Marketing To Attention

Marketers miss the proverbial eight ball when it comes to attention.  Many marketers still believe we watch TV commercials fully when the majority of people skip the ads.  Here are the behaviors most of us do today in a world of too much marketing stimulus:

• We change channels for radio ads.
• We tear up and throw out junk mail.
• We don’t pick up because of caller id
• We mark email as spam from strangers
• We skip sites with unwelcome banners
• We completely ignore billboards and signs
• We sign up for “Do Not Call” and “Do Not Fax”
• We walk by the overbearing salesperson
• We skip the magazine ads
• We use free Craigslist rather than old school classifieds

While marketers have gotten creative throwing money at more colorful and refined artwork that interrupts us, buyers have built up defenses to block out the noise.  We have gotten quite good at blocking, ignoring and reporting unwelcome marketing.

We do other things that have our attention:

• We spend over 3 hours a day online
• We click
• We search
• We read valuable email
• We post to Twitter and Facebook
• We consume content
• We educate ourselves
• We read stories
• We raise our hands when we are ready
• We play with our smart phones
• We ask our friends for advice

So how come there is so much money spent on bad, brainless marketing when our behaviors are pretty obvious and congruent?  Why do businesses sell the way they did 20 years ago rather than how we buy today?

I say go where the attention and focus is.  Build connection each step of the way that makes you desirable.  Then, maybe, you get a chance to have a conversation that matters with someone you desperately want as your customer.  Make it personal.  Study it.  Create immense value.  Then make it repeatable.

You will then have a system and process which automates your marketing approach.  You can be strategic in your marketing automation rather than desperate and hopeful in old strategies that are hit or miss.

What do you think?  Feel free to comment.