Scarcity of attention created by the glut of our new mass messaging world may be the single defining business challenge for any modern business or endeavor.
If we do not grab the attention of our potential customers immediately we could easily lose that business forever.
We are now being hit with so much messaging, advertising, media, and choice that those we are trying to reach and convince to purchase our offering are not paying attention anymore. While doing research for Microsoft and Apple in 1998, Linda Stone coined the term ‘continuous partial attention’ to describe how most of us are so distracted by all of the advertising and messaging constantly bombarding us that we only partially pay attention to anything. At the time, the internet was not yet in full swing and social media was decades away. How much attention do those we are trying to get to engage with our product or service have today?
When most of us think of all of the digital interaction we experience, we think about how many things we turn to every day when running our businesses and our lives: responding to email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Snapchat, text messages, mobile calls and on and on. We know we are distracted. What we don’t often think about is that those we are trying to get to buy our product or service — which we know is amazing, if they would just take a few minutes to engage with it — are also dealing with the same distractions. This is new. The internet emerged just over twenty years ago, and we are only just beginning to realize the effects of the overwhelming messaging assault it brought with it.
What this means is that you are now not only competing for attention with all of that distraction, but also with the entirety of the internet, and with others that may not even offer products or services similar to yours. We no longer have just our competition to worry about. The digital world offers alternatives by the hundreds, if not thousands, in real time with suggestions that may not even be related to you. Even 20 years ago, before Linda Stone coined her foreboding phrase, you were just competing with others that do what you do or someone offering something similar to you.
Today everything competes with everything. In other words, the constant assault of messaging and advertising is causing your message to become ‘diluted.’ More and more we are all becoming a needle in an ever-increasing haystack.
When we think about messaging overload, we should be thinking about those we are trying to reach who are not paying attention anymore — not about our own distraction.
THERE IS A SOLUTION
In my book, THE ICONIST: The Art and Science of Standing Out, I isolate a set of primal laws that explain why our eye and attention gravitate to one thing and ignore another. I also explain the conceptual rules of how to make your particular offering connect to your audience.
The biggest mistake any business can make is by leading with a message that is so long or complicated that it cannot be instantly understood.
Here are a few concepts taken from the book that give your business an immediate advantage over others who are competing for the same increasingly limited attention of potential new customers:
1) Lead with one thing. There is an intersect point between your offering and your potential customer’s greatest need. Find it, and distill it down to a single, punchy, bold point. That is your message, your Block. In a world where we are constantly assaulted with content, anything complicated gets instantly discarded — your Block is the antidote.
2) Communicate with a large, single image or oversized lettering. Overly large, singular images or massive, oversized words — like road signs — command attention. Create a visual or conceptual road sign out of your Block at every point of customer contact. This bold, monolithic way of communicating is transparent and carries conviction, which in turn will create instant credibility.
If you create a road sign and you get it right in terms of the message — remember, it is about your customer, their needs, and what they care about — you will lock attention and successfully pull your customer into the full capacity of what you do. Once your audience locks onto something simple, they will easily engage with the more intricate aspects of your offering.
3) REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT. Once you create your bold magnetic roadsign, repeat it everywhere, at every opportunity. Repetition of your conviction creates even more powerful credibility.
The primal law at play here is the bold singularity of your message based on what that audience cares about. REPEATED. This grabs attention, eliminates any competition for attention surrounding it, and reflexively, mechanistically forces it into the mind of any onlooker.
