How to Market to Consumers With a Reducing Attention Span

It's no secret that the average consumer has a short attention span. As a marketer, this presents challenges as well as new opportunities such as video marketing. Read on to learn more!

Did you know that the average attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds now?

In a world of social media and TV, the way we consume information is changing. Now, we can absorb a lot very quickly and skip past anything we don't want to see. There are plenty of perks to this, but also a fair amount of downfalls, including our ever-decreasing attention spans. 

As a marketer, this creates a big problem. How do you get the attention of people who simply don't want to pay attention?

Read on to find out more and engage anyone with a short attention span.

Why Has Our Attention Span Decreased?

Our decreased attention span isn't new knowledge. People have been monitoring how people focus for years now and have been seeing a constant decline in how long we can pay attention to something. But why is this happening?

There are a number of reasons, but largely it seems to be down to digital technology. The rise of easy-to-use gadgets has caused a surge in the amount of information we consume, and as our brains adjust to this increased stimulation, they've decreased our attention spans. 

We're easily distracted these days. People who use multiple screens a lot to consume information are more prone to losing focus, especially for certain content forms.

This leads us to the issue that's concerning digital marketing professionals. If you want to get someone's attention, how do you do it?

Video is Now the Most Consumed Form of Content

Let's begin by pointing out that video is the most thoroughly consumed form of content these days. If someone wants to know how to do something, they watch a video. If someone wants to be entertained, they watch a video.

When we talk about thoroughly consumed, we mean that people aren't skimming through videos. When they're watching, they're watching properly! As a marketer, this should be music to your ears.

Video is beating out social media images, blog posts, podcasts, and everything else out there to become the favorite content form. There are a number of reasons for this, including that it's often quicker to watch a video on something than read about it, and we naturally find it easier to engage with a video than written text. In a world of stimulation, it's definitely the easy way to consume information.

Even Social Media Is Encouraging Video Content

If you're looking for proof that video content is becoming incredibly popular, look at social media. There's an ever-increasing focus on video on these platforms, with TikTok - a solely video-based platform - now being the fifth most popular social site. YouTube is the second most popular, too, proving that there are some big wins for video happening!

Platforms that used to be more image and text-based, like Facebook and Instagram, are increasingly showcasing social media video content. Both sites now incorporate Reels, which are very similar to the short TikTok clips and are designed to keep users engaged. With short clips auto-rolling onto the next short clips in an infinite scroll, these formats are perfect for people with short attention spans.

In terms of social media marketing strategies, it's impossible to ignore video these days. Social media is already great for reaching people with short attention spans, being one of the main reasons people become distracted at work, and video is the content form that's going to engage those same people. Combine the two, and you're onto a winning strategy!

Could Video Be Better Than Written Content?

There are tons of advantages to creating videos instead of long-form written content. It's more visually engaging and easier to absorb; your audience just has to sit back and let you transfer the information to them. With written content, it's a lot less passive, and that can put users off - there's a reason why we spend more time watching TV than reading books, even if the stories are the same!

It's easier for people with short attention spans to be become engaged with a video. You can keep it short, too, getting across a lot of information in just twenty or thirty seconds in a way that you just can't do with written content.

It's also true that our eyes are naturally attracted to movement. If you're looking at evolution and biology, we're naturally going to be more attracted to moving videos than written content because it's animated rather than static. To a human, that's irresistible!

It's also important to note that websites with video content see a whole lot more traffic. From search engine results pages, the video sees an increase of over 170% in organic traffic, and a video in your email marketing can boost click-through rates by up to 300%. Those are statistics that shouldn't be ignored.

From educating your audience to driving sales, video content is the answer to many marketing problems. It engages an audience with a decreasing attention span, helps you get across more information quickly, and boosts traffic to your website.

Capture a Short Attention Span With Quality Video

If you're a marketer looking at how to work with an audience with a short attention span, video is definitely a solution to try out. At Clipchamp, we have plenty of video editing tools and information to make creating quality content easier than ever. Engage, inform, and convert with incredible videos.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)