There's been a lot of buzz in the marketing world that suggests the average attention span of the modern consumer is down to just 8 seconds.

That’s an entire 4 seconds lower than what it was about 20 years ago, and 1 second lower than the average attention span of a goldfish!

In response to this information, millions of marketers around the world have doubled down on their strategy of using only short, snappy, quirky messaging to appeal to their audience.

But, doing so comes at a cost.

Ultra short messaging that’s focused on being quirky and different might make internal marketing teams feel great about their creativity…

But fall short when it comes to resonating with its audience on a deep, personal level.

That’s because more often than not, such marketing doesn’t speak to the deep seated pain points of a prospect, or provide enough information about how the solution being offered can improve their lives.

All you have to do is open your inbox, turn on your TV, or go online, and you’ll be swamped with ad after ad, that is high on creativity and quirkiness...

But is remiss in telling its audience how the solution being offered can either solve a deep seated problem or make a prospects life easier, better, and more convenient.

In order to break free of such poor marketing habits, the industry at large needs to redefine its understanding of consumer behaviour.

Truth is, even though people have 8 second attention spans, they still spend hours bingeing their favourite shows on Netflix, Prime, and other entertainment platforms. They even spend hours on social media, liking memes and enjoying content from their favourite influencers.

What this tells us is that, as marketers, we’re probably not dealing with an attention problem, as much as we’re dealing with a distraction problem.

People these days, especially when armed with high speed internet and smartphones, have a lot more options to occupy and entertain themselves with.

And when engaging with such people, you want to make sure your marketing is worth their time and attention.

How do you do that?

Let’s take a look at 4 simple strategies to use in your marketing to become someone your audience actually wants to spend their time and attention on.

1. Empathise with your audience - A smart business doesn’t sell products or services, it sells solutions to burning problems in the lives of their prospects.

And when selling a solution to a prospect, you must empathise with them and communicate the fact that you understand their problems, and have a real solution that will benefit them.

Most marketing messages completely miss out on this, and get straight to talking about their product. What this does is, it lets your prospects know that you only view them as wallets to monetize… not real people who matter to you.

Do enough of this in your marketing, you’ll qualify yourself as someone not worth paying attention to in your prospects mind.

All you need to do is open your inbox and you’ll see hundreds of examples of marketers doing this very thing to you, and you leaving their messages unopened.

2. Be conversational - One of the worst things you can do in your marketing is not sound like a real person

People get no joy engaging with large faceless corporations who seem overly rehearsed in their messaging (think marketing that sounds like call centre employees reading you an all too obvious script when you’re talking to them).

Instead, your audience will appreciate when your marketing comes across as an actual conversation they’re having with another person.

Do enough of this in your marketing, you’ll qualify yourself as someone not worth paying attention to in your prospects mind.

It conveys a sense of genuineness and helps build a deeper relationship with your audience instead of a surface level, transactional one.

3. Make your marketing informative - If you want to make your marketing worthwhile to your audience, you need to give them all the information they need to arrive at a decision making point.

If you’ve got genuine reasons they should choose you over the hundreds of other options available in the marketplace, don’t be reluctant to inform them about it for fear that they won’t have time to hear it.

If you’ve got a solution that can solve a burning problem for your prospect and add value to their lives, you’d be remiss in not telling them all they need to know about it.

Oftentimes, when doing this, you end up giving your prospect valuable nuggets of information they weren’t previously aware of.

This serves to deepen their perception of you as an expert worth listening to, which is great for business.

4. Make your marketing entertaining - In a world full of instantly gratifying distractions that promise to entertain your audience, it doesn’t hurt to make your marketing entertaining as well.

However, the key here is to be entertaining but relevant. Turn on your TV, and you’ll see hundreds of ads that are “entertaining” in spirit, but lacking any relevance to the lives of their audience and the problems they face.

The same applies for social media, email, and every other form of marketing that graces the marketplace.

But keep in mind, there is a fine balance between information and entertainment that must be maintained. The easiest way to be entertaining is to add a whole lot of personality into your marketing.

In a nutshell, this involves using humour, drama, and storytelling to market to your audience in ways that are relevant to them.

Doing so not only gets you more engagement, but it also strengthens your relationship with your audience, causing them to actually look forward to your marketing.

And with that, we have 4 simple strategies to use when marketing to an audience whose attention span is lower than that of a goldfish.

Happy business building!