to do a lot of damage, even if you don't have a website. I talk more about using video for ZMOT warfare in this article here.
But if I started to explain those things here now, this article could become a book. I am always reachable at the Digital Africa Community. There I can take questions about ZMOT, FMOT and other areas of digital marketing.

Now there are many other techniques to ZMOT readiness like using AdWords PPC campaigns and one magical thing they call Remarketing, or taking advantage of Affiliate bloggers, and my own personal addition, the use of digital print and direct mail solutions. But for the sake of your time reading this article, the 3rd and last tactic I will mention here is learning how to stalk users at the review sites.   

3. Raptness To Reviews

Again, I'm not sure I know how people behave in Ghana or South Africa, but here in Nigeria, I know that word of mouth is an extremely powerful form of product promotion. So if you can put words into Mr A's mouth, that could easily lead to Mr B buying your product.

I mean, I have literally seen people come to a store specifically to purchase an iPhone, and right there in an instant, they ask some other customer for his advice, and he suddenly turns into a smartphone expert; And before you know it, the lady who came to buy an iPhone4 is going home with her brand new Blackberry Z10.

In fact, more or less, everyone in this country is a consulting physician (both medical and trado-medical).
You feel slight dizziness and a throbbing headache? Your next door neighbor, the bank manager, prescribes an anti-biotic for you. Just like that!

So whether you realize it or not, most of your potential clients or customers are easily susceptible to influence from others. At some point in their journey, they could easily have been your customer. But along the way, someone prescribed an alternative for them.
And this behavior is happening on the internet as well, so it is not wise to ignore it. You must learn how to benefit from it. 

You might not be able to prevent or rescue every one of your potential customers from those self-appointed experts, but there are ways that you can work on wrestling some of them back to your own offering. And of course, you can generate your own "experts".

In this other scenario, try to imagine you didn't log out of your Yahoomail, before you visited the Trip Advisor website to check out affordables hotels in Abuja. Incidentally, your Facebook account is associated to your Yahoomail.

Now you are gazing at the hotel at the top of the page that costs only N5000 per night; it looks like a good option for you. Then suddenly you notice that some people you know have already spent time at some other hotel below, and they gave it very good reviews. It costs only N400 more than the one you first noticed. And these people you know are people you really respect.

This could happen because Trip Advisor is using your Facebook friends list, and it doesn't even occur to you what's going on, or why they are showing you what your friends have reviewed.

This is a real ZMOT phenomenon. It happens everyday, and nobody really cares to ask why.
But what you should be asking is, how do I capitalize on it?
That should be he question every merchant is asking in this era....how do I win the zero moment of truth?

And the more you think and strategize in this mind frame, the more likely you would come up with answers for your digital business goals. The technology is available to help you win some of the battles, you just have to discover what they are, how they work, and how to use them. 
The more you actively take part in ZMOT warfare, the more you'll learn; and the more new tools you would discover. This is my advice to you if you have a small business. 

However, if yours is a large company that can afford it, it is best you hire a ZMOT Coordinator who is, at least, handy with his AdWords and Google Analytics, and has a ZMOT mindset. 

ZMOT ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH Infographic-Shoppers' Path to Purchase via Cool Daily Infographics

Now, someone might ask, "hey why do I need a consultant who claims to be ZMOT-savvy?", "Can't I just give this article you've written here to my already existing traditional marketing department to handle"? 

Well, you could try that....But you should be careful about how they run with it. Afterall, those guys are coming from a mindset that is quite different from ours. A mindset where so many boundaries and limitations exist. 

So someone else could say, "Or I could even read through this article several times over, add some extra research, and do it all by myself?"

Well, actually you could. And in fact I am hoping you would. 
I am hoping that all those who pay attention to my articles would become ZMOT-minded marketers, and do their own marketing by themselves one day. This would open up huge opportunities for me with the larger businesses, who are always the slowest to adopt these kinds of ideas. 
However, their current paradigm is such that they always seem to want to minimize risk and pay more attention to financial budgeting, rather than statistical and analytics data.

So they are not likely to take a chance on investing on a ZMOT-manager or an inhouse digital marketing team until they see the result of my ZMOT strategies through those who have used it and profited from it, at lower levels. 

Yet, this leaves you, the small or mid-sized business owner, with the opportunity to become enthusiastic enough about the ZMOT to learn how to get a head-start and an advantage for your self, and hopefully taking some of their market share while they are still asleep.



Thanks for reading.
Feel free to drop a comment or question below. I'm always here to assist. Also consider reading my post defining ZMOT in Nigeria, using Nigerian examples.

Using Google+ Is Not So Difficult

I realize that for many of you out there, the reason why you are not using Google+ as much as you would have liked to, is because you find it somehow confusing and difficult to use.

You know what? I feel you. 

I was also very confused at first myself. But to be honest with you, I have come to enjoy posting, sharing and interacting on Google+ more than any other social network out there. All you need is some practice, and once you've grabbed it, you will understand why G+ is the fastest growing social network in the world, and has already overtaken Twitter and LinkedIn.

So let us start with:

Posting On Google+

First you should keep in mind that even though it seems complicated to you now, it is actually going to be so easy after some practice, and you will laugh at yourself once you've gotten used to the interface. :)

So just think about your the Facebook post you are currently using.

It has a box that says "what's on your mind" right?

Now I am sure that that is the first thing you do: 

Type in whatever is on your mind into that box.

Ok, in G+ you will find a very similar kind of box on your homepage, but it says, "Share What's New..."
And once you click on that box to start typing, the box get's larger. By the way you can get to your home page by clicking on your name at the Top Right of your screen, or by moving your pointer to the g+ logo at the extreme Top Left side.

Now in the image directly below, I have marked the posting process into 4 different steps:

Step 1 Is writing what you wish to share

Step 2 Is to determine the who you want to share it with.

Step 3 Is to add a photograph or a link to a video or website to your post.

And Step 4 is to publish your post.

It's so easy.

Now, one of the many lovely things that Google+ has that other social media don't have is the ability to add rich formatting to your post. So by using two underscores to sandwich a word or sentence, you can make it _ITALICIZED_. While you can also use asterisk to *make it bold* and dashes to do - -strike throughs -. 

This gives your post that richer edge than others. There are still many tricks that advanced users of Google+ know that I could share with you if you come and ask me on the Digital Africa community.

So go ahead and type what you want to say. 

But before you click share, pay attention to Step 2 (it's very important).

Now, let's say you have just finished typing your post.

You would notice that there is a green item under it that says "Public". This indicates that if you post it the way it is, everyone that visits your profile on G+ will be able to see that post and even comment on it.

Now if you want a particular person (a friend or family member) to be notified specifically about that post then you need to add a + sign as well as the person's name. Make sure you select the persons name from the options given to you while you start typing that name. And make sure it is the right person. :)

So something like the picture above will be seen by Everybody, but your circles will additionally be notified, then Vivian Akinyosoye and Chigo Okeke will also be notified specifically.

But if you click on the X part of the Public item and the Circles item, then only Vivian and Chigo will be able to see the post. 

If you click on the X next to Vivian's name, then it means you want the post to be private between you and Chigo.

So above is a picture of the shared post after clicking the 'share' button. I have pointed out the effects of each of the first 3 Steps. Notice that Step 2 will show only shared "Publicly" even though you shared it with several different circles of people.

Now assuming you hadn't chosen to share it publicly, it would have said shared "privately" instead.

Step 3 here shows that I uploaded 2 photos. Yes, in Google+ you don't just have the power to share more than one photo in one post, you can also create some dazzling effects on each photo.
Isn't that awesome? 

So what are you waiting for? Start Plussing!

If you enjoyed this article, and you think it would be useful for someone else, please share it on your Google+ profile as well as your Twitter and Facebook. Thanks.

If you want more useful tips from me about the G+ or the Internet in general, please feel free to connect with me on my profile. 

A final tip:

Once you've joined Google+, some of the best experiences that will help you to take full advantage of it, are in joining Communities that are relevant to your interests or business.

I will suggest three right away:

Music Africa, 

Business & Entrepreneurship and 

Digital Africa

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions you might have in the comments section of this blogpost. 
Or if you prefer, you can reach us in the Digital Africa community.

Happy Plussing! :-)

Zero Moment Of Truth - Part1

The ZMOT is not such a complex thing to be honest. 
In fact it could be incredibly easy to understand, especially if you already know a lot about how the internet works, coupled with some reasonable knowledge about the business process of marketing (which usually involves advertising, publicity and sales distribution). You need a combination of these two, if you want to really enjoy this article. 

So consider the zero moment of truth as that point in a customer's journey where she/he bounces back and forth looking for answers about a product or service she/he may be interested in. She/He uses Search, Reviews, Ratings, Specifications Data, and even user comments as a guide to come to her decision. So clearly, you can see why you need to play a part in at least adding something to the conversation that leads to this decision.

WHERE TO SLOT ZMOT 

There already existed a tested and trusted marketing model that was conceptualized by Procter & Gamble and has to a very high degree, revealed the strategic points in a customer's journey where it is best to try to capture his attention.

STIMULUS – When the customer sees an advert of any product or service that may interest him (let's say a pair shoes) and does get interested; or he saw the ad and suddenly remembers that he had already planned to buy a pair of shoes at some point.

SHELF – First Moment Of Truth – The customer has finally taken the decision to go to the store to get those shoes. There are some customers who go out with a plan not to return home without a pair of new shoes, no matter what. There are also some customers who never really have an idea of what they really want to get, so they rely on cues from shop attendants or other shoppers. Traditional marketers realize that the packaging and labeling of the product can go a long way in winning the First moment of truth. They also know that by having their shoes advertised boldly all over the shoe section of the store,or maybe even having sales agents in the larger stores, could help to nudge undecided customers.

EXPERIENCE – The Second Moment Of Truth – this comes after the customer has purchased his shoes and has started wearing them. Chances are that the customer will report his experience with the shoes (and possibly with the store where he bought them from) to the next person. 

This is why good marketing actually begins at the point where you ensure the quality of the design of your product. It is important for your marketing that customers don’t go about saying bad things about your product or about your store. 

Or rather, if you’re just the dealer and not the manufacturer of the shoes, then hopefully your sales-reps and floorwalkers are respectful and patient with customers. 
Because that is the experience they take away from your business. 

But most customers would definitely say something, whether it is good or bad. Whether it is about the shoes or about your store. 

The idea at the Experience Stage (Second Moment Of Truth) is to get them to say more of the good stuff. Especially about your store, if you’re the store owner.

Zero Moment Of Truth 
To be honest, going by today’s turbo-charged rate of information & technological advancement, we could almost say that ZMOT (since 2011) is already an old marketing concept. I have already given an intro on it for an African audience in one of my previous articles about ZMOT in Africa. But a good way to summarize it here would be to just say that ZMOT is that virtual valley of decision that your customers go to after getting inspired by an advert that catches their attention, and before going to a shop to spend their hard earned money on the product that is promoted by that advert. 

So despite the way I listed these terms to make the introduction, ZMOT actually slots in between Stimulus and Shelf. So now, I'll try to explain how it works...

DIGITAL MARKETING, ZMOT TARGETING

A ZMOT Ready Marketer first of all has to be a Digital Marketer. He then has to be the kind of DM who has his eye on almost every area of digital marketing, as well has having a decent understanding of typical offline advertising as well. But in addition to those, he has to be aware of the importance of the ZMOT, know how to identify the ZMOT moments in his industry, and he must be able to respond swiftly to take advantage of them.  

By now, the reason should be quite simple, if not then allow me to illustrate with this example:

Imagine you’re on an island where 10,000 people plan to buy shoes within the next month. Now imagine if there were 10 shoe retailers on that island. Then assume that all these shoe retailers have basically the same quality of shoes and they all sold at the same exact price.

Now, all things being equal, and if they all did some local advertising in the same magazines and on the same tv stations on the island; then there actually isn't much reason to doubt that their total units sold could be almost identical as well. 

Maybe some would sell 1100 shoes that month, and others who were unlucky might do 900. Just humour me for now....

Enter digital marketing.
Imagine if 2 of those retailers decided to step up to owning websites; and they took on some online advertising campaigns (especially Enhanced Campaigns from Google). Imagine they did some pretty effective SEO, and some social media marketing. 

The dynamics would have changed because you would now have some shoe retailers encroaching on customers of retailers that are geographically far away from their territory. 

They have the shoes on display on the website so the customer from 20 miles away can gaze at the shoes from different angles and in different colors. 

These smart retailers could also offer free delivery to further convince the customer to shop with them instead of the retailer close by. 
At this stage it may not matter even if the near-by retailer has the same shoes the customer has seen on the web. What matters is the information, and the knowledge of where & how to get it. 

So thanks to their digital marketing campaigns, the 2 retailers with e-commerce websites could very well draw as many as 2800 and 2400 customers respectively, while the remaining 8 retailers may have to struggle with an average of 600 sales each for that month. Or it could even be worse for those remaining 8 guys.
It all depends on if one, or both of the ecommerce-smart retailers are willing to go the extra ZMOT mile. 

So let us just assume that one of them did. 

So this retailer has the normal brick & mortar store (i.e. a store that is physically on the ground – not one that operates solely online). He also has the e-commerce website where customers can order shoes and have them delivered to their homes. 

Then if he decides to upgrade to invading the zero moment of truth, he could take a size-able chunk out of the share of the other website retailer’s 2800, and even further flatten the margins of those retailers who are doing 600 sales per month.

How?

INFILTRATING THE ZERO MARKET OF TRUTH

By being at the ZMOT, our retailer can know when consumers are looking for shoes, when they are making inquiries about them online. He can learn about consumers, their behaviors and preferences before the other retailer who also sells online, and way ahead of the others. He knows how to fish out ready customers as well as future customers. This is the wisdom of the marketers who take the ZMOT seriously.

Research shows that in 2011, 84% of a sample 5000 people in America did research on a product after seeing an advert, and before deciding on buying it. There is also more recent data to show that this trend is increasing. Now I can easily guess what just popped into your minds. 
You are going to say that that is America! 
This is Africa! 

Yes, I know. 
And yet my point here is that just because we are not a continent that is particularly keen on gathering statistical data and analyzing such data, it doesn’t mean that we do not have the same sociological tendencies of shoppers everywhere. Afterall, we are all human.

For example, if you doubt that Africans are being affected equally (if not at a quicker rate) by the New Digital Age, why not visit Christian Amanpour’s Page on Facebook, or checkout ESPN FC? 

I am willing to bet that by just doing a quick scan, you are going to find as many African names (mostly Nigerian) in the comments as any other continent of the world. 

Africans are as driven to search out their interests and engage share their thoughts with others, just as Europeans and Americans are. And I dare say, Nigerians more so than anyone else.

Hence, there’s no wisdom in betting against the continued exponential growth of internet connectivity & activity in Africa and indeed the rest of the world.

The fact is that all human beings are social animals. We all have a desire to connect with others. And most of us find connection with like-minds from foreign lands particularly more fascinating. 

In fact, with all of the poverty that we face in this continent of ours, the obvious lack of many alternatives (such as large theme parks, space museums, video game arcade centers, ice skating rinks, and a truly infinite number of satellite/cable tv channels) no doubt leads many Africans to find more time and desire to connect online.

Google’s Jim Lecinski, says, “ZMOT turns small wins into huge ones — and potentially big wins into letdowns — millions of times a day, around the clock.” The idea being conveyed here is that your well executed tactic could lead you to huge gains from doing just a little thing better than your rivals. While they, with all of their big spending and expensive tv and magazine adverts, may fail to register their presence at ZMOT and as such suffer huge losses.

Please try to remember that ZMOT is the name for the virtual meeting ground where you will find your target consumer, not rigidly the name of your tactic itself. 

Anyway, I particularly like the way Dina Howell, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X, presents her argument on the ZMOT ( she was formerly in Procter & Gamble – at the time they came up with the First Moment Of Truth marketing model in 2005). Now she says, 

“Shoppers today want to explore and think about how products can improve their lives. They do reconnaissance to gain the insights they need, and they’re driven to bond with others and enrich relationships as they learn.”

The bottom line is that today’s marketers need to realize that shoppers’ decisions are no longer predominantly taken at Stimulus stage and Shelf (First Moment Of Truth - or FMOT) Stage. There is now clearly a 3rd pre-purchase battle ground. And from the simple bar chart above, you can tell that this battle ground      is getting more and more crowded.

The question is, 

If you were the Director of ZMOT for the marketing division of a company like say Samsung in South Africa, Kenya Airways or maybe GTBank in Nigeria, what are the things that you would do, and what is the mindset you would employ in order to garner potential customers from this abundance of ZMOT-congregating web surfers?

Please feel free to leave a comment, ask a question, like and do share. :-)