What is the Zero Moment of Truth? Google defines it as the following.

The ZMOT, or Zero Moment of Truth, is a new decision-making moment that takes place a hundred million times a day on mobile phones, laptops and wire devices of all kinds. It’s a moment where marketing happens, where information happens, and where consumers make choices that affect the success and failure of nearly every brand in the world.

I think there is a lot that marketers and entrepreneurs can take away from Google’s study.

Here are some of my favorite quotes and sayings from Google’s ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) literature.

25 ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) Quotes

1. I believe consumers will tell us what they want and need in their lives, if only we will listen anew every day.
2. It’s up to us to join the conversation at this new moment where decisions are being made, and to provide the information that shoppers naturally crave, in all the ways that they crave it.
3. If you care about helping shoppers explore, dream and find what they’re looking for – in short, if you’re passionate about the future of marketing.
4. When consumers hear about a product today, their first reaction is ‘Let me search online for it.’ And so they go on journey of discovery: about a product, a service, an issue, an opportunity. Today you are not behind your competition. You are not behind the technology. You are behind your consumer.
5. ZMOT is that moment when you grab your laptop, mobile phone or some other wired device and start learning about a product or service (or potential boyfriend) you’re thinking about trying or buying.
6. 70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase, 79% of consumers now say they use a smart-phone to help with shopping, and 83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them.
7. The best brands consistently win two moments of truth. The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a consumer decides whether to buy one brand or another. The second occurs at home, when they use the brand – and is delighted, or isn’t.
8. It’s the power to help shoppers make great decisions and to help companies tell their stories at the moment of highest impact.
9. ZMOT turns small wins into huge ones – and potentially big wins into letdowns – millions of times a day, around the clock.
10. The buying decision journey has changed. ZMOT is a vital new addition to the classic three-step process of stimulus, shelf, experience.
11. What was once a message is now a conversation. Shoppers today find and share their own information about products, in their own way, on their own time.
12. Word of mouth is stronger than ever. For the first time in human history, word of mouth is a digitally archived medium.
13. No MOT is too small. If consumers will do research online for houses and health care, they’ll also do it for Band-Aids and ballpoint pens.
14. Engagement with the customer today isn’t just pouring a message down on their head and hoping they get wet.
15. Dad still watches football and he still sees your TV commercial. But now he grabs his laptop off the coffee table and searches for “digital camera reviews”. Before the game ends – and before he gets to the store shelf – he’s ready to make decision.
16. American households now spend as much time online as they do watching TV. Yet in 2010, only about 15% of media ad budget money was spent online. Online decision-making is skyrocketing; online marketing budgets aren’t.
17. Change your marketing mental model to include ZMOT, and you stand to gain a very big competitive advantage. Because you’ll reach those millions of shoppers who are making decisions before they enter the store.
18. The average shopper used 10.4 sources of information to make a decision in 2011, up from 5.3 sources in 2010. Yes, that number nearly doubled in one year.
19. 84% of shoppers said that ZMOT shapes their decisions. It’s now just as important as stimulus (76%) and FMOT (77%) in moving consumers from undecided to decided.
20. That exception is now the rule. There are no barriers to access. Today’s shoppers carry access in their pockets. They create their own consumer guides a million times a minute with reviews, tweets, blogs, social network posts and videos for products of all kinds.
21. We’re entering a new era of reciprocity. We now have the engage people in a way that’s useful or helpful to their lives. The consumer is looking to satisfy their needs, and we have to be there to help them with that.
22. This is the new digital shelf. Consumers arrive there, 24 hours a day, ready to engage. They’re anybody’s to win or lose.
23. Shoppers don’t always move through a funnel, narrowing their choices as they go; at ZMOT, they can actually widen their choices. The more they learn, the more options they consider.
24. If you’re available at the Zero Moment of Truth, your customers will find you at the very moment they’re thinking about buying, and also when they’re thinking about thinking about buying.
25. There are two heroes: the consumer who does the research, and the marketer who is smart enough to be there at the moment the shopper is looking for them.