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Attention marketing has become the new normal for promoting your products. Social media platforms dominate the lives of customers and brands trying to find ways to market more effectively. Audience attention is now a valuable commodity and snackable digital signage content is how you get people to look your way.
Let’s get a better understanding of attention marketing and see how digital signage can help you achieve more there.
Attention marketing definition
The history of the term goes back to the dawn of social media. In 2012, the British social media marketer and entrepreneur Steve Jelley introduced the notion of “attention marketing” talking to The Telegraph about the launch of his company Videojuicer.
According to him, attention marketing is a way of “capturing people’s attention and channeling this attention to an appropriate vendor when it presents itself as a genuine desire to buy.”
Creating great content is a lifeline of effective attention marketing. To get people to check your product or service, you have to establish an emotional connection first. According to the attention marketing model, it all starts with capturing one’s interest with awesome content.
Steve Jelley also emphasized the importance of social media-bred word-of-mouth, or virality, as one of the main ingredients to the success of your attention marketing.
“You don’t need a hard sell – they’re already likely to be interested in what you have to say, and therefore already likely to click through to find out what you have to offer them,” he told The Telegraph regarding the power of doing the attention marketing right.
Working with audience
But then it’s not only about capturing the attention per se. It’s about capturing the attention of the right audience.
This marketing concept only works when the people you’re advertising to are willing to listen. If your product is irrelevant to the target audience, your race for attention is likely to end up as a missed investment opportunity. That’s why understanding your audience is crucial.
Back in 2012, Steve Jelley said that a prophetic phrase:
“The power of social means that you can reach fringe or niche audiences in a way that broadcasters never can. And because you can build almost a one-on-one relationship with the end viewer, you can generate trackable and repeat returns in a way that display advertisers can only dream of.”
In a way, he predicted the meteoric rise of TikTok and the omnipresence of short-span social media. When he was saying that only Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest were around.
But in 2024, his words about the “one-on-one” relationship and easiness of reaching niche audiences with targeted content ring very true.
But while Steve Jelley and Seth Godin (a marketing guru who helped propel attention marketing concept to the mainstream) have mostly focused on social media as the primary way to implement attention marketing principles, there’s something they omitted.
We’re talking about digital signage and here’s why it’s an indispensable part of capturing your audience’s attention in 2024.
Digital signage is ideal for attention marketing
When Steve Jelley talked about attention marketing, he mostly connected it to the rise of social media and the online in general. At its eve, the concept signified an approach that was different from mass-scale general advertising. Attention marketing was mentioned as a more personalized way to communicate your promotional materials to the customer.
But in 2024, the concept has a much broader sense. We live in the era of experiential marketing. Brands are getting deeper into immersive experiences. Moreover, augmented reality and artificial intelligence help bring better personalization to promoting your products.
What stays the same is the race to capture the customer’s attention. The attention span numbers are going down and companies are trying to innovate to get the attention marketing work for their products.
Screens are perfect for this. That is not to say that social media doesn’t work anymore. It’s just that diversification of your marketing efforts proves to be the best strategy for 2024.
When you integrate online marketing with offline efforts, you’re getting more chances to charm and interest your audience. Digital signage software helps you interact with customers on a more personalized level. But it exists in the physical world and the interaction here feels real.
With such a powerful content tool at your fingertips, it’s easy to deliver highly targeted and personalized content at the time of maximum engagement. In other words, it’s a dream attention marketing scenario realized in real life instead of an online medium.
Attention marketing top tips
It isn’t enough to understand how it works to succeed. Let’s be frank, winning the attention in 2024 is hard. But you can definitely do it if what you’re doing sets you apart from the competition.
Here are some of our tips for best attention marketing results using digital signage:
1) be unique
Unique content sparks the most interest. The interest leads to sales. It’s attention-grabbing 101. Use screens to show messages relevant to your target audience. Do creative campaigns that don’t leave people indifferent. Profit from the visual technology to make a memorable point.
2) use an omnichannel approach
Going omnichannel is a sure way to increase the effectiveness of your marketing. Screens shouldn’t work on their own. You can use displays to promote your social media accounts, lead customers to your website, announce time-limited promotions, or promote gamified experiences. Whether it’s offline or online, it’s still your brand that gains the most.
3) know exactly what you’re doing
Don’t start using digital signage for attention marketing purposes without clear objectives. This is a way to lose money. If you’re delivering content know exactly what purpose it serves. If you’re asking your audience about something, make sure that you know the result you want to achieve. Clarity of messaging is a cornerstone of great marketing.
4) don’t underestimate storytelling
Screens are great for telling stories. Telling great stories may prove to be a challenge. At the end of the day, broadcasting content is about engaging with your target audience. You want this engagement to be natural and beneficial. That’s why generic, boring, and unassuming content won’t do. You need strong storytelling that evokes emotions and gets people excited. Do that.
