An attention-getting post
February 25th, 2007
All association marketing, communications and web design professionals should check out this post from James over at the Forty Blog. He has excellent advice and a useful exercise for mapping your next brochure, letter or web page to maximize its attention-grabbing potential. Here’s a sample:
The difficult part about designing for attention isn’t deciding what to talk about—it’s deciding what not to talk about. Because you only get a potential customer’s attention for a few seconds (if you’re lucky enough to get it at all) you don’t have luxury of rambling. You have to cover your key points with both speed and strength.
This applies to all marketing efforts—even yours. You might feel that, well, your industry is a little different. People will take their time with it. You don’t need to rush to get to the point. But your industry isn’t different. Your customers are human, and humans have a lot of distractions. Regardless of your line of work, or your medium of communication, it’s essential that you maximize your use of potential customers’ attention.
Right on, James. Human attention is a precious and highly-fragmented resource these days, and every association must pursue a thoughtful, strategic approach to capturing a fair share of it from members, customers and other stakeholders.
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