The Role of Attention Economy in Driving Business Sales through Video Marketing |

The Role of Attention Economy in Driving Business Sales through Video Marketing

The Role of Attention Economy in Driving Business Sales through Video Marketing

:   Modified Date:  November 29, 2022 / 02:10 AM IST, Published Date : November 26, 2021/8:16 pm IST

The ways of marketing have evolved and transformed over the years. These days, video marketing is being given more priority over other marketing means as it can be seen to capture consumer attention and convert it towards active sales. While the big companies were already investing a substantial amount of funds towards video marketing, many small businesses can currently be seen following this trend due to the availability of cheaper resources through which effective video content creation is possible.

Should you care about the attention economy?

Attention being a hot commodity in this digital era can be considered one of the most valuable resources for small and big companies alike. Attention is directing your mind’s focus towards a particular thing while ignoring others.

The modern economy heavily relies on human attention and how the products successfully capture it. However, the attention span of humans is pretty limited, 8.25 seconds to be precise. Your target consumers may spend hardly a few seconds on your website, and these few seconds can make or break your brand’s success.

This is exactly why attention can be considered to be something precious and limited. Attention economy drives social media marketing, so it is why it is a valuable resource and an essential currency. This is why you might have seen several services online being offered for free, but what they are doing is making you pay with your attention. You must find ways to entice your consumers to give their attention and then go on to spend their money on your product or service.`

Challenges of advertising to gain attention

Most of the advertisers these days are fighting blindly to gain consumer attention. This is somewhat similar to you fighting blind and throwing money willingly into a pit while fighting battles that are way beyond your means. Although such a scenario may seem extreme, this is exactly what is happening with the businesses trying to gain consumer attention by spending voraciously on advertising. This is what has led to the current advertising industry being somewhat broken.

In the past few years, the video content volume has exploded beyond imagination. This has led to a change in the behaviors of the consumers, and sadly the advertising industry hasn’t been able to adapt to this change. Nowadays, the attention paid by potential consumers on particular ads across several platforms is not the same, and the businesses are failing to consider this while devising advertising strategies.

How does the attention economy raise stakes for brands?

As mentioned in the earlier section, consumers’ attention is limited, and it comes at a price that has skyrocketed in the past few years. With every passing day, there are many new companies, new brands, and new products and services to advertise. This means that the demand for consumer attention has risen dramatically in recent years.

What has happened is, the supply in the form of consumer attention hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand. No evidence shows that the attention capacity of an individual is growing, nor has there been a rapid growth in population compared to the speed at which the brands have grown.

However, the one thing that has changed is how rapidly the behavior of consumers has evolved. For instance, the way people use any given social media platform by people has constantly been changing. So, when brands take in demand, surpassing the supply, and consider the consumer behavior’s rapid transformation, it will waste.

Why should video marketing be prioritized?

Here are a few reasons why video marketing needs to be prioritized by both big and small businesses.

  1. High conversion rates

Did you know that the most dominant sense in humans is their vision? When any information is translated to visual content, it can compel the audience to give their attention to the information in the video and buy the product or service you are offering.

  1. Perfect for Google and social media platforms

The pages that have video content generally rank higher in the Google search engine. Also, when a video captures the audience’s attention and keeps them hooked, it is likely to get shared more on social media.

  1. Easier to trust

While creating videos, you need to make them informative and interesting at the same time to engage the audience. This would not involve you directly compelling the viewers to buy your products and services. This is why it is a way in which your audience would trust you more.

  1. They explain everything

Video ads have the power to capture both the auditory and visual senses of your audience. This is why it can effectively explain anything through texts, animations, visuals, and sounds.

  1. Good for people who prefer using mobiles to laptops

Almost everyone these days uses their mobiles more than their laptops. Mobile users generally prefer video content since they can conveniently view it when they are on the go.

Directing attention economy in the right way

The traditional media doesn’t hold attention as it used to earlier. However, people still do pay attention when it comes to advertisements in the form of videos. There are a few proven ways to efficiently capture that attention by introducing a few changes in the video ads you use for marketing. You can follow the below three principles to get the most out of the attention economy.

  1. Stop investing in the “Spray and Pray” approach

Over the past few years, the quality of consumers’ attention towards TV has decreased greatly, and the cost associated with this has therefore increased. Even after this, advertisers can be seen investing a lot of money in traditional media by using the “Spray and Pray” approach. They can instead move these funds to digital video ads.

Unless you have a truly rare brand that appeals to everyone, you must direct your funds only towards the media that helps you in accurately measuring, targeting, and paying only for the received attention. More often than not, making such a shift will require you to overcome significant inertia, incompatible resources, and risk aversion. However, the payoff of such a shift would be precision, speed, and power, which outweigh the other negating outcomes.

  1. Generate maximum attention by optimizing the controllable creative factors

Countless factors decide the attention an individual would give to your video ad, like what is the individual thinking at the time they come across your ad, what they are doing at that moment, what other ads are competing for their attention at the same time, creative execution of the ad, the ad’s context, and the relevance of the ad to the person viewing it.

You cannot control some of the factors mentioned above. However, factors like the creative execution of the video ad can be controlled by you. The two major factors that can have a direct effect on increasing the attention of the audience are given below.

  • A factor that is incredibly effective for video ads is emotion. You must employ the emotion in your video ads so that it follows a rollercoaster approach. This gives way to a compelling form of storytelling.
  • The time during which the brand logo appears in a video ad also has a major role in gaining consumer attention. If the brand logo appears too soon or doesn’t appear for a long time, the viewers are likely to disengage. Brand pulsing works best for this. This means that you must introduce your brand logo several times throughout the entire duration of the video ad.
  1. Improve consumer attention in the long run

The very first time you introduce your brand to your target consumers, you cannot be upfront and ask them for all their attention from the very beginning. That is somewhat similar to asking a stranger to spend more than three hours with you. You need to work towards gaining that amount of attention over some time. For instance, you would first introduce yourself to the stranger, ask them out for coffee, get to know them, and then build a relationship where you can spend more time with each other.

This technique of marketing is called the “Ladder of Engagement.” The idea behind this technique is to gradually but incrementally build a relationship with your consumers. This means that you first start with aiming at small attention spans before demanding big ones. In this way, you would earn the consumer’s attention and keep it for a longer duration.

You can do this by the use of video ads that vary in length. Initially, create shorter video ads and then work your way to create longer video ads. You can also try incorporating “Sequential Storytelling” by using multiple stories and marketing them to your target consumers for them to see it in a sequence.

Tips to make brand videos to grab the attention of your audience

Here are a few tips that can make your product or service stand out among your competitors.

Personalized content for your customer

Personalization is something that can win hearts instantly. All big brands like Amazon Prime and Netflix can be seen embracing personalization for their consumers. Ace this trend by personalizing each piece of your video for a specific client. For instance, instead of posting just the same video on every platform, create a few different videos targeting different prospects and share them all.

Unlike the earlier times, video creation is no longer an expensive ordeal thanks to the affordable online video creation tools like InVideo. This means that even small businesses can create multiple effective videos for their marketing campaigns.

Major focus on consumers

While creating the content for video marketing, the marketing story of your brand should be the basis for your marketing strategy. Always remember that, instead of focusing on how great a brand you are, focus on how your brand can make your consumer’s life unique, great, and truly fulfilling.

This means that you must start loving your consumers more than you love your brand. Through the video content, you need to show your consumers that their frustration regarding a particular issue can be resolved only by your brand. Your passion for serving your customers needs to be shown through the videos.

You may think that this can even be done by emailing or talking to your potential customers. However, no customer would read through a long email or be interested in entertaining a salesperson via phone call. To make this information more appealing, video marketing is the right way to go about it.

Show what makes your brand unique

In business, while the data may stray from the minds of your consumers, the stories have a way of staying in their memory. While marketing your product or services, focus on how it can bring about a transformation in your consumers’ lives.

With so much competition around you, it can be difficult for you to win a customer. However, sharing the video at all the right platforms at the right time can help you with this by making the buying journey a lot easier for your potential customers.

Conclusion

There is no magic formula that you need to earn the attention of your potential customers. There are just a few principles, techniques, and tips that you need to follow to improve your chances of gaining maximum consumer attention. When you advertise your video ads on all the right platforms by leveraging all the tools available to you, you can make it big in your industry by leaving behind your competitors. The above article has all the essential pointers you need to keep in mind to use the attention economy to drive your success by marketing the video ads in the right way.