This week, I’m going to talk about microthings with macroimpacts.

As so many good things of this world, this inspiration came from Angie Moore of Eleventy Marketing.  Her NonProfit Pro piece, which I recommend heartily, talks about Google’s discussion of how we live our lives in micromoments.  Their Think With Google piece talks about how with mobile devices, we are constantly acting on our needs at and in the moment.

I found this rung true for me.  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 ’90s.

So are not comparison shopping, not buying, not getting what you buy for weeks, not hearing about your donation, not being able to reach the person you want to reach.

And these micromoments come and go so quickly.  I remember vividly Googling how to give CPR to a dog.  I had never needed that information before and hope never to again.  In that moment, however, that question was my world.

As Google says, “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.”  We are the sum of these moments individuals and we are the sum of these moments to those we wish to reach for donations and support.

 

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
— T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

 

So I’m going to try to cover this without covering what Angie did, which is excellent, by focusing on intent.

One of the things that Google talks about is how 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 Spike won’t get you.

The same is true for the nonprofit world, except that the need that people have is rarely to 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 take action on an issue they’ve heard about right-flippin’-now.

So, as we’ve preached, you need to be consistently creating content and doing so for the things that people care about.

But more than that, it needs to convert.  Once someone has fulfilled their desire to learn, verify, do, etc., and only then, you can make the turn to make an ask.  This ask needs to be quick and it needs to be tied directly to what they just did.  If it was emailing their congressperson about global warming, the confirmation page should thank them for taking action and ask for a donation to help the nonprofit advocate more effectively to stem the tide of global warming.

In the micromoment world, you don’t get this chance again, so you need to be there, fulfill the desire, and tie the ask to the desire.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about microbudgets — how do you act when the amount allocated for your budget is $0.

 

* If you are like me, the answer is probably a Jerry-Orbach-era Law and Order episode.