{"id":17627,"date":"2013-03-19T12:09:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T17:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crowdspring.wpengine.com\/?p=17627"},"modified":"2022-05-06T18:58:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T23:58:28","slug":"marketing-and-selling-to-squirrels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crowdspring.com\/blog\/marketing-and-selling-to-squirrels\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing and Selling to Squirrels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"squirrel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Attention span<\/a> is the amount of time a person (or animal) can concentrate on something without becoming distracted.<\/p>\n

The attention span of a squirrel is one second<\/strong>. The attention span of a squirrel focusing on an acorn is 4 minutes<\/strong>, a huge increase! We’ll discuss acorns later (trust me, acorns are relevant to our conversation!), but first let’s look at how attention span impacts marketing and sales.<\/p>\n

Did you know that radio ads used to be 60 seconds long? Then radio ads became 30 seconds long, then 15 seconds, and now, there are many five second radio ads. TV ads have followed the same pattern. When they were first aired in 1971, television ads were 60 seconds long. Today, the standard length is 30 seconds and there are even shorter ads.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking more about this topic after talking to other entrepreneurs building online startups and to small business owners looking to improve their websites. With very few exceptions, the landing and marketing pages for these startups and small businesses are packed with too much content and too many distractions. Every extra word or graphical image on a page\u00a0 increases the “noise” on that page and impacts the attention of the user browsing that page.<\/p>\n

Here’s why you should care<\/strong>: the attention span of a human adult, according to BBC News<\/a>, is 9 seconds (the Associated Press<\/a> reports that in 2012, the average attention span for a human was 8 seconds). Nearly one fifth of all page views in 2012 lasted fewer than four seconds<\/a>. And to add fuel to the fire, people read<\/a> only approximately half of the words on a web page that has fewer than 111 words (and only 28% of the words on a web page that has more than 593 words). If you’re still reading, then you’ve obviously decided that this content had some value and was worth your time.<\/p>\n

In my own experience and in observing other users, I see three distinct attention span periods: passive, focused and active.<\/p>\n

Want a free brand review?<\/div>
\"brand<\/div>
Answer 5 short questions and we will send a custom report with actionable insights and specific actions you can take to build a stronger brand.<\/div>
\n