We have become so used to this:
Headline, headline … SCROLL… another headline… skip over an ad… SCROLL…3 more headlines… a special offer… and finally… this title looks interesting … CLICK.
So much of our time online is spent skipping and ignoring information in a manner that we have become masterful at it. Just as we ignore anything we think doesn’t matter to us in the physical world, we are becoming ever more adept at doing so in the digital world.
People spend around 5.6 hours online everyday. This is a significant chunk of our waking time. No doubt, marketers see digital as a huge opportunity to get their message across, and they are using attempts that span the whole arena of what we have come to know as digital marketing.
But there is no bigger threat to digital marketing than the increasing consumer mastery in ignoring those very marketing messages, which are being packaged into a variety of forms: ads, email, product info, videos, articles, VR, promotions, recommendations, and whatnot.
Human attention span has become less than that of a goldfish. So, marketers have been using a range of tactics: from catchy headlines to interactive content, from influencer endorsements to newsjacking, and from attractive imagery to shocking videos. In fact, today there is a whole new category with VR marketing that attempts to entice people with immersive experiences that barely hinge off a completely different reality than what we live in today.
These creative endeavors have their place in sparking consumer interest. However, when we consider that one of the basic goals of marketing is about bringing a consumer closer to actually doing business with a brand, there is one minimum bar that every marketing interaction needs to meet to be able to achieve that outcome. And that fundamental necessity is this:
A marketing message must be of relevance to the target consumer, regardless of what that message is packaged within.
Without relevance a brand might succeed in achieving the metric of attention but will fail in achieving the metric of conversion.
A digital marketing funnel that shows the flow of marketing messages from the Attention Zone to the Relevance Zone of the target consumer.
A marketing message that’s not in the Relevance Zone of a target consumer is a waste of the brand’s resources and the consumer’s time.
Today, brands are spending a great deal of money to reach the wrong person at the wrong time with the wrong message.
The digital marketing world has been focused on packaging their messages to get the attention of the consumer. Let’s see how they are doing enabling their messages be of relevance to the consumer.
Are you being understood?
Naytra: The future of personalized marketing