Take a look at the adverts and marketing campaigns that you encounter on an everyday basis. There seem to be quite a lot of people, trying quite hard, to be innovative and original, don’t they?
It’s always been important for businesses to manage to stand out from the crowd. Today, though, it’s arguably a lot more important than it’s ever been before.
So, whether you could use some new subway tiles to really glam up your premises, or whether it’s time to pull out the whiteboard and come up with the next viral marketing sensation, here are some reasons why it’s more important than ever for your business stand out.
Because people today have shorter attention spans
In his book, “The Shallows,” the writer Nicholas Carr investigated evidence that the Internet – and digital technology along with it – has been contributing to measurable brain changes in just about the entire world population, to one extent or another.
Among other things, it seems to be the case that people who spend more time online have shorter attention spans – and that people today just have significantly shorter attention spans, in general, than people a few generations ago.
If you’ve ever read a guide for effective web-article writing, you will likely have come across advice to emphasise headlines, and to a ensure you get a catchy first paragraph. Why? Because, when online reading habits are investigated, it seems that most people will only really pay attention to the headlines and the first paragraph, and then briefly skim through the rest.
Considering that people have shorter attention spans these days, it makes sense that you will want to be able to “hook” them quickly, with something memorable and original. If you’re expecting them to read a full A4 page about why your business is technically quite good, then you might be in trouble.
Because all of your competitors are just a click away
Not so long ago, when someone wanted to deal with a business they had to visit it in person, and when they wanted to explore the competition, they would have to go walking and exert some effort.
Right now, though, there are no such “barriers” in place to keep people from immediately losing interest in you and going to see what the competitors have to offer. Because all of your competitors are always just a click away.
You might have a better service than your rivals do. Your USPs may be excellent. But you better also be able to grab the interest and attention of your prospective customers enough to actually keep their eyes on your site, and to get them emotionally invested and interested enough that they opt to use your services.
Because everyone is totally accustomed to ignoring advertising these days
Advertising is completely ubiquitous these days – and all of us are really good at filtering it out and ignoring it.
If you live in a city, or even a town, or probably even a well-sized village, you won’t be able to go for a walk without encountering at least a few adverts. Wherever you go online, ads are there as well. And you’ll certainly catch a few ads if you watch TV.
Part of the consequence of this has been something like an “arms race,” where everyone is fighting to make their ads bigger, louder, and more memorable – precisely because the general public are becoming desensitised to ads, as such.
If you actually want to break through a viewer’s shield of impenetrable apathy, you need to stand out.
