2 Main Reasons Marketing Efforts Fail to Capture Attention
If you read the previous post on capturing attention, you know that our attention helps us screen out information that we consider irrelevant, and also helps us choose which information will enter in, and stay in, our awareness. As marketers, it’s extremely important that our messages are part of the information that is considered relevant, and allowed to enter into our prospects’ awareness.
But aren’t all of our prospects just ripe for the picking, waiting for information about our products and services to come across their desks? Of course not.
First, we’ve got to capture their attention.
The two main reasons marketing efforts fail to capture attention are:
1. The message is unclear.
2. The message is inconsistent.
Marketing messages can be unclear if we’re guilty of thinking that everyone sees things the way we do, which of course, they don’t. It’s important to remember that people won’t “hear” you unless or until they perceive what you perceive — so it’s up to you to show them. It’s also up to you to understand what they perceive.
C.S. Lewis put it this way:
“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you’re standing.”
When you look at it this way, it’s easy to understand why what you think is perfectly clear may not be so to your prospects — they may be standing in a different place.
Another way of making marketing messages more clear is to make them personal to the audience — personally interesting or perceptually meaningful information can grab attention. When something becomes personal, it becomes important. I’ve heard it described this way: you don’t really have to scream or repeat yourself when telling someone their house is on fire. Making things personal makes them more clear.
Clever or cute messages very often lack the clarity needed to capture attention. In marketing, you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention — don’t confuse your audience with clever or cute messages that aren’t descriptive. Prospects need to know immediately that your product or service can help them, and even if they get the joke, audiences often forget the company when marketing relies too heavily on cleverness.
Some unclear messages are not descriptive enough to be immediately understood. Don’t use inside jokes or industry terms if you want to capture attention, and don’t be too general. Make sure you’re targeting your audience in clear, easily understood and quickly grasped language that lets them know you’re talking to them, and that there’s a clear benefit for them give you their attention.
Tune in later for more info on capturing attention, specifically some discussion about the second reason marketing efforts fail to capture attention: inconsistency.
[tags]capture attention, attention, marketing, failed marketing efforts[/tags]
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