Did you know that the attention span of the average adult is less than a goldfish? That means, adults typically pay attention to one task for about 8 seconds.
It’s not that adults aren’t capable of paying attention. It’s simply that there are so many different factors continually vying for the mind’s spotlight that it’s difficult for anyone to pay attention to one thing for an extended period of time.
If you don’t easily believe that there is a world of information competing for your attention, consider the following statistics:
- Businesspeople send and receive an average of 121 emails a day.
- The average adult is exposed to an average of 247 marketing messages a day.
- 28% of the average adult’s time a day is spent on social media where marketing messages are abundant.
These are just a few stats that represent how many messages the average adult has to process each day, and this is just in their work life.
What do short attention spans mean to your email marketing?
Even though people see an astronomical amount of marketing messages each day, you’ll be encouraged to know that email marketing is as strong as ever. In fact, the ROI for email marketing is about $38 per every $1 spent.
So how do you break through the noise and capture those vital 8 seconds of attention span? You may have to make some changes to business as usual when is comes to your email marketing.
3 ways to improve your email marketing to capture attention
Make your content easy to scan
No one has time to read a lengthy email with a long and flowery introduction and/or a thesis statement. Marketing writing is a whole new ball game, and here’s how you should approach it.
Your content should be brief, direct, and easy to read. This means placing the key information at the beginning, organizing your content with numbers or bullet points for easy scanning, and keeping it short. In email marketing content, less truly is more.
As an example, Campaign Monitor customer, Rolling Stone gets it right when it comes to providing quickly scannable content in their email newsletter.
As you can see in the example, within a few seconds, you know exactly what the hot new topics are at Rolling Stone. Additionally, Rolling Stone provides linked content so readers can click and read more in-depth content as desired.
It’s essential to understand that Rolling Stone’s email newsletter isn’t brief and easy to read because they lack content. In reality, Rolling Stone shares a full magazine’s worth of information each month. Their email newsletter is brief and to the point because they recognize that subscribers have only a few seconds to take in their message.
When they present their content in a quick, condensed, and scannable way, it’s easier to draw in the people who are ready to read more.
When it comes to email marketing in the era of the 8-second attention span, the first rule of thumb is to present scannable content.
Mobile-friendly is a must
Look around you right now. It’s probably safe to say that at least half of the people around you are using a mobile device. Mobile devices are gaining more and more traction each day as one of the most popular ways to consume information. 40% of online adults will sometimes begin an activity on one device and finish on another.
In addition, 67.2% of consumers use their smartphones to check email and 42.3% use their tablets to check email.
This means if your email content isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on reaching a huge portion of your target market.
Thankfully, this is something Campaign Monitor helps you with. Our pre-designed email templates are mobile-optimized, so no matter which type of device your subscribers use to view it, your email will look great.
Here’s a quick example of the same content from RollingStone’s email newsletter, but on a mobile device.
The same content loads perfectly and fits within the screen of any mobile device their subscribers may be using to view their content.
Mobile-friendly emails aren’t a nice to have. They’re a must-have. People simply don’t have enough time or energy to take extra steps to try and consume your content if it’s not convenient. Take the extra time to make sure your content converts well on smartphones and tablets. It’s worth it.
Leverage the power of visual content
Did you know that humans process an image in just 13 milliseconds? In other words, the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text.
If you’re able to leverage the power of visual storytelling by using powerful images in your email messages, you can get your message across in mere seconds.
Take Campaign Monitor customer, Pizza Hut, for example. In the following email campaign, they are essentially saying you can get a steal of a weekend pizza deal that includes three different types of dippers, and it will be delivered right to your home in no time at all. And, all you have to do to order is click the green button on the email. However, they effectively communicate that idea, not with sentences of copy, but with an engaging image and minimal copy. Check it out.
Whenever you can communicate your message with a compelling image that’s complemented by short copy, do it. It can help you get your message across much faster than if you’re relying solely on text.
Wrap up
Hopefully, you’re still reading (or at least scanning). After all, this post is all about how to keep people interested in the era of 8-second attention spans.
In short, the most important thing to remember is that email marketing is an effective way to reach customers, but you have to give them what they want, when they want it in a format they can consume quickly and on the go. You can do this by adjusting your email marketing to make sure to:
- make your content scannable
- keep your content mobile-friendly
- use visuals to your advantage
- keep it short
For more information, grab this guide to designing high-performing email campaigns.