Not unexpectedly, the mass market is viewed as a battle for attention. Attention, per person, is a finite resource and many business models these days are trying to obtain some share of that. That’s been the case for some time, but it is only recently that it has really been viewed as a crowded battlefield, or that market attention has been seen as an economy of its own, and economic principles applied to it.
Boil it all down, though, and there’s only really a single strategy to keep in mind.
Actually, there’s two. If you want market attention, you can rely on blind luck. This isn’t what you’d call a winning strategy, but it’s perhaps the most common. Occasionally someone succeeds with it.
The other way is to remember that attention is a transaction. There are two things that have to be exchanged between you and the market in order to reliably obtain a share of their attention. Miss out on either item, and you’re back to blind luck (at best).
The first is… well, attention itself. If you don’t give any attention to the market, you don’t reliably get any.
There’s a second part to that. You not only have to give attention, but it also has to be visible. Give attention, get attention. It’s one of the basic social transactions, and it’s as applicable to the relationship between a market and a business as it is to the relationships between individuals.
The second – and more obvious item – is, of course, value. You’re exchanging value with your market. You’re giving them what they want, and they’re giving you what you want. That’s basic commerce.
There’s any number of things to remember to maximise your attention gains, but those are essentially icing. Without delivering attention and value, your business won’t be healthy living on the icing.
And you won’t really get the attention you’re looking for either.
| Not unexpectedly, the mass market is viewed as a battle for attention. Attention, per person, is a finite resource and many business models these days are trying to obtain some share of that. That’s been the case for some time, but it is only recently that it has really been viewed as a crowded battlefield, or that market attention has been seen as an economy of its own, and economic principles applied to it.
Boil it all down, though, and there’s only really a single strategy to keep in mind.
Actually, there’s two. If you want market attention, you can rely on blind luck. This isn’t what you’d call a winning strategy, but it’s perhaps the most common. Occasionally someone succeeds with it.
The other way is to remember that attention is a transaction. There are two things that have to be exchanged between you and the market in order to reliably obtain a share of their attention. Miss out on either item, and you’re back to blind luck (at best).
The first is… well, attention itself. If you don’t give any attention to the market, you don’t reliably get any.
There’s a second part to that. You not only have to give attention, but it also has to be visible. Give attention, get attention. It’s one of the basic social transactions, and it’s as applicable to the relationship between a market and a business as it is to the relationships between individuals.
The second – and more obvious item – is, of course, value. You’re exchanging value with your market. You’re giving them what they want, and they’re giving you what you want. That’s basic commerce.
There’s any number of things to remember to maximise your attention gains, but those are essentially icing. Without delivering attention and value, your business won’t be healthy living on the icing.
And you won’t really get the attention you’re looking for either. | |  | |
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Getting attention is certainly the first step. Then you have to figure out what to do with it once you have it and also how to keep it. For instance, a misleading headline might grab someone’s attention, but then diminish the odds of capturing it again if they feel misled.
I’ve recently been thinking about my own “intention” economy. Shifting from the what I attend to and considering the why.
Grabbing a moment’s attention is probably as simple as putting “sex” and “world of warcraft” in the same headline. Keeping it, is harder. Attracting the same person again after you’ve lost it is ferociously difficult.
[...] July 17, 2010 tags: scarcity, Second Life by Erik Marshall (emarsh) I ran across this post by Tateru Nino about the attention economy and would like to respond to/elaborate on some of the [...]