Customers span of attention

Published en El Pais, January 14th 2018

Nowadays it is hard to catch the people’s attention. We are living in an era where we are being bombarded with information. I am leaving aside if all that information is of any value, although after I close my Facebook I do need to take a deep breath and wonder if I really wanted to know all the things I just saw and read. Nevertheless, it is sad to say that despite all, checking Facebook is often more entertaining and informing that swimming through my 100+ channels on the TV.

If you are still reading and didn’t get distracted, I am very grateful and hope it was not just because of the title. People’s span of attention has reduced, and everything needs to be entertaining within the first five seconds without requiring effort otherwise you lost the reader.

But the same happens when you are trying to sell something. As some of you know I have had my fair share in marketing and sales, and I know that customers need to be convinced in the first minutes, or maybe even seconds.

At least make sure what you are going to tell. A promotor recently in the supermarket did not have more text than: “Do you want to try this Greek yoghurt?” And that was all she remembered from her instruction. And when asking what actually is the difference between Greek yoghurt and the regular one, she didn’t know what to say. The poor girl was obviously not ready for questions. I almost bought it out of pity, but I doubt that was her sales strategy.

Since the span of attention has be reduced to only a few seconds, selling is harder and the first you say should be almost convincing, or at least interesting enough that the people stay listening, reading or watching. A thing that when you want to sell something should never be forgotten is that the customer wants a solution for a need or a desire that he sometimes doesn’t even know he has. So, the first thing should be about that. Don’t talk about the company or the size of the building or the number of employees or even more boring, a long history class. No, we want to know if they have what we need!