Do we all need to become clickbait artists to get people’s attention?
Every day I receive emails from a multitude of organizations. They all want my attention. Sometimes I pay attention only to be disappointed. Sometimes I go back to a message I ignored only to realize it was something important to me. Cutting through the clutter is a challenge.
This is a problem for every organization. For profit. Non-profit. They all have the same challenge. Nobody has enough time to deal with all the clutter that shows up in our inboxes. There’s no easy way to determine what is useful to us and what isn’t.
The problem isn’t so much that people don’t have time for us. It’s that we haven’t given them reasons to make time for us. When an email from your organization arrives, the recipient shouldn’t be thinking “I’ll look at that later.” They should ideally say “I’ll look at that right away because I know it will be something useful and important to me.”
If your email marketing isn’t getting the attention you think it deserves, it’s worth taking your customer’s perspective. Maybe the format you’re using isn’t working for people. Perhaps you’re asking people to spend too much time too often. One email I receive tells me how long it will take to read the article right up front. I can spare 2 minutes to read an article. Maybe you’re trying to sell something with each and every message and now your recipients are tired of being sold to.
Providing value results in earning attention. That translates to higher open rates and more sales. Knowing whether you’re providing value is a challenge and requires constant monitoring, but it’s how successful marketers operate in today’s attention-span-challenged environment.
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