8 seconds to engage. Yes, according to research from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the average attention span of an adult has dropped to under 8 seconds. That means, as humans, our attention span is now actually shorter than the average goldfish (which can focus for an impressive 9 seconds).
It’s easy to view that stat as something to chuckle about, but the implications for marketers are significant. Catching the attention of an audience and engaging them is becoming increasingly difficult; thus, requiring marketers to go beyond traditional forms of marketing to successfully reach prospects.
So how are marketers overcoming this challenge and beating the goldfish?
One of our customers, ExactTarget, tackled this dilemma by leveraging the power of video portals on their website. Video portals make a collection out of your video content on one screen in an easy to surf manner. ExactTarget implemented a beautiful video portal that contains a volume of amazing video content about their customers, products, events, and more. The results of adding this portal are more than impressive - ExactTarget reported over 100% increase in time on site, a 12% reduction in bounce rate, and a material increase in new sales leads.
Now, the magnitude of those results are nothing to chuckle at. By creating this TV channel experience on their website, they were able to tap into the content-snacking/channel-surfing tendencies of their audience and dramatically increase content engagement.
The Power of Portals
The lesson here is clear. A single video has the power to engage but a video portal, with a collection of content, can have an exponential effect on engagement and help marketers beat that goldfish. Want to learn more:
Download the ExactTarget Research Study here
Sign up - CMI Founder and the “Godfather of Content Marketing” Joe Pulizzi is doing a webinar on this topic July 17th - register here
Stay tuned for more blog posts over the next 4 weeks as we explore more great examples of the “Power of Portals”