Every marketer knows that the average human attention span is short—but just how short is it?
Remember – You’ve only got 8 Seconds to captivate your audience. According to recently released data from Statistics Brain, people pay less attention than goldfish, because the human attention span is down to a mere eight seconds (compared to nine seconds for a goldfish).
In 2000, the average attention span for people was about 12 seconds, so this number may go down further in the future. What’s more, Statistics Brain reports that on pages with fewer than 111 words, people read only 49 percent of the text—and on an average page with 593 words, they only read 28 percent.
All of this boils down to an important challenge for email marketers: How do you grab someone in eight seconds or less, and keep their attention long enough to deliver your marketing message? 3 easy steps to captivate your audience:
1. Skip the small talk
When you combine the eight-second attention span with overstuffed inboxes, it’s obvious that the first step to grabbing your subscribers is a strong subject line. But you can’t stop there.
Once your email is opened, readers should be presented with a compelling and relevant opening that leaves the fluff out and gets straight to the point.
Remember, they’ll read less than half of the text—and you don’t get to choose which words they read.
2. Craft Your Key Messages
This is why the standard marketing advice to craft messages that are short, direct, and arranged to catch the eye with short paragraphs, subheadings, and bullet points is so effective.
People tend to skim, rather than read, so you need to make the most important points of your message stand out.
The same principles should apply to your website, landing pages, or anywhere your subscribers arrive when they click a link in your email.
3. Boost engagement with personalisation
The good news is that these statistics represent the average. Not every reader will click away after eight seconds, and some will read most or all of your content. Personalisation is one of the best ways to engage more of your subscribers and convert leads to sales.
A segmented email marketing campaign that delivers personalised content according to your audience’s industries and roles, geographic location, online behaviour, and other key demographics can help you ensure you’re not marketing to goldfish.
Delivering a meaningful experience for each visitor, with a personalised call to action, increases your email campaign ROI substantially.
At Informatix, we can help you create, deploy, and analyse personalised marketing campaigns through our powerful email marketing platform and services.
Contact us today to learn how to captivate your audience beating the eight-second window and converting more prospects to paying customers.