30 seconds…or less.
That’s all you’ve got. The average length of time your customers spend reading or listening to the stuff you send out online.
Oh, ya, and they are multi-tasking at the same time. Watching TV, surfing the Internet, dropping into Facebook and Instagram, and checking new emails all while peeking at your messages.
Not good.
And if your Ideal Customer falls in the 25-to-34 age bracket, they operate most of the time in a dual-screen, multi-tasking, lots of stimuli at-the-same-time environment.
How can anyone concentrate on your precious words? The words you spend considerable, thoughtful time creating (kind of like this message to you).
Surprisingly, the “channel” people spend the most time on is…email. Yep, it ain’t dead. Surveys show most people spend a whole 5 to 30 seconds on incoming emails from companies (just to be clear, I said 5 to 30 SECONDS).
Mobile, perhaps surprisingly, continues to be challenging as a method of distributing content in all geographies, not just the U.S., per the same survey.
And considering the popularity of Facebook and other social media…and the amount of time it sucks out of the day as we go on for one thing and stay for hundreds…you might be equally shocked to discover the average consumer spends between 5 and 30 seconds on Facebook, Twitter or content posted on other social channels.
So just how does the Modern Marketer (that would be you) engage this highly distracted prospect as the situation is not going to get any better?
Start by personalizing your message within your database. Don’t send everyone everything. Get to know your people and add the information you acquire into your database.
Then send a dentist-oriented message to the dentists, and a Southern California message to those in SoCal, and send a “help me understand what you want” message to those not responding to your sales campaign.
Everyone in your database is not alike. As a former boss of mine used to say “if everyone had the same taste as mine, everyone would be married to my wife.”
Figure out who you’re talking to, talk to them uniquely or they’ll be gone in 30 seconds. Or less.