Attention spans are short, so much so that you probably won’t read beyond the third paragraph of this article, and that’d be a real shame as you’ll miss the good stuff.
Distractions are everywhere. In fact, it’s likely your colleagues aren’t even listening to you during an important team meeting because they are checking the latest incoming beep on their phone.
According to often-referenced Microsoft research from 2013, average attention spans have dropped to eight seconds. In fact, that’s a shorter attention span than a goldfish, which clocks in at nine seconds. But that’s not really accurate. It’s worse than that, because that study is from six years ago, so the real number might be five or six seconds.
Are you still with me?
With short attention spans and constant distractions, if you can’t even get your co-workers to listen, how in the world are you going to serve up a message that actually resonates with your target audience?
There is definitely less time to make an impact, but it can be done. Applying these three Fundamental Marketing Principles is a great start that can get your conversions trending up.
Fundamental Marketing Principle #1: Learn to love impressions
Much like Real Estate 101 is all about location, location, location; Marketing 101 is all about frequency, frequency, frequency.
In today’s digital world, impressions have become a bad word. I’ve watched too many clients roll their eyes when we reference a campaign’s impression totals. Everyone wants to count the likes, shares, follows, comments and clicks. I know strong click-through rates and healthy engagement are critical, but you can’t generate those results without a high frequency of impressions that make an impact on your audience.
Impressions build your brand identity and expand your company’s digital footprint. More impressions equate to reaching a larger audience, and ultimately creating the opportunity for more prospects to click and convert within your sales funnel.
Fundamental Marketing Principle #2: Win the micro-moments
Micro-moments are those slivers of time when you are multitasking.
Like when a commercial during the football game piques your interest, so you look up that product on your phone from the couch. Or when you look up instructions on how to cook something while you’re actually cooking that meal.
You might be scanning your social newsfeed and see unexpected content that teaches you something. Or perhaps you are standing in the aisle comparing products and immediately conduct research on your phone before making the purchase.
All of these micro-moments are opportunities to engage customers when they are looking to learn something, do something, discover something, compare something, watch something or buy something. These are all one-on-one interactions on someone’s screen, so make each personal brand impression count.
You want your brand to be present in these micro-moments by seamlessly intermingling your impressions with how people live. You want your company to become part of the conversation, and ideally a knowledge source for information in your marketplace. Serving up your digital ads and content in the right places will help build a strong brand image.
Fundamental Marketing Principle #3: Be top-of-mind at decision time
If you’ve effectively leveraged your impressions and won your fair share of micro-moments, then the conversions will follow as your brand or product will be searched first when your audience is ready to make its purchase.
You want prospects searching for your company or product and not just any product in your category. For example, most iPhone users don’t shop around when it’s time for an upgrade. They simply go with the latest iPhone without even considering whether the competition has a better – or cheater – option.
That’s the brand equity (or brand loyalty) every company strives to achieve.
And it’s what SWBR did to help tool manufacturer Paslode successfully launch its new subfloor nailing system. We created videos touting Paslode’s latest tool as the only to feature key industry-first benefits. The campaign targeted construction pros on social media, and the sales soon followed.
Success always starts with solid strategic planning, but if you generate a high frequency of impressions, win the micro-moments, and place your brand top-of-mind with your target audience, then you’re well on your way to improved sales.
Contact SWBR to see how we can help your business thrive.
