We are inundated with content. The average American consumes 34GB of content a week. Human brains process up to 11 million pieces of stimulus a day.
Chartbeat CEO Tony Hailepublished an article showing that over half of visitors leave a webpage in less than 15 seconds.
So, how do you train your readers to read and remember what you want them to?
- Lead them there with a list. Why? Most readers today are taught to skim through an article so unless you can pull their attention right to your point they might stop reading.
- When it comes to selling; facts tell, stories sell! Show don’t tell. Paint a picture for your reader that leads them directly to your key points.
- Less is More. The shorter the better. When you edit, remove any filler words that don’t add to clarity.
- Use fonts, sub-headers and bold or italic to lead the reader to your next point. After you have finished writing see if your eyes are naturally drawn to the key points.
- Be positive and write as though you were speaking with a friend or colleague. No one wants to feel like they are being lectured.
Of course, if your content isn’t important to the reader, it won’t matter how well you format or title it.
“A good teacher, like a good entertainer first must hold his audience’s attention, then he can teach his lesson.” – John Henrik Clarke
When the reader is given a call to action it gets them involved in the process. Have you asked the reader to like, comment, or share? Challenge them to take action. And do it in blue. Studies have shown that a blue CTA increases conversion by 20%.
I’m excited to hear what strategies you use and love, so thanks in advance for any comments that will help our community to target a reader’s attention and wrangle an audience.
