When was the last time you wondered who that actress is and what you knew her from?  When that happened, were you content to just not know?

No.  Not knowing is so 1990s.  And so are not comparison shopping, not buying, not receiving what you buy for weeks, not hearing about your donation, not being able to reach the person you want to reach.

When you have the world’s accumulated knowledge in your pocket, it seems a sin not to use it.  When we have an itch – to know, to learn, to buy, to watch – we scratch it.

Google has labeled this a micromoment: that split second where we reflexively turn “want” into “act.”  They say “Our preferences and purchases are shaped in these micro-moments. Ultimately, the brands that do the best job of addressing our needs in each moment will win.”

“Instantly” has gone from impossible to luxury to boooooooooring.  As a result, these micromoments come and go so quickly.

These moments are also full of intent.  Intent eats demographics for dinner.  You might think, for example, that the people searching for video games are 18-34-year-old males.  Only 31% of them are.  So by targeting people who are looking for video game content, rather than a demographic segment, you can get the people that advertising on Ricky and Morty won’t get you.

The same is true for the nonprofit world, except (as the Norwegian Cancer Society example shows) people’s goal is donate.  At best, they may have a need to make a difference, but more often, they want to learn more about something or verify something they’ve heard or act on an issue they’ve heard about right-flippin’-now.

There are two types of micromoments: the broad and the personal.  Broad are the things we experience together.  Depending on your age, you remember where you were when the Twin Towers were hit, OJ fled the police, man landed on the moon, JFK was shot.*  In nonprofit land, these are the hurricanes, tsunamis, and policy disasters or triumphs that drive people to your doors en masse.  While we can’t plan for these specifically, we can plan for these generally: what will we do when the hurricane hits?  Human Rights Campaign planned their campaign for what they would do when the marriage equality Obergefell v. Hodges decision came out two years in advance, with contingencies for various permutations of that ruling.  Here, the plan is your friend.

Then there is the micromoment that is deeply personal.  You feel a lump.  You turn to the Internet, looking for information, help, and hope.  This (hopefully) is not a moment you remember a year later or, if you do, it’s part of a happy story.

I remember vividly Googling how to give a dog CPR.  I had never needed that information before.  I hope never to again.  In that moment, however, that question was my world.  The right resource at the right time can be a lifesaver and the beginning of a beautiful constituent relationship.
This is a rare moment as a direct marketer: you aren’t targeting a person.  Instead, you are targeting the search or the intent – any person who has that intent or makes that search will do.  You should plan ahead, as for disasters and the like, but here your content is going to be used one person at a time, as they experience the moment, rather than en masse.

This all goes back to the burning need to acquire constituents and make them our donors that we talked about a couple weeks ago.  These micromoments give us the basis for a relationship that can blossom with nurturing.

Nick