ZMOT is a new ebook published by Jim Lecinski, Google’s US Managing Director of Sales and Service. It’s also the subject of my latest Search Insider column. Some of what I wrote for MediaPost is regurgitated here but most of the following is original material and incremental observations. (Update: for a “behind-the-scenes” look at ZMOT, be sure to read the 2-part interview between Jim and Gord Hotchkiss in MediaPost.)

I’ve known Jim for quite some time as our paths have crossed repeatedly in the world of search and the streets of Chicago. I’ve always been impressed with his ability to relate to brand marketers and put key principles of Google into a broader marketing context. And ZMOT is no exception.

ZMOT underscores the point I was trying to make in Chapter 4: Mindset Matters. ZMOT is the moment after some stimulus has compelled you to act but before you actually take action. In a shopping scenario, ZMOT is the moment when your decision takes shape of whether or not to buy and, if so, which brand.

In his book, Jim describes a new “mental model” in which ZMOT follows a stimulus but precedes FMOT (a term coined by P&G for the first moment of truth at the store shelf) and SMOT (the second moment of truth when the consumer experiences the product that he/she purchased) before reappearing when the buyer decides if the brand is a keeper and worthy of sharing with friends (or, in marketing terms, lifetime value and word of mouth).

Here are some other ways Jim describes ZMOT:

• “A moment where marketing happens, where information happens…”
• “That grabbing-the-laptop moment.”
• “The moment of highest impact”
• “‘Before the store’ moments”

So how to make sure your brand is available at ZMOT? Well let’s turn to Chapter 17: Show Off Your Assets. Aptly, in this chapter I recount a meeting with none other than Mr. Lecinski at the Google Chicago office in 2006 in which he preached about the importance of brands digitizing and optimizing all their assets — images, videos, manuals, and even brand attributes.

In my book, I point to Ronald.com as an example of McDonald’s digitizing one of its assets, the Ronald McDonald mascot. But beyond just Ronald himself, McDonald’s took the brand promises of happiness and giving and optimized them for kids around the world to experience in a safe virtual playground.

There’s no question McD does well at ZMOT. (Hmm, I’m hungry, what should I eat?) But it’s not just because there’s a McDonald’s in every major city and most of the not-so-major ones. And it’s not simply because there’s a McDonald’s ad that reaches you when you’re hungry and/or close to one of their locations. And it’s not only because the food comes out fast and there’s a ball-pit for your keys to play in. It’s because of all these things! McD does well at ZMOT because of all the touchpoints they’ve created with consumer and the emotional connections they’ve built.

However, as Jim argues credibly time and time again in his book, all the connections in the world between brand and consumer are meaningless if the brand is absent at ZMOT.

Boy, how I wish this book and the ZMOT concept had been around back in 2005. I remember being in a meeting with the head of advertising for McDonald’s pitching the merits of search engine marketing and getting this objection, “Why should I buy ads on search engines? People don’t buy hamburgers online.”

But then why are people searching for hamburgers online? Why are they searching for McDonald’s? You spend billions of dollars on marketing and you’re willing to risk it all when a consumer acts on your stimulus and can’t find you at ZMOT?

Luckily, the McD ad exec remained open to the idea and, within a year, SEM was a staple on the company’s media plans.

To me, this example is the epitome of what the ZMOT book is all about. It’s 75 pages of persuasion to quick serve restaurants and other verticals (eg, CPG) that have yet to truly embrace SEM.

Now, lest you think this is a fluff read relying on heady ideas and intuition, I should note that, throughout his book, Jim backs up assertions with hard data.

In researching this book, Google conducted an extensive study of more than 5,000 shoppers across 12 verticals in April of 2011, providing a wealth of information about what ZMOT is and why it matters.

Here are some of the key stats:

• 70% of Americans look at product reviews before making a purchase.
• 79% of consumers use a smart-phone to help with shopping.
• The average shopper uses 10.4 sources of information to make a decision. (Up from 5.3 sources in 2010.)
• 84% of shoppers said ZMOT shapes their decisions. (Based on a mapping done by Google of information sources to Stimulus, ZMOT, and FMOT.)
• 62% of shoppers search for deals online before at least half of their shopping trips.
• 54% of shoppers comparison shop for products online.
• 37% of shoppers find online social sources to be an influential driver when making decisions. (Up from 19% in 2010.)
• Showing up is 80% in life. (Woody Allen quote used by Jim to encourage people to “jump in” and address ZMOT within their orgs.)

And here are some SEM stats included in the book that I found interesting:

• 20% of searches across all Google properties are local.
• 40% of all mobile searches across Google properties are local.
• Mobile-only campaigns perform 11.5% better on average than desktop-mobile campaigns
• Recipes make up 1% of all searches on Google.

One of my favorite quips in this book comes from Rishad Tobaccowala (who is quoted extensively in my book as well) commenting on the role of search engines in the buying process. “Don’t call them search engines,” Rishad says. “Call them connection engines.” A great insight and especially gratifying for me to hear as I still remember back in the early 2000′s when Rishad dismissed SEM as merely “math and machines.”

Another great quote comes from Professor Dave Reibstein of The Wharton School in framing word of mouth in today’s society. “Talking over the hedge is one-to-one. Digital word of mouth is one-to-millions.”

And here’s one from Jim that underscores my premise in Chapter 8: Test Everything. “In the world of ZMOT, speed beats perfection.”

I’ll wrap it here and leave you reason to peruse the book for yourself. It’s a great, quick read. Perfect for the too-little-time-too-many-social-networkers and instant-gratificationers among us.And, if you’re Apple-enabled, be sure to grab the free iBook to access multimedia content.

Now go forth and ZMOT!

Below is the presentation I gave today at the Online Marketing Sumit (OMS) in Chicago.

In it, I use my patent-pending “Heat-o-Meter” to describe the hotness of various companies, channels, and trends in digital marketing, including:

Companies: Facebook, Groupon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn,  Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo

Channels: Social, Mobile, Local, Video, Search, Display

Trends: Automation, Integration, Attribution

The deck has 70 slides packed with stats and the last section has some Kenshoo case studies for context on how advertisers are capitalizing on these hot trends. So warm up your fingers are start clicking!

As is becoming habit, I rapped the Q&A portion but only had time for one topic. No video has surfaced (yet) so here’s an audio clip from Brent Payne aka the Bald SEO.

Check out the Search Insider column I penned this week for a rundown of everything you need to know about the Big G from A to Z.

Today I kicked off Day 2 of the Social Media Optimization Conference (SMOC) with a keynote presentation and, of course, a rap.

I had originally intended to introduce the acronym SAM (Social Advertising Marketing) but switched to SMA (Social Media Advertising) to keep in line with the theme of SMO (Social Media Optimization). While SAM certainly has a better ring to it, SMA seemed a better contextual fit.

Speaking of context, seeing as how SMOC was in San Francisco, I likened social media to marketing “without a net” and drew upon the Grateful Dead as my influence for the improvisational rap that followed my presentation.

Here are the slides I ripped through. Below that is a video of the last 5 minutes of the keynote and a 90 second social media rap. And after that is the rapping Q&A session in which I coined the new buzzword “dinterest” (digital interest) after not being able to think of anything that rhymed with interest. Could’ve used some “Help on the Way…”

Here’s the video and slides from today’s presentation at the Search Insider Summit. Remind me not to chug 5 Hour Energy before getting on stage next time. Although I needed it to rip thru 35 slides in 15 minutes!

Check out the video below to see how it went down today. Chuck was crowned the winner but I think I held my own and am already working on getting a rematch!

As Rob Wilk from Yahoo put it, “If it’s any consolation, out of the 100 people in the room, you were the second best rapper.” (To which I replied, “And if it’s any consolation, Yahoo is  the second best search engine.”)

FYI, you can watch the 12 minutes leading up to the freestyle on the MediaPost Facebook page.

And make sure to peep the Round 3 video I debuted on stage before the live battle.

Today I participated in a session at ad:tech San Francisco called, “Connecting the Dots with Paid Search” moderated by “Marketing Pastor” Melanie Mitchell.

My presentation focused on a new approach to search engine marketing that can not only help improve performance within the SEM channel but across other channels as well. The idea is focusing on the people behind the keywords to get a sense of their true value to your business. It’s not rocket science. It’s people science.

Here’s my deck:

In yesterday’s MediaPost Search Insider column (+10 and -10 for Google +1), I shared 10 things I love and 10 things I hate about Google +1. It just so happens that the lists contained the same 10 things. Behold the definition of a love/hate relationship!

Just got word that the book won the Gold medal in the “Advertising/Marketing/PR/Event Planning” category from the Axiom Business Book Awards. No cash prize but will be receiving one of these fancy medals.

Very honored and appreciative but seems like a miss that these guys don’t give out online badges for winners to display on their websites. As covered in chapter 7 (Act Like Content) this is a great opportunity to build up link juice by offering something of value that people would be happy to put on their sites along with a link to the authoritative domain.

Today’s Montreal Gazette has a great piece exploring the “Risky Business of Google.” I shared a wide range of opinions and sound bytes with Jason Magder as he prepared this column. Here are some of the ones he used:

“Many of the new initiatives that Google launches can still somehow be tied backed to monetization from search advertising.”

“With the social network movement, people are now finding new ways to get information online that doesn’t require Googling it.”

“Goldman said he believes there is no limit to Google’s growth. He believes the company will figure out how to bring a social context to searches, and can have success in virtually every product it develops. He sees the company as becoming an all-encompassing life tool, that will power everything from televisions to computers, phones and cars.”

“Google has the advantage of having 5 million advertisers behind it, so it can go into pretty much any market it wants and find a way to monetize it with its slew of advertisers.”

To balance my seemingly eternal optimism, Magder includes some points-of-view that are a little more skeptical about Google’s future.

“If they lose relevancy, they’ll lose everything.” — Christian Russell, Dangerous Tactics.

“The company has spread itself too thin.”  – Ian Lurie, Portent Interactive.

“Google’s biggest problem is that it has consistently failed to produce any new lines of business apart from keyword-related advertising, which still produces over 90 per cent of its income.” — Matthew Ingram, GigaOm

“Maybe they can’t innovate anymore. It takes them meetings and processes to make decisions. Things don’t get launched as quickly.” — Fred Wilson, venture capitalist.

“They also tried to get into social networking and failed, so they’re not impregnable,” Ken Auletta, Googled.

There’s definitely no question that Google will face increasingly bigger challenges in the coming years — from Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and itself as it grows bigger still. For what it’s worth I think Google’s future will bring new ventures that are at times risky (as in the imminent launch of a new social network), at times frisky (as in the frivolous pursuit of self-driving cars), and at times briskly (as in the pace of innovation and new product releases).

Let’s just hope we never see Larry or Sergey emulating Risky Business too closely…

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