Simon Ackland - Business Growth Blog

The Attention Span Of A Gnat

How To Get Attention To Your Marketing Message When Your Your Target Audience Has The Attention Span Of A Gnat 
An old colleague of mine would always used this anology (aimed at himself) to end boring meetings..it was very effective!

But it is not just attention span that is the problem, it is breaking through the barriers created by heavy work loads and time pressures. And here lies a marketing conflict.

When it comes to advertising and marketing messages, Long Copy Out Sells Short Copy.

This is a fundamental truth that most seasoned marketing pros know well.

Contrary to conventional thinking long copy messages are best. Long copy gives you the ability to tell the reader everything that they need to know to make a decision. You can answer all the questions and counter any doubts they may have.

Well that sounds great, but lets get back on topic.

Long copy and the attention span of a Gnat don't seem to mix very well!

In a world cluttered with messages and choice, you are right; how do you get the attention of YOUR audience?. How do you break through the clutter and get people to actually read your long copy marketing message...or for that matter,, to read any sized message?

A lot of inexperienced marketers or business people don't understand or believe this principle. They think this way "People have short attention spans. They don't have time to read and are easily bored. So what you need is short, punchy copy that gets attention fast and makes a sale fast."

Well, there is a grain of truth in this way of thinking. But experienced marketers know ways around these problems.

Traditionally, marketers have learned to get past the gate-keeper, get passed the impression that their message is junk mail and just generally break through the clutter to get noticed and read.

Today, we add in the internet or web and suddenly there are literally millions of messages and choices presented daily.

Statistics show that a website home page has 6.5 seconds to get someone's attention to spend more time viewing your website content before they hit the back button...so something has to be done to help achieve a reasonable ROI on your marketing activities.

There are many different strategies to use to get someones attention but today  we are looking at the copy and how you can get a longer message inwhich you can get your point across read. To be a successfull Copywriter (or know when someone is doing it right for you), the process to follow is guided by AICDA. Most marketers will have heard of AIDA...we add the C in for extra effect. So what does it mean?

Rule #1 is Attention.
So you need to get Attention and fast!. That is traditionally your headline.
Regardless of whether it is a brochure, a flyer, an advertisement or your website home page, you should have a compelling, attention grabbing headline.

Take your website as a typical example. Now this is not always appropriate or practical to have a headline on your website's Home page. That is why you should have some other Landing Pages in your website...pages that focus only on a single topic and who's objective is to get the reader to take some more action such as reading the next page, signing up for a report or newsletter, purchasing something or getting on the phone and requesting an appointment.

These should be the shorter, punchier, to the point and above all, attention grabbing pages. After grabbing Attention and building some initial Interest (Rule #2), it should have a call to action to get people to click through to another page to continue the story. In effect, the long copy is still there, it is simply broken up into bite size and hence less daunting, chunks.

Advertising is Salesmanship in Print

Create compelling copy with the Copywriter's magic formula AICDA and long copy comes to life - I mentioned 2 of these valuable Rules above, Attention and Interest; find out about the others in our blog at AICDA - Discover The Copywriter's Secret.

Adapt these methods to your medium. The digital medium (like this email) allows you to focus on parts of the message but with the benefit of long copy by having simple click through points to Read More>>.

You really can have your cake and eat it to.

Discover The Copy Writer's Secret - AICDA

We spoke about how people seem to have the attention span of a Gnat these days in the post titled How To Get Your Marketing Message Read When Your Audience Has The Attention Span Of A Gnat.

But that isn't really a fair on all people (including me) who might feel hard done by being associated with a Gnat. What really happens is that we get so many messages on a daily basis that start to zone-out on them all and it is only the standouts that get through. We cant view them all so we have become very precious with our time. Hence we scan, we skim and we try to sort the "wheat from the chaff" as quickly as we can.

If something doesn't leap of the page or the TV or the computer screen as being worthy of our time...we move on very quickly. Hence the Gnat story.

So how do we attract attention and break through the clutter to get our message to more people?

AICDA - The Copy Writers Secret

A good sales pitch, whether in person, print, website, letter, email, TV, video, radio...wherever, needs to do 5 things.

It must attract Attention, be Interesting, have Credibility, create Desire and prompt an Action .... AICDA.

Attention
On a web page or direct mail letter, that is what the headline does. On the radio its the load opening noise, sound or music that breaks the listens thoughts to get attention. Without attention, all is lost. The reader will not go deeper into the message to get to the heart of the sales pitch.

On your website, your landing pages are your key attention grabbers and must induce the reader to click through to another page or take some action such as signing up to receive a report or a newsletter subscription. Ideally the outcome is someone putting their hand up and saying "Hey, I'm interested...". But be patient. Build a relationship. Digital marketing allows you to walk steadily to this point over time with minimal effort on your part.

Interest
Once you have their attention, you must give something that arouses interest. This could be many different things; a fantastic price, an offer of something free or a hint of an opportunity that will be revealed further on in the copy...an incentive to keep going.

Credibility
Creating credibility is very important; a must. Provide testimonials, a case study or some reputable statistics that PROVE that what you are talking about is the truth. Third party testimonials will always be seen as carrying greater weight of course because of the perceived independence.

Desire
You must make the reader desire or want what you are offering. It could be a product or service that you want the prospect to desire or want to buy. You can achieve this by appealing to emotions, hint at how a problem will be solved or how life will be made better.

Action
The reader must be prompted, urged, asked and convinced to take action. It is amazing how many otherwise fine sales pitches fumble at this crucial point. If you don't give a prospect a reason to act, clear instructions on how to act and even ask them to act, they probably won't.

One of the best ways is to put a strict time limit on your offer. Make them understand that they must act quickly to get your good deal, or lose out for ever.

AICDA And Digital Marketing
How did you find this article? Did you click on a link from an email marketing piece? Was it a link from another website page? Did it appear in a Google search and you clicked on the link?

All of these sources used the principles of getting your Attention and building Interest to the point where you wanted to read more. There is nothing really new here, but we need to be reminded because so many of us learned this marketing lesson in relation to direct mail marketing. Today things have changed with a bigger focus on digital marketing...your website design, emails, social media; but the same lessons apply equally if not more so, if you are to produce better outcomes in such a cluttered marketing world.

It is a fact that to achieve the full objective requires more words. And in this respect Long Copy out-sells Short Copy. So the marketing takeaway here is how to achieve the better communication outcomes of Long Copy while recognizing that you must overcome the short attention spans that we all seem to suffer from these days.

Think about how you can improve your marketing results and return on investment (ROI) from all of your marketing efforts including digital marketing. Sometimes the proven methods need to be adapted to the new marketing mediums...but they still work!