Research has shown that you have about eight seconds to capture people’s attention. That’s the length of the average attention span, and if you fail to capture the audience in that time, you’ve lost your chance to convert a potential customer. The question is, then, how do you capture an audience’s attention quickly? Learn some tried and true methods for engaging audiences and capturing their attention.
Create Compelling (and Scalable) Content
Compelling content is an excellent way to capture your audience’s attention. Use words that engage and entice readers and make sure your content provides value. Also, the content needs to be scalable. Use headlines, bullet points, and lists to break up the content. People should be able to skim the content and understand the basic concept.
Use Graphics
In the time of short attention spans, graphics are more important than ever before. While stock images can increase conversation rates, your campaign will perform much better if you go with custom images. Use the custom images for your:
- Website
- Social media pages
- Email marketing campaign
You can even use them when marketing offline. No matter where you send the images, you can rest assured that they will capture your audience’s attention.
Post Videos
Videos are another excellent way to capture your audience’s attention. They are also incredibly versatile. You can put videos on your website, social media accounts, and YouTube. You can also include videos in your email marketing campaign if you wish.
You can expect some excellent results when you start using videos. For example, tweets that contain videos enjoy 10 times more engagement. Also, video is more engaging than images on Instagram, and Facebook Live videos have seen fantastic results.
When people see videos, they tend to stop what they are doing to watch, so get in on the action. You’ll be amazed by how quickly you generate attention when you start posting videos.
Create Killer Headlines
When it comes to getting people’s attention, it’s hard to beat a well-written headline. Headlines constitute a significant component of your online marketing campaigns, so you have plenty of chances to draw people in. You need headlines for your website, blog posts, emails, and advertisements. If you can grab people’s attention with the headline, they’ll stick around to see what you have to offer.
There are tons of headline options, but some stand out. Consider selecting from the following headline types:
- How-to
- Guarantee
- Direct offer
- Explanatory
- Benefit
- News
- Listicle
- Proven-by-science
- Testimonial
No matter what you select, keep something in mind. Your headline should grab people’s attention within three seconds. Test your headlines to see which ones deliver.
Run Contests and Giveaways
You can also grab people’s attention with the help of contests and giveaways. People like the chance to win prizes, and they are going to pay attention if you’re offering something for free. You can go viral on social media if you run contests and giveaways now and then.
You will enjoy benefits that last well beyond the end of the contest. First, you’ll reach new people when you run games, and you can continue to market to them well after the contest is over. Second, people will pay more attention to you when the contest is over.
Once You Have Their Attention, Convert
Getting people’s attention is step one. After you have their attention, you need to convert them into paying customers. Start by building an online presence that grabs people’s attention. Then push people through the purchase funnel so you can increase your conversions. Then you will have a captive (and paying) audience online.