The Zero Moment of Truth

The internet — and the emergence of mobile technology — has so significantly changed the buying process that shoppers now make their purchase decisions before stepping foot in a store or adding an item to their online cart. Where businesses once controlled the information about their products, consumers now have access to all kinds of resources to find out more, including pricing, reviews, testimonials and competitive products.

In 2011, Google coined the phrase Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT, pronounced “zee-MAHT”) to define the instant a consumer begins to research a product before they buy it — and a powerful change in the purchase path. We spoke with Jim Lecinski, associate professor of Integrated Marketing at Northwestern University (and Google’s former vice president of Customer Solutions), for his take on how capturing the ZMOT is more important than ever for builders who want to gain a competitive advantage with prospective buyers.

Here are four ways to meet the Zero Moment of Truth head-on for new construction home shoppers.

Know what buyers want from you

There are thousands of searches per month for “new construction” alone on Google, so it’s vital that you’re present at a home shopper’s moment of truth. To do that, you have to know what home shoppers are searching for during their ZMOT.

Pick a few search terms for yourself — e.g., new construction homes in (your city) — and see how often you come up and where. While you’re at it, see how many times your competition comes up, too, and if they’re ranking higher than you.

Knowing what new construction home shoppers are looking for will help you identify the moments that matter.

Be engaging and helpful

In your ZMOT campaigns, offer information about your homes and tips for navigating the home-buying journey and homeownership — any content that addresses buyer concerns or curiosity and entertains or educates them. Share your content where buyers are experiencing their ZMOT, including on your website, blog, social media platforms, ads, email campaigns and direct mail pieces.

Don’t forget to ask home shoppers and buyers for their reviews and, even more importantly, respond to them! Even if some of your reviewers didn’t go through with the purchase, other buyers will see your insights and responses as a good indicator of what it’s like to do business with you.

Don’t forget mobile

The most brilliant content won’t attract and engage more new construction home shoppers if you’re ignoring half of your target audience: The Zillow Group New Construction Consumer Housing Trends Report 2018 shows that 46 percent of new construction buyers view a mobile website using a smartphone or tablet.

Before you begin executing campaigns to capture ZMOT, make sure your sites are optimized for mobile viewing so that you not only show up in mobile-originated searches but also give home shoppers the ideal browsing experience when they use their smartphones.

Measure your efforts

Hold your ZMOT campaign results against your KPIs and measure how your efforts performed. Include simple KPIs such as website traffic by unique and repeat visits, bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave your site immediately after landing on it), and top pages (your best performing pages in terms of traffic volume).

Also include more advanced KPIs such as brand awareness (asking home shoppers how they heard about you or why they prefer your homes) and brand consideration (measuring how well you’re converting home shoppers into taking action).

Look at your campaign results and determine what tweaks you should make: Do you need to amp up your SEO? Should you investigate paid search or paid social media? Does your post-tour survey need fine-tuning? As with any initiative, tracking and measuring is the only way to know what works and what needs improvement.

Lecinski recommends holding a ZMOT meeting with your marketing team to discuss how your target home buyer looks for critical information before contacting your sales team and how you can apply one or more of these four strategies to win the Zero Moment of Truth.