Increasingly, more of our time and attention has shifted away from traditional types of broadcast media to selected channels of online media instead.\u00a0 Turning up the volume louder only causes Annoying radio ads cause us to change the channel.\u00a0 Annoying TV ads trigger a quick \u201cmute\u201d button response or channel change on our remotes.\u00a0 And half the time we have our PC in our lap, where our attention is actually focused now \u2013 online.<\/p>\n The point is, we have so many \u201cchannels\u201d of interesting content available to us, we no longer have to put up with advertisers interrupting and annoying us constantly.<\/p>\n The lonely broadcast marketer with his little megaphone no longer controls us.\u00a0 We have taken charge of how information flows into our lives and we have no intentions of giving up that control.<\/p>\n Buyers now have advertisement filters such as caller ID, Tivo and other DVR\u2019s, email spam filters and other filters that minimize unwanted interruptions by advertisements and unsolicited sales calls. But this is only the first level of defense.<\/p>\n The next level involves our mental attention filters.\u00a0 Yes, the human brain is quite capable of filtering out unwanted noise or other sounds that annoy or disinterest it.\u00a0 Ever wonder why wives become so annoyed with their husbands \u201cnot hearing\u201d them?\u00a0 Hey \u2013 it happens all the time, especially when we are engrossed in something else and an \u201cinterruption\u201d comes at an inopportune time.<\/p>\n And how many banner ads have you actually read and clicked on lately?\u00a0 How many have you even seen while visiting websites?\u00a0 Believe me, they are still there.\u00a0 But our minds have become so adept at ignoring them over the years that we barely even know they exist.<\/p>\n But our subconscious minds do see and process most everything our sensory systems are exposed to \u2013 even those pesky banner ads.\u00a0 It is our conscious mental processing facilities that are being shielded and protected from these unwanted interruptions.<\/p>\n Another part of this phenomenon has to do with the number of choices we have today to satisfy our information needs and interests.\u00a0 In the past, we had a half dozen TV channels to choose from.\u00a0 Now there are hundreds \u2013 and yet often times there\u2019s \u201cnothing on\u201d that we want to watch\u2026<\/p>\n We listen to satellite radio in our cars now.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because of the variety of programming – and to avoid the annoying ads that pester us on broadcast radio.<\/p>\n So what does get our attention?<\/strong> Increasingly, only those things which interest us and satisfy some selfish needs or desires, including:<\/p>\n <\/a> Today, people control the information that flows into their lives.\u00a0 And unless you can find a way to flow naturally into your target audience\u2019s lives within the confines of the \u201cpersonal channels\u201d people now use, increasingly, you simply won\u2019t be heard and will fade away into the background.<\/p>\n Not only that, information now flows both ways. We are all now \u201cinformation publishers\u201d via Facebook, Twitter and our blogs.\u00a0 So we are not only consuming information in various non-traditional places, we are also there producing information for our own audiences.<\/p>\n Today, we pay attention to whatever\u00a0we<\/span> choose<\/strong> \u2013 and certainly not anything that advertisers try to force upon us.\u00a0 If you\u2019re advertising and shouting, we\u2019re not listening \u2013 we\u2019re ignoring you. And unless you appeal to us in the right ways, in the right places and at the right times, we\u2019ll just continue ignoring you and you will eventually go away \u2013 because you will no longer be able to make a profit pestering us.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Advertisers are no longer in charge \u2013 buyers are in charge.<\/strong> You can\u2019t just buy our time and command us to pay attention \u2013 at least not online (and the offline methods aren\u2019t working so well now, either). And this phenomenon is just as prevalent in B2B as it is with consumers.<\/p>\n And just because you\u2019re selling to business people, don\u2019t kid yourself \u2013 we\u2019re people, too.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n People are consumers first and foremost – and business people second.<\/strong> Our consumer behaviors determine how we prefer to look for and find what we want \u2013 and how we make most of our decisions.<\/p>\n Instead of bucking these inescapable trends, smart marketers have learned to update their canvassing and branding strategies.<\/p>\n Instead of interrupting people and either shouting louder or jolting people to gain their attention, these marketers figured out if you:<\/p>\n 1) Find where your buyers are now listening,<\/p>\n 2) Provide valuable, interesting content, and<\/p>\n 3) Talk about what prospects are actually interested in.<\/p>\n Then they\u2019ll gladly pay attention.<\/p>\n What a concept!<\/p>\n And it works.\u00a0 The key to gaining people\u2019s attention is giving them great content that\u2019s interesting, engaging and useful.\u00a0 People love good content and they will actually go out of their way to actually find it!<\/p>\n That\u2019s right. Instead of broadcasting and interrupting everyone to find those chosen few who actually have an interest in what you have to say, you instead attract qualified prospects to find you.<\/p>\n Bloggers know that content is king and the only reason their audience shows up is because the content is worthy of the reader\u2019s time and interest.\u00a0 And Twitter provides yet another direct way to find relevant content, as well as poke your head into someone\u2019s social network tent from time to time and see what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n Blogging platforms like WordPress have made it so quick and easy to become an information publisher than anyone can do it. In fact, WordPress is so robust and flexible now that it\u2019s often the best way to build a new website, very inexpensively and quickly.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Millions of people are now information publishers. <\/strong>People are now so busy socializing, publishing and consuming interesting content and taking care of business online, they no longer have the time to deal with interruptions \u2013 and when they do get interrupted, instead of paying attention, they get angry and look for ways to block future interruptions (by hitting the SPAM button in email, blocking the user and making a mental note to avoid this time-waster from now on).<\/p>\n Welcome to the age of \u201cinbound marketing<\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0 Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to join the conversations taking place in your marketplace and add some actual value of interest to your audience, so you\u2019ll be noticed and buyers who are looking for you and your products can actually find you.<\/p>\n Now, having made the case for inbound marketing, there is certainly still a place for outbound marketing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not actually dead, just diluted and diminished in its effectiveness \u2013 unless you provide interesting content!\u00a0 That\u2019s why the latest Super Bowl ads try so hard to entertain us. It\u2019s the only way to get our attention \u2013 but one must wonder whether anyone is getting real ROI from such ads.<\/p>\n Marketers need to choose the right balance in today\u2019s marketing mix to ensure both routes to reaching customers are used properly. And be careful not to \u201ccross the streams\u201d \u2013 don\u2019t use traditional outbound techniques with social networking, for example.<\/p>\n Social networking is about having real conversations with people, learning and publishing useful interesting content \u2013 not advertising or direct-response marketing.\u00a0 Instead of \u201cdriving\u201d people to take action (the old marketing vernacular), we now \u201cinvite\u201d people and \u201cattract\u201d them to join us because we provide them with something of interest and value \u2013 worthy of their increasingly limited attention span.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s savvy marketer is \u201ctuning in\u201d to the personal channels where the audience now spends their time and instead of finding new ways to interrupt prospects, creating useful, interesting and differentiated content that naturally appeals to the audience.<\/p>\n This is not just about the \u201cmedia\u201d used to deliver content.\u00a0 Broadcast media (TV, radio, etc.) aren\u2019t going away.\u00a0 What\u2019s changed is that we must identify the \u201cpersonal channels\u201d people are tuned into and deliver interesting, useful content on their preferred channels of attention.<\/p>\n Broadcasting marketing<\/em> is out.\u00a0 Personal channel marketing<\/em> is in.<\/p>\n – Rick<\/em><\/p>\n![\"internet](\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/internet-marketing-strategies.png\" "\\"internet")
<\/a>people to tune out further and look for new ways to block and ignore you in the future.<\/p>\n\n
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