Posted by Dave Willems, CEO & Principal

Think about the way we communicate today. A lot of our messages have moved to the short-and-sweet variety (think texts and tweets with limited characters), but the number of them just keeps multiplying.

We’re exposed to so much content coming through so many channels and sometimes the only way to keep up seems to jump from one piece to the next at breakneck speed.

Here’s the challenge this content overload presents for us marketers: Grabbing someone’s attention is only the first step. It’s what happens next that really matters.

Yes, getting people to take notice through a colorful graphic or big, bold message is a great start, but a successful interaction is having them see past all the other competing clutter and take the time to actually process our content. That’s a tricky thing to do nowadays with all the extra noise swirling around out there.

In fact, a study by Statistic Brain shows that the average human attention span is just eight seconds. That’s down from 12 whole seconds in 2002!

So with all those apps and feeds and alerts constantly updating on a multitude of devices, how can you spark some interest for your brand and capitalize on those fleeting seconds?

It takes the right message through the right medium at the right moment.

We’re learning how truly important it is to segment our target audience, understand customer behaviors and deliver the information each group is looking for based on the various stages of the buying cycle.

We’re also learning that a customer-controlled approach is often the most effective. That means making the initial connection and then organizing the most helpful information in a “whatever, whenever” format for customers to access however they choose to explore– from product reviews and testimonials to articles, whitepapers and infographics.

With the thousands of messages that bombard us each day, it’s easy to see how the majority get lost in the mix. Consider what speaks best to your target and you may just win those coveted eight seconds.