As our lives become increasingly diverse and modern, our attention spans shrink. And there are millions of voices clamoring for it.
With advertising budgets and mindsets leaning towards “faster advertising,” many businesses forget the people they need to cater to aren’t like them.
Our audiences are increasingly more likely to adopt and discard information at a rapid rate, making our marketing all the more challenging.
According to the Media Insight Project (a consortium of US media and marketing research firms), we have less time to capture our audiences’ attention: “Roughly one in five Americans (19%) indicate they rely on social media for news in the last week, a number that has grown by nearly ten points since the 2016 Election. At the same time, the amount of time people spend getting news via social media platforms has fallen from 15%, to 12%.”
Aside from this, we’re also more of a visual generation. In a long-form study, 55% of respondents said that visual content is a more persuasive form of content than text or video, while only 37% of respondents said that videos were the most persuasive.
And indeed, we consume and make decisions faster. According to another study by MindShift K-12, 49% of teens own a smartphone, and 75% of these are smartphones. The lives of Millennials are more hectic than the previous generation. With easily accessible social media networks like Tumblr and Instagram, we’re exposed to a constant stream of noise.
So, how do you get your content to stand out?
As a sustainable brand, there are a few different ways for you to send a strong message to your clients.
Using pop-culture references to relate
Many things are based on previous references or memes. Many of us can relate to the NBC TV show Seinfeld, and which is why a pop culture reference is a good way to reach for instant relatability. A brand can also use current events, memes or viral videos to appeal to a news audience.
Using effective value propositions
“Things that have emotional impact stick in our brains better,” a quote by Yu-kai Chou, author of The Effective Velocity. People pay attention to things that are new and different, and value propositions are great examples of this. In an article by The Content Marketing Institute, 63% of B2B marketers are using videos to demonstrate how their products and services work, while 25% are using videos to speak directly to customers. What are your unique-selling propositions, and how can you tell them to generate a conversation?
Giving relevance over redirection
When conducting content marketing, businesses should think about the customer experience. What’s the benefit for my customer? Value is always the first thing that gets the interest of my customers. Even if the business has a goal in mind, it is a must to give relevance to the customer. What is in it for me, and how will this benefit me? That’s the kind of content people want to see.
Create content that is engaging
Most of the content on the web is created by businesses, and it’s up to them to create content that is relevant, timely, and engaging. The more engaging the content is, the more likely the customer is to pay attention.
A study by MarketingProfs (a B2B marketing company) found that top content creators are more interested in the quality of the content than the quantity.
Takeaways
We live in a world where there are a lot of distractions. We need to create captivating content to keep our customers’ attention.
There are four main things we can do to create more engaging content.
- Understand your customer’s needs and cater to them.
- Use pop culture and current events as a reference to relate to your audience.
- Have a value proposition and give relevance to your content.
- Create content that is engaging.
The SimpleMarketing.AI Content Engine generated this post (with a little human editing). To learn how you can reduce your own Content Marketing burden with AI assistance, visit SimpleMarketing.AI