Shrinking Attention Spans

Garth Beyer

With so many stories being told and so many shiny objects for consumers to be distracted by, it goes without saying telling your brand story is more difficult than it ever has been, right?

Quite the opposite.

Just over 5 years ago, we had to tell our stories for a longer length of time, we had to hold customers hands and walk them through everything, hell, we had to spend two hours with one customer in a brick and mortar shop – that, to me, is tough storytelling; it’s both time and energy-consuming with no guarantee of making a sale.

Now it’s so easy to insert a piece of your story into the consumer’s daily life: a tweet of appreciation here, a FB photo share there, a care package on their birthday, a beautifully designed bag their item is placed in, over-night shipping, Fan of The Month, location base, testimonials, the personalities of staff, the style of your customer service employees, and so on.

While long television ads and 20 paragraph “about us” pages can tell your story, there are so many other (small, quick, cheap) ways to help carry it further.

 

Stay Positive & The Best Stories Are Digested Unconsciously By Customers (Impact>Attention)

The Best Product To Pitch

Garth Beyer

It’s difficult for a person to ignite interest in a product.

Primarily, the consumer finds a product and notices how it fits their worldview first. That’s why design of the product and the branding elements around it matter so much. Only then does it function for an associate to engage in conversation about the product.

There’s two ways a pitch can go. You can either be calling to introduce a product and try to shape it to fit the receiver’s worldview or you can be calling to add a cherry to the sundae that is the receiver’s preconceived interest.

The best product to pitch is the one you don’t need to list all the reasons why they should be interested in it. They already are.

How are you building that into your product? Your packaging? Your imagery?

 

Stay Positive & Know When To Shush And Let Your Customer Fall In Love With The Product

The Next Level Of Leaving Someone Out

Garth Beyer

It’s getting easier to write and design a creative opt-in subscription. It’s easier than ever before to target a specific market. Thanks to video sharing services, it’s now easy to get everyone “in” to watch a presentation.

What about the people you’re leaving out?

We already know target marketing is about prioritizing who you want to communicate with, but what about those at the bottom of the list, do we simply leave them out?

I don’t think it’s in our best interest to. Rather, it’s in our best interest to switch our hats, and once we’ve decided how to best appeal to the top of the list, decide how can we still – at minimum – satisfy the bottom of the list.

It could be as simple as writing and designing an opt-out portion of a pop up subscription. Or still sending a thank you note to all who made a purchase even though they might not match the target market. Or putting the video of the presentation on YouTube so anyone can watch and learn.

I like to support the mentality that marketers know how to prioritize, but that doesn’t mean we remember to give back to those who aren’t the target market.

If they interact with a brand we manage, we owe it to them (and ourselves, as marketers) to give back in some shape or form.

 

Stay Positive & Prioritizing Isn’t An Excuse To Leave People Out

“What’s The Opportunity?”

Garth Beyer

We can rant about a lot.

On an almost daily basis you can hear me ranting about original content, stealing ideas, and poor marketing, but I follow it up and challenge others who rant to me to, at the end of the rant, state what the opportunity is.

Work scenario

Rant: There’s not enough Back To School content online to repin, stupid 80/20 rule on Pinterest

Opportunity: We can own the Back To School realm of Pinterest by creating 50 pieces of original Back To School content

Life scenario

Rant: It’s so difficult to make friends!

Opportunity: I can’t be the only one who feels this way. I suppose I can work more on being a friend to people instead of trying to find someone to be my friend.

Next time you catch yourself complaining, ranting, angry about a situation, ask yourself, what’s the opportunity?
Stay Positive & There’s Always An Opportunity

In The Box Podcast

Episode 20: Not Knowing, New Info, Focus vs Multitasking And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we chatted about effectively managing time, how one comes to terms with their own mortality, if we operate better while multitasking, how to come to terms with not knowing and how to shed old worldviews.

Episode 20: Not Knowing, New Info, Focus vs Multitasking And More

Time – How do you effectively manage your time? (One tool/tip)

Mortality – What is one way you come to terms with your own mortality?

Focus vs Multitasking – Is our power/intellect at its prime when we focus on one thing or does multitasking require more skill?

Not knowing – How can we come to terms with not knowing? ex: not knowing if it will work, not knowing if we should try, etc.

New Info – How do you critically engage new info that is different from a previously held strong belief?

 

Stay Positive & What’s One Way You Mange Your Time?

You’re Not The Only One

Garth Beyer

You’re not the only one who is self-conscious about your work.

You’re not the only one stressing about a similar (or the same!)  project.

You’re not the only one pressured with a deadline.

Fear isn’t singling you out. It’s targeting everyone. Being afraid doesn’t make you special like I once thought it did.

No. You’re not the only one, and acknowledging it now offers you peace of mind. In fact, recognizing you’re not the only one facing a struggle gives you all the more reason to face it, not only for yourself, but for all those who are near giving up.

 

Stay Positive & Do It For You, But Also Them

Looking For Help

Garth Beyer

Crows look for certain gestures of other crows for signs of danger or food.

Prairie dogs pop out of their holes to find the dog on watch duty.

Dung beetles, when lost, look to the milky way for help.

I look to Seth Godin and local PR agency presidents and directors for help.

Where do you look?

 

Stay Positive & You Are Looking, Right?