How to engage a preoccupied customer in 30 seconds?

Consumers today are bombarded with more information than they know what to do with and as a result of this, their attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and shorter.

How many times have you found yourself watching TV, while surfing the Internet and checking your Facebook?

This poses quite a challenge to marketers trying to reach that audience. This artilce dives into ways you can engage your busy and preoccupied crowd.

According to a report released by Oracle, your brand has 30 seconds or less to capture the imagination of your consumers. This is a very small margin of opportunity. Let’s look at some of the ways in which you can take this obstacle and turn it into an opportunity.

Build relationships

Nowadays you need to build relationships, not email lists.

Spamming consumers with irrelevant emails twice a day is not going to fool the digital audience of today. You need to get to know your audience, what products they have previously purchased, what gets them out of bed on a Saturday morning, what coffee they drink and more.

Once you know them, target them with relevant, directed information, at the right time, on the right device, in the right place.

Make it Personal

Chances are, your consumer will be more likely to return and convert if you have managed to offer a personal experience.

The challenge is how to do this, knowing the diverse audience your brand can interact with nowadays. The answer lies in the data you receive about your audience and how you can manipulate that data as efficiently as possible.

There are opportunities with real-time personalisation software and predictive analytics to generate insights into user personas. However, if you cannot afford this software, it is worth building out specific user types so you can begin to target those users based on their interactions with you.

For example, if a user opens a certain article within an email, they can be bucketed into a list that labels them as interested in that subject. The more granular you are able to go with this the better.

Invest in the Power of Nurturing

Your happy customers can become your biggest advocates and can also bring you repeat revenue time and time again.

There are many ways you can nurture relationships with loyal customers. Take, for example, coffee shops. Typically, coffee shops offer loyalty programs whereby you purchase a certain amounts of cups, then get one free. By putting time into building brand advocates through loyalty programs, brands can generate free marketing from customers who love and want to share the brand.

Many a time, businesses will chase the new customers but without considered effort into retaining those customers, that effort can be in vain.

[Alexander Rauser is Chief Executive Officer, Prototype]

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