One of the biggest challenges for any website is keeping the attention of visitors in a distracted online world.
In a study focused primarily on major media companies, Chartbeat found that 55% of visitors spent less than 15 seconds actively on a page. Data will vary depending on many factors, but this short time period illustrates the brief window available to gain attention.
It is possible, though, to develop a marketing plan that maximizes the attention you receive, providing better opportunities to secure new leads and make sales. The following methods can be used to gain attention and keep site visitors active, improving your ability to promote your business.
Create Actionable Content
Plenty of quality content gets lost online because it is not presented effectively. The best content, from the perspective of businesses marketing their products and services, has practical value that readers can act on.
Readers become more engaged when they can start to imagine how they could use the content, leading to more active reading. Even if your content needs to be very technical, try to add in quotes, bullet points, or subheadings that can draw readers in.
Get Recommendations
Recommendations from recognized industry figures will completely change they way your content is consumed. Most people browse the web without giving full attention to each site, but this changes when someone trusted suggests you look at something.
Influencers and related businesses can be tough to reach, but gradually networking and building relationships can secure recommendations from these trusted sources.
Focus on Emotion
If you can introduce emotion into your marketing, consumers will be more likely to give you their attention and remember your message. It won’t always be appropriate to use emotion, but it is worth looking for opportunities to generate a reaction.
Emotion doesn’t even have to be extreme, with many businesses successfully using social media memes, videos, images, and slogans to elicit feelings of joy, sadness, humor, and inspiration.
Build a Brand
Similar to a recommendation from an influencer, a recognized brand name can ensure visitors are more likely to pay attention to your content and message. Building a brand takes time, but advertising, content marketing, and guest posting can ensure your brand is syndicated widely.
It is possible to be excessive, though, with large logos and repeated brand name mentions sometimes turning potential customers away.
Promote Your Content And Encourage Sharing
Sharing is an important part of the marketing process, with a share playing a greater role than simply getting your content seen. People share within their social circles, whether that is on Facebook, Twitter, or their own blog, so your business is promoted by a trusted source.
A share from an individual can do more than an advertisement, subtly persuading consumers to pay more attention to your message.
Study Your Audience
Finally, it is important to study your audience, looking for common trends in the people most likely to buy from you. Research helps you create one or more customer avatars that represent the type of person you should be targeting.
With this valuable information, creating content and marketing messages that will resonate becomes far easier. Following this process should lead to you building a more focused, interested, and passionate audience.
When you can successfully gain the attention of site visitors, securing new leads and building a relationship becomes less taxing. Most site visits are fleeting, so visitors don’t remember the brand or build a emotional attachment to it.
However, the ability to capture attention for longer, secure a new subscriber, and remain in contact over an extended period of time changes the entire process. Your marketing plan can then be used at every stage to continue the relationship, ideally leading to long-term relationships with new customers.
