The 5-Second Rule Your Marketing Can’t Afford to Break

Your carefully crafted email campaigns go unopened. Your beautifully designed social media posts have no likes. Your diligently optimized blog articles remain unread. 

You’re suddenly drowning in ineffective content, and your marketing is going nowhere. If it feels like the problem is that no one’s paying attention, you may be correct. So, how do you fix it?

Are Attention Spans Shrinking?

As with many things in life, the answer to this question is complicated. You’ve probably heard the shocking statistic that the average human attention span is now just eight seconds, one second less than that of a goldfish. Luckily, this fact is not only false, it’s not really a fact at all. A fictitious research institution created it. But, after several reputable media outlets cited the idea, it spread quickly and has become almost impossible to correct. (To note, there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies proving the intelligence of goldfish.)

In reality, attention is highly task dependent. If you’ve ever binge-watched your favorite television show or watched a tween play Roblox, you know that some activities can hold attention for hours. According to a report by professional consulting firm Deloitte, 73% of Americans have watched five or more episodes of a television show in one sitting. When engaging with storytelling (an essential part of any content strategy), humans have an incredible ability to focus. The same concept applies to hobbies. When you’re enjoying yourself, say gardening, baking, or fixing a car, hours can pass without you even realizing it. 

On the other hand, while working on a spreadsheet, conducting research for a project, or watching a long movie, you may feel unfocused and tend to divide your attention. You’re far more likely to frequently stop to check your email, play a game of solitaire, or pause to catch up on your social media scroll. 

Twenty-five years ago, office workers spent an average of two minutes on a task before switching to another. Now, that average has shrunk to 47 seconds. But what’s changed isn’t the ability to pay attention, it’s the amount of information vying for that attention and the tactics used to attract it. When you’re constantly bombarded by outside stimuli, you have to make snap decisions about what to engage with and what to ignore.

This is where the right digital marketing strategy comes in. Your marketing has to grab and keep the attention of your target audience quickly or risk your customers being pulled away to something else.

Are You Undermining Your Own Digital Marketing?

In the digital marketing landscape, you’re facing significant competition. To get an idea of how your marketing is being affected by attention span, take a look at your analytics. There are a few ways you can determine whether, where, and why you might be losing the attention of potential customers. The top indicators are:

• Visitors to your website leave your homepage quickly and without clicking to other pages because the visual design is poor. 
• Explanations about services and products are skipped because they’re too detailed.
• Your videos lose viewers after a few seconds because the storytelling doesn’t resonate.
• Email campaigns are deleted without being read because they don’t show value right away.
• Conversions are low because your calls to action aren’t clear and direct.

All your digital marketing, from your website to your brochure designs and email campaigns, has to be built for connection and clarity. If your creatives are slow, boring, or confusing, there’s simply no chance your audience will be intrigued enough to learn more about your company.

The 5-Second Rule for Digital Marketing

Fortunately, this particular five-second rule isn’t related to whether or not you’re allowed to eat food that has been dropped on the floor if you pick it up quickly enough. (Hint: don’t do it.) In marketing, the five-second rule has to do with messaging. This rule says that if a potential client can’t understand who your target audience is and what you provide in five seconds or less, they will move on.

The harsh truth of today’s digital behavior is that your audience is typically scanning and skimming your marketing materials. They will only take the time to dig deeper to understand complex ideas if they’re personally interested. That’s why you have to make what you do, and who you do it for, immediately clear in all your digital marketing. For example:

• On your website, headlines should clearly describe what you do, and subheadings should state the outcomes your customers can expect. 
• Videos should have a short, descriptive, catchy title followed by just a few sentences of precise text. 
• Email is still a viable marketing strategy, but competition in inboxes is undeniably fierce. So, while email subject lines and text previews can be fun or off-beat, don’t forget to incorporate a good reason the recipient should click.
• In call-to-action buttons, rather than using generic phrases like “Learn More” or “Download Here,” create scarcity and urgency by offering limited-time or exclusive deals that are personalized to your audience.

Visual layout matters, too. For decades, marketers have known that pictures have a greater impact than words alone. This is a cognitive bias universal to humans called the picture-superiority effect. In almost all situations, people are more likely to remember pictures than words. This means text should always be broken up with visuals that draw the eye. Contrasting colors attract viewers to charts and images. Use bullet points and graphics to make information easier to scan and absorb. Your call-to-action buttons should stand out and be specific about the next step you want potential customers to take.

As always, don’t ignore the power of storytelling in all of your content! Stories, especially those that are relatable, draw people in. When you follow a familiar story with an aspect of novelty, you will attract even more attention. Add a little tension, and your potential customer will be hooked. 

Now that you have their attention…

…how do you hold on to it? Unfortunately, attracting attention is just the first step in converting visitors into customers. And, if you think that task was difficult, you should prepare yourself because the second step is actually a little more challenging. You have to hold your target audience’s attention long enough to build a relationship and inspire action.

Once someone clicks, lands, scrolls, or opens, the content they see has to sustain their initial curiosity. When you’re designing your website, videos, and emails, there are some basic attention-grabbing tactics you should be implementing.

• On your home page, after the heading and sub-heading, answer the first and most frequent question potential clients ask you. 
• In a video, start with a bold statement or compelling opinion set in an eye-catching background. 
• For email campaigns, the first line must build on the momentum created by the subject line and text preview.

Customers will engage with your content, but only if you make it easy and enjoyable for them. That means strong visuals, skimmable design, and targeted messaging, all of which focus on how your company addresses their pain points, rather than your internal processes.

And, whether you want your leads to schedule a discovery call or visit your storefront, don’t forget to provide precise direction indicating what you want them to do next.

Is Your Digital Marketing Attention-Friendly?

Just like financial, content, and inventory audits, you can evaluate your digital marketing to determine whether or not it’s attention-friendly. Five quick and easy questions can get you started in the process. They are:

1. Can a first-time visitor to your website understand the product or service your business is selling within 5 seconds?
2. Do your videos hook viewers within 10 seconds?
3. If one of your marketing emails landed in your inbox, would you open it?
4. Are your calls-to-action distributed throughout your text, easy to find, and specific about next steps?

If you answered no to most of these questions, take a step back. You need to make changes. But you don’t have to undertake everything all at once, and you don’t need to do it alone. We can help identify where you should start. Just one change on your website or email subject lines can make a noticeable difference.

Make Your Digital Marketing Smarter

If you’ve been experiencing worry (or denial) about the success of your digital marketing, don’t panic. The perception that attention spans are getting shorter isn’t as dire as you’ve been led to believe. You can reach your target audience—with the right digital marketing strategy. 

The solution is not to throw away your current content. Rather, you can adjust that content for clarity and structure that appeals to how people interact with modern marketing. A few simple changes could be the difference between a potential customer scrolling past or converting.

If this seems overwhelming and you need a little inspiration, consider the case of the popular YouTube channel, Veritaseum. Their first few videos got almost no views. But, after making a change to the thumbnail template, one of the videos went from zero views to more than 100,000. Fourteen years later, the channel has more than 18,000,000 subscribers and generates an average of $50,000 per month.

The digital marketing experts at K-Kom can help re-direct and sharpen your digital marketing strategy. Talk with one of our marketing experts today!