If it feels like your attention is more fractured than ever before these days, it’s important for you to remember that you’re not alone – your consumers are feeling the exact same thing.
According to one recent study, the average American sees anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every single day – a trend that shows absolutely no signs of slowing down anytime soon. For the most part, we don’t even think about it – nor do we realize this number is so high – because digital advertisements on the Internet are so common that they’re very, very easy to ignore.
Which is not good at all if your marketing campaign depends entirely on digital materials.
So how do you prevent consumer sensory overload from getting your campaign down? It’s simple – you return to the tried-but-true direct mail marketing techniques of yesteryear for salvation.
Battling Consumer Sensory Overload: What You Need to Know
The same study outlined above also revealed that the average human attention span has decreased from about 12 seconds in 2000 to just eight seconds in 2018 – meaning that people are ignoring most types of advertisements faster than ever.
The massive volume of digital media surrounding us during every waking moment of every day has contributed significantly to this type of advertising losing its persuasive impact. Consumers these days expect ads to be social, to be personal and to be interactive as a result. In other words, you have to make your ad worth someone’s time in the first place and an offer alone isn’t going to do it.
Which is part of why direct mail marketing is still so effective.
The market research firm Millward Brown recently revealed that physical material – with direct mail and collateral like plastic postcards being a top example – helps to facilitate a far greater emotional response than even the most powerful digital channels do for the same content. This is because having something that you can hold in your hand makes the content more interactive by design. It’s naturally personal because someone knows you took the time to put something physical in the mail and because of that, it evokes more of an emotional response and helps increase your own response rate at the same time.
So nobody is saying that you should totally get rid of digital marketing. But in terms of battling consumer sensory overload in any way that you can, it’s clear that direct mail marketing is still the way to go.
If you’d like to find out more information about fighting this modern day phenomenon, or if you have any additional questions you’d like to see answered, please don’t delay – contact us today.
