Stand Out and Get Noticed: Every day we are bombarded by an avalanche of marketing messages and the bombardment is only getting worse.
Did you know that on just one communications channel, the Internet, the following occurs in just one minute: (source domo.com)
- Google receives over 4 million search queries
- Facebook users share 2.5million pieces of content
- Twitter users tweet 270,000 times
- Instagram users post 220,000 new photos
- Amzaon makes $83,000 in online sales
- Apple users download 48,000 apps
- Yelp users post 26,000 reviews
- Skype users connect for 23,000 hours
- Pintrest users pin 3,500 new images
- You Tube users upload 72hours of video
- Email users send 204million messages
- Every two days we create as much content as was created since the beginning of time up until 2003
What about your inbox? The social networks are currently quoting that we each receive on average 147 emails a day. For myself I think I’m receiving over twice that number and it’s only getting worse.
Is it any wonder that in our daily lives we feel overwhelmed?
As humans we are very good at adapting to our environment and so we have adapted to deal with this cacophony of noise. A greatly reduced attention span has been our key defence:
- Average video view is 60sec
- 55% of people who click on a link to an article spend less than 15sec reading it
- 79% of web users scan vs read
- Average page visit on the web is less than 60sec
- Average attention span of a live audience is 7minutes
- When browsing the web the average persons attention span is 8sec which is 1 sec shorter than a goldfish (9 sec)
Not to mention the overwhelm we feel in business trying to use these tools in an effective way.
Within the internet space we are seeing an ever growing multitude of “gurus” who promise to unlock the secrets of the new world of marketing…they scream “forget what’s gone on in the past…this is the internet and everything’s changed…give me money and I’ll show you how!” There are a couple of characteristics of many of these so called gurus that I find amusing:
- Most of the “internet” gurus weren’t even born when many of my marketing peers started using the internet as a marketing channel
- While many have a complete lack of understanding of fundamental marketing principles occasionally I see a genius discovering a basic principle and then trumpets it as a new and magical marketing discovery. For example, customer segmentation and profiling becomes Avatars and not to be outdone some bright spark morphed the principle into Personas…I eagerly await the next new label.
The reality is that the marketing and sales basics haven’t changed between the online & offline worlds it’s just that they are often overlooked as we rush around trying to get the latest shinny marketing bauble working.
The key fundamental process of any business is the marketing and sales process. With out this your business can’t survive.
A key fundamental of a good marketing and sales process is being able to Stand Out and Get Noticed against your direct competitors and product substitutes. This is exactly the same for electronic and printed communications.
The question you need to continually ask yourself is “how am I standing out and getting noticed?”
