Marketers have a huge problem on their hands.
Increasing competition and shorting attention spans are radically altering the effectiveness of traditional marketing.
Most marketers already know they have less than seven seconds to capture the interest of browser before he clicks away.
Seven seconds! That’s not much time to sell anything. But it gets worse.
Over half of all visitors who actually make it past your headline will leave within 15 seconds.
Those marketers whose goal is to connect with Millennials are the worst hit by this growing trend. Studies show the average Millennials check their cell phone around 150 times a day and switch between different devices about 27 times per hour during their free time.
Secrets of Marketing to a Distracted Consumer
These three tips will help you cut through the clutter and give hyperactive clickers a reason to stop and take in your message.
Get them in the gut. Offer browsers an immediate emotional payoff. It does not matter if the jolt is positive or negative as long as the shock is strong enough to provide them with enough of a reason to stop and think, “What was that?”
While it is more likely for people to share positive messages full of joy and happiness with their friends, content with emotionally negative messages like guilt and regret, are still effective. The choice to use a positive or negative message depends on the goals of a particular campaign.
Make it personal. Browsers are more likely to take notice of content when it directly relates to them. Big data and AI makes it easier to identify and target potential customers who share a narrow set of traits. The better you can define your specific audience and concentrate your marketing to appeal to them, the more sales your campaign will generate.
One of the biggest marketing mistakes is providing content to a consumer at the wrong time. Even a perfect message is only effective when it reaches consumers when they are ready to hear it. Use multiple channels and modify your content to reflect where the consumer is on the buyer’s journey.
Quality matters. Avoid over-saturating the market with your brand to keep your brand fresh. Concentrate on providing quality content which will really connect with your target audience instead of opting for a “spray and pray” marketing philosophy.
There is no guarantee any marketing campaign will work, but if you create targeted, quality content full of emotion, you have a better chance of success.
