FOCUS 1: Attention How much is attention worth?

What mindshare means for your brand and revenue goals

Content is king

The famous statement made by Bill Gates in 1996 rings truer with every passing day. We all know that modern customers demand the right content at every step of their journey to stay informed, navigate crowded marketplaces, and make better decisions.

Yet how many of us really understand the science behind what makes “great” marketing content? How many of us are clear on the true value of buyer and customer attention and how to get more of it?

Before looking into how we can get more attention, it is important to understand the true value of attention when it comes to driving key business outcomes.

So let's dive in…

The attention economy

Never before in history have people had access to so much choice.

Every single day, we are each inundated with hundreds – if not thousands – of options for what to read, what to watch, what to eat, what to listen to, and what to spend our time and money on. Even a king or queen at the turn of the 20th century had nothing like the range of choices we each take for granted every single day of our lives in the 21st century.

And this range of choice is forever expanding and diversifying as the world around us becomes more connected, markets mature, and new, innovative providers spring up in every corner to meet unfulfilled needs.

On one hand, this is excellent for business – we can now connect instantly with many thousands of new potential customers around the world who were previously inaccessible to us.

On the other hand, this is terrible for business – because so can our competitors!

As a result, every business on the planet finds itself engaged in a continually evolving battle for the same thing: your attention.

Because if we are to thrive in this ever-more connected and accessible global marketplace, we need to be seen, heard, and recognized before we can begin building the relationships we need to grow our businesses.

After all, if you don’t have someone’s attention,
how can you build a relationship with them?

The science of attention

It’s tempting to think that an intuitive understanding of “attention” is enough to allow us to begin planning how to get more of it. However, many traditional or obvious measures of attention and engagement can be incredibly misleading.

Simplistic metrics like clicks, opens, and downloads have been used for decades as a way of measuring attention and engagement. But these low-resolution metrics will (at best) mask reality and (at worst)lead us in the wrong direction.

Attention economics

In 2019, Dentsu Aegis launched 'The Attention Economy': a study designed to explore the connections between attention and consumer buying behavior. The study examined 3,400 people as they engaged with 17,000 different adverts across various channels. Attention was measured using state-of-the-art eye-tracking to establish how deeply an advert was engaged with, how long for, and what percentage of it was visible and in full or partial gaze of the recipient as they engaged with it.

Crucially, the study went further than just measuring attention and engagement. Dentsu Aegis used the concept of STATS (Short Time Advertising Strength) to correlate attention levels with commercial outcomes by making products available for consideration and purchase through a virtual store for a period after the study.

This revolutionary approach allowed the researchers to properly explore the connections between real engagement metrics and buying behavior to find a causal link and demonstrate the true value of attention.

Every second counts. The longer people looked at an ad, the bigger the uplift on sales.

Dentsu Aegis, multinational media and digital marketing communications company

Linking attention and intent

The key result was confirmation of the fact that the more time and attention we give to an advert, the higher our propensity to buy. Specifically, the study found that adverts viewed for a total of 30 seconds resulted in an almost 40% increase in the likelihood to purchase versus an advert that was merely skimmed for a few seconds.

This finding was backed up by a similar result which showed a direct correlation between how intense the focus was on a given advert and a recipient’s propensity to buy, irrespective of time spent viewing the advert. Specifically, an advert that received full attention resulted in a 15% increase in the likelihood to buy versus one which was just glanced at.

Taken together, these two results confirm the idea that the more time and focus we dedicate to a particular message, the more likely we are to be persuaded and influenced by it.

More attention
= more revenue

With the link between audience attention and buying outcomes empirically proven, what can businesses do to remain relevant and competitive?

While the focus of 'The Attention Economy' was predominantly on advertising, the same results hold true for other forms of customer engagement. From articles to videos and from emails to web pages – if we can get our audiences to spend more quality time engaging with our materials, we should expect better commercial outcomes for our businesses.

So how can marketing teams gain more attention, without putting an even bigger strain on budget and resources?

Further in this guide, we will look at practical ways to gain more attention by improving buyer experience, shining a light on dark data, and empowering agile marketing teams to bring messages to market at speed and scale.

Want to further explore attention? Read more here on the psychology and impact of attention.

Real-world applications of attention-optimized content

Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm,wanted to deliver research reports in a more dynamic digital format. They adopted Turtl as a Content Platform, and since then have expanded it to multiple business functions and use it for everything from thought leadership to staff newsletters.

A modern format that delivers a crisper brand voice and analytics that offer previously hidden reader insights have made demonstrable impacts on the business. There has been a 60 percent increase in lead generation for Turtl-driven campaigns over their conventional campaigns.

Results like these have been celebrated internally and helped raise the profile of content's ability to influence the bottom line.

I have three letters for you: WOW. This is stunning and with this, we have arrived in the digital era. Visually appealing, informative, and enticing.

Sven Thiede, Director of E&E at Frost & Sullivan

Attention scientists at Lumen Research ran a study and found the format content is delivered in has a huge impact on reader attention.

Turtl's brain-friendly format receives 10x more engagement than traditional formats like PDF. They also discovered impacts on:

readers' brand perception
mobile engagement with content
higher accuracy in messaging recall
accessibility and visual standards