3.5 min read
We live in the attention economy now more than ever.
Of course people are still using money to buy things—that’s the economy of money, where people watch what things cost and marketers focus on price, margin, and cost of goods sold. But the attention economy is more important than the money economy. As Seth Godin says, like real estate, they aren’t making any more of it, but unlike real estate, it keeps going up in value.
We live in a fragmented world. Think about what comes to you and asks for your attention every day: email, phone calls, texts, social media alerts, postal mail, magazines and newspapers, books and ebooks you’re reading, books and ebooks you’re not reading but should, webinars, online courses, workshops, classes (all of which you signed up for), PDFs you downloaded and need to read or review, and then there’s your family, your pets, your neighbors. Somewhere in all this is getting yourself ready for the day, educating your kids or getting them to school or daycare, getting yourself to work (even if that’s just walking to kitchen table), grocery shopping, dishes, exercising, bookkeeping, putting out various fires, and getting your “real” work done.
I’m exhausted thinking about it, and so are your customers. We’re all living it, especially in this time of coronavirus.
So what does this mean for you and your business?
Anytime you can lessen the mental and emotional load on your customers by simplifying communications and saving them time, it improves their experience with you and increases trust—and the likelihood of a purchase. Your customers have given you a valuable, even precious piece of their attention. How can you save them time, eliminate confusion, give them something relevant and useful, and simplify their experience with you and your brand?
Ideas:
- How can we save our customers time when first using our service? How can we help them implement more quickly?
- Is this announcement important enough to send to our entire email list?
- What can we do to reorganize our website so it’s easier for people to navigate?
- Is our product manual confusing?
- Does my writing idea really need an entire book to explain? Would it be better done as a blog post or video?
- How can we tell people more effectively and simply what we do as a business?
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