If it wasn’t before, then make no mistake, customer attention is the new currency for marketers.
We are media animals it seems. The more access we get to media and content, the more we discover an insatiable appetite for information and entertainment. It is commonplace for people of all ages to consume multiple media at the same time with television, internet, newspapers, messaging and other media frequently overlapping.
Where will it all end I hear you ask?
Well for one, it seems inevitable that average total media consumption will very likely to exceed average total waking hours! However, the more immediate take away is that media will increasingly be consumed with partial attention – refer exhibit A above – something that we have all witnessed in our lounge rooms.
For those of us involved in sales and marketing, this has been known for some time. But it does represent a very new ball game.
Seth Godin captures this very nicely when he reminds us that whilst “first impressions” are still crucial – we have no idea at all when that first impression is going to occur.
This of course highlights the importance of a consistent, authentic customer experience and identifying customer predispositions in search of a “story”…
For those of us in sales, the power of repetition is also of no great surprise in this environment!
Beyond this however, how else can be we effectively deal with CADD (Customer Attention Deficit Disorder)?
Well, one virtue of the “new consumer” is that the more aggressive strain of the species will engage online – both identifying their predisiposition and perhaps even that they are paying attention!
Furthermore, for every 1 of these aggressive initiators online, there are 9 who will respond and 90 (the rest of us) who will lurk in the background observing this online activity (90:9:1 Rule). This becomes very important when brands are the topic of conversations and where we “lurkers” or “apathetics” are becoming less likely to trust a brand and more likely to trust “someone like me” online.
The bottom line?
Not withstanding the off-line world and actually talking to your customers in the flesh… in a world of customer attention deficit disorder – any online conversation about your brand is a gold-plated opportunity worth cultivating!
