They say that the attention span of the public, when it comes to grabbing their attention, is only eight seconds. The problem with short attention spans and content marketing is that usually it takes more than eight seconds for the user to click through to the content and start reading. But, there are ways to fight back and conquer marketing to people with short attention spans – which is nearly everyone.

If you only have eight seconds, that means you have to greatly shorten whatever it is that you are doing to market to your audience, or you need to do something new every eight seconds to grab their attention again. That’s why some public speakers can speak for over an hour and keep the audience’s attention while others put everyone to sleep after the first eight seconds. Which type of marketer are you?

Boil It All Down

* What are your objectives? – What is the overarching thing that your business needs to accomplish? You can include an objective from each sector of your business.

* What are your goals? – Describe in concrete terms what the above means in terms of measurable results.

* What are your strategies? – Describe for each of the goals, in one or two points, what will be done to meet the objectives.

* How will you measure results? – Describe, using the goals, how you’ll measure those results. What tools will be used, and when will it be done?

Try to answer each question in only one or two sentences. The idea is to keep it short, succinct and to the point. If you can’t keep it to the point now, it will be hard for you to do so when you’re creating your marketing campaign.

Things to Remember

* You can focus on one objective at a time.

* You can focus on one goal at a time.

* You can choose one strategy at a time.

You can make a list of each and create a series of advertisements that all fit together to answer the first list of objectives and goals that you created, all in seven- or eight-second increments. But, start with just one. Get one completed, launched, and measured before moving on to the next. In this way you can ensure that you are on the right track and gauge how you’re keeping the attention of your audience by the metrics you are choosing to measure, which are based on your clear and specific goals.

Once you have everything spelled out, it will be a lot easier to follow and succeed in marketing to people with short attention spans. You’re going to find that using this method will help market to all sorts of people, whether they have short attention spans or not. It’s probably better to assume that 99.9 percent of your audience has a short attention span and work from there.