3 Insights on How to Win in The Attention Economy 10 seconds.
According to the Norman Nielsen Group, that’s the average of how long you have before a visitor leaves a digital experience (website, social media, app, etc.).
The Digital World is a cacophony of competing options and attention is now the main barometer of success—or failure. It’s a cruel world indeed. So how do you win in it?
- Turn all your content into Tik Tok videos?
- Go long form instead?
- Make cheap emotional appeals to capture attention? (Those puppies were cute, right?)
Over 9+ years of client work here at CredSpark, we’ve uncovered a few actionable insights into how to ignite curiosity, capture and keep attention, and deepen audience relationships to keep them coming back for more. In fact, CredSpark digital experiences average 250% more time spent than the average 62 seconds.
Here are a few insights that you can incorporate into your content creation process to dramatically improve your attention metrics.
Insight 1: Make it an adventure.
Your audience is drowning; it’s time to turn off the content fire hose and try a new approach. At CredSpark, we help clients turn passive content into immersive, interactive experiences. With this active approach to content development, you can turn a topic or subject into an experiential journey for your audience, combining multiple content formats with interactive elements like questions, polls, game-like experiences, etc. to drive users to a personalized result, outcome, reward or even a sponsored message.
Interactive content experiences such as this one smash average engagement KPIs and reimagine how content is consumed, absorbed, and retained.
Think about your own learning experiences in the real world. Which were most memorable? Which made the most impact? The ones you passively read or watched? Or the ones you experienced actively? Interactive content takes that active learning approach from the worlds of education and training and applies it to audience engagement, capturing more mind space for longer periods of time.
Wow! That sounds cool…and complex…and expensive… Well, it is cool and with the right tools and features, it’s actually pretty easy and affordable to create these experiences. And in the Attention Economy, interactive content experiences deliver tangible ROI in the form of advertising engagement, transactions, and brand resonance.
Insight 2: Start a conversation.
Many in the media industry fret about aging audiences and about how best to attract and engage younger ones. The core groups of today’s young working professionals grew up in a world of active engagement (gaming, texting, social) and personalization. It’s not a preference or even an expectation for them, it’s actually how they experience the world.
We’ve discovered that a key way to deliver this two-way, personalized approach is to create question-driven interactive experiences that leverage that personable, back-and-forth feel of a great conversation. This approach deepens audience engagement by providing 1.) action—the tactile, physical act of responding; 2.) immediate gratification—an answer, response, or learning or discovery experience; and 3.) anticipation—what’s coming next? Audiences Eat. This. Up.
Beyond audience satisfaction and engagement, there’s another benefit for you: First-Party Data. And lots of it. Integrate these experiences with your audience data platform and you’ll create a powerful “gift that keeps on giving” when it comes to understanding your audience’s intent, needs, and interests. And deeper understanding better informs your content development, ad products for sponsors, and other growth initiatives. And it helps you deliver more value for your audience, improving acquisition, churn, and lifetime value.
Insight 3: Be savvy and selective about data capture.
Too many media, membership-driven, and community-driven organizations follow the same audience data strategy: “Get more of it.”
We advise clients to be more strategic and selective. Don’t think of data as just an output of an interactive content experience; think of data strategy as a critical input in the development of your interactive content experiences. Strategically think of what information you want from the completion of these experiences and pair that with what value you can provide your audience in return. And make sure you fully understand how you want to use that data afterwards. Don’t need it? Don’t ask for it!
Compelling interactive experiences can help you capture attention; a thoughtful data strategy will provide the information and insights you need to retain it.
Now that we have your attention...
Experiment with interactive content experiences in your organization. Need help? Let us know; we’ll create a sample experience for you using your content to showcase how powerfully effective interactive experiences can be in attracting your audience’s attention.
