Even if you rarely pay attention to marketing, I’m confident you’ve heard this fact (or a variation): the average American sees or hears 3,500+ advertising and marketing messages a day. It is hard to make your marketing succeed.

Here in Florida, it seems every space anyone can see is available: sides of buildings… stairs on the subway… bus shelters… taxi interiors… elevator walls… restaurant bathrooms… jackets… beer glasses …

Here’s an example from billboards on the Florida interstates.

Large corporations spend millions crafting ways to grab your attention. They hire large agencies and, together, they spend hours in meetings creating ads so you pay attention to them—and not the competition.

If you’re a small business owner or the marketing manager of a mid-size company, you don’t have to spend millions. You can spend a fraction of that. But the first step is understanding how to get people to pay attention to your message.

The secret is AIDA

As a direct response copywriter, my first responsibility is to work out a way to grab the reader’s attention. In fact, there’s a classic copywriting formula called AIDA.

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

I’ll focus on the ‘A’ in this article.

Sometimes it’s easy to get people’s attention

I just returned from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. In three halls, each the size of a jumbo jet hangar, 45,000 of my closest friends gathered to meet and conduct golf business. I go because I write copy for a golf client.

It’s a challenge to differentiate one booth from another.

All the equipment booths look about the same: the latest clubs and balls with photos of the latest clubs and balls.

All the clothing booths look pretty much the same: beautiful clothes, beautiful people.

Some companies place young and attractive women outside the booth to garner attention; there’s no scientific data on the effectiveness of this tactic, but nobody at the show seems to complain.

At the 2020 show, Callaway used this tactic to get my attention.

Yes … that’s a tank in the booth. It’s huge (like most tanks). And it worked. I was stunned.

What to do when you don’t have a tank

I know, I know. It’s difficult to fit a full-size tank on a Web page.

So when you’re working on a Web page and you want to grab people’s attention, you have these weapons.

Photos
Sound
Words
Video
Illustrations

You might think, as a copywriter, I focus only on #3. Wrong.

My job is to select images, decide if an MP3 might work, write a video script, consider illustrations, and, of course, test the headline.

If you’re working on a website or landing page yourself, then job #1 is to get people’s attention so they keep reading.

Let’s take a look at some attention-grabbing ads and websites

Here’s a famous ad from the 1930s for the advertising agency Young and Rubicam.

Note their definition of impact: that quality in an advertisement that strikes suddenly against the reader’s indifference and enlivens his mind to receive a sales message.

A super definition of “grabbing” the attention of the reader.

Pro tip: Make a connection no one else has made before. That excites people’s imagination, which gets their attention.

Let’s take a look at some additional examples.

In the 1980s, Wendy’s got the attention of the hamburger-eating public with the famous “Where’s the Beef” ads.

The question entered the public’s lexicon. The attention grabbers were the “seasoned” women complaining about their hamburgers.

Pro tip: You don’t have to get super-creative to grab someone’s attention. Just make a point no one else is making.

Next up, this highly successful online ad simply provides a relatively basic headline, a photo of the product, plus an image of a young golfer—showing some happiness. Nothing crazy. Nothing bizarre.

Pro tip: Don’t try to be overly creative. Just make your point clearly and concisely.

If you feel so moved, and your testing shows it’s working, you can get a little crazy. You’ll see examples in the small “button” ads that appear on major news sites.

Pro tip: Test to know what works best for your audience. They might like crazy, over-the-top messaging or they may respond best to something that’s simple and direct.

5 tools for getting your prospect’s attention

I mentioned the five tools at your disposal for getting someone’s attention (photos, sound, words, videos, and illustrations). Now let’s take a look at each.

Headline

If you want to generate a measurable response to your Web page or ad, you MUST have a headline.

An ad with just photos, words, videos, or illustrations may impress people and it may get their attention, but it will not generate an actual measurable response without a headline.

I wrote a blog post for Crazy Egg about headlines so I’ll only go into the basics in this blog.

A headline must grab the reader’s attention in 3 seconds.

Use one of these headline types:

How-to (How to Be Thin)

News style (Woman Loses 23 Pounds in 10 Minutes)

Benefit (Weight Loss the Easy Way)

Explanatory (How FastSlim Speeds Weight Loss)

You can also use a sub-head or bullets (or both) directly below the main headline.

Video

In the online space, many people like to use video. Personally, I will rarely watch a video on a landing page, but many do, so it’s worth testing.

If you include a video, make sure it’s relevant to the sales message and tells the reader to keep reading. Include a tease like, “in the message below, you’re going to discover exciting news about losing weight quickly—and safely.”

In reality, that’s not a tease but a headline!

Images

Many ads and landing pages work without any images at all. However, much of my copy includes an attention-grabbing image next to the headline.

You can use the photo of the expert who is the ‘author’ of the message.
Before-and-after photos work well for some products, especially in the health space.
You can use a “crazy” image that really has little to do with the product or service but makes the reader laugh or wince.
Some marketers believe a celebrity will help them get your attention.
Others like to use photos of dogs or smiling children.
When in doubt, show happiness or the end result.

Audio

I’ve written landing pages with a “play now” button with an audio message.

As with video, include a headline or sub-head telling the reader to watch the video or listen to the audio.

Here’s why: From a young age, society successfully programs us to follow directions like “enter here” or “no parking.” Make certain you give clear directions to the reader.

The bottom line

No matter which of these five attention grabbers you choose for your Web pages, it’s vital to test them so you discover what works.

Copy alone may work. A video might give you an improvement in conversion. Test different types of photos. I never know what’s going to be effective until the copy goes live.

But always remember, the first job of the copywriter (and the marketer) is to grab the reader’s attention.

Author | Marketing strategist | Consultant

Please read my blog at www.digitalsparkmarketing.com

Have you ever wondered how attention-grabbing works with live audiences?

Check out our thoughts on customer focus. Here is the scenario. You are sitting in an unassuming corner of the room and allowing everyone else to talk. You wait for a pause in the conversation, and then, in a quiet voice — but loud enough to be heard — say, “I have a story to tell you.”That’s the secret.

Telling a story. That’s all you have to do to capture the audience. Keeping control is another matter. It will depend on the strength of your story and the skill and generosity with which you tell it.

Tell the story well, but don’t perform it. Tell it with great care, great involvement, great vulnerability, and great sensuality. The story shouldn’t be like a spotlight shining on you; it should be like a gift you’re giving the listeners.

Giving gifts is how you take over the room, and the best gifts are stories. The reason that stories are so appealing is that you can transport customers into the story and give your message more meaning. Here are 12 ways to create a story that will permit you to hold onto the audience you have captured.

Parts to a story

Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your story. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries, and so on in the final third, the resolution.

Build on your experience

To tell great stories, examine your life for times, places, and perspectives nobody else had. Where do you find material for storytelling? Draw from your experiences and look inside yourself. Rely on what you know and draw from it.

Capture a thought, truth from your experience, and express values from deep down in your core. When you tell about these experiences, make it is as if your audience were there. Good stories are largely an act of curation. The greats detect stories as they move through life and then pull them together in ways that make us stop and think. In ways, that inspire.Whenever you write an article or record a video, speak or write authentically, from the heart.

Don’t worry about what people will think. Whether you swear like a sailor or are as clean-cut as they come, whether you are reserved and quiet or as intense as a Navy SEAL instructor, use your personality and style whenever you share your message.

Attention-grabbing … create a strong theme

Attention-grabbing statements … create a challenge or conflict

A strong theme is always running through a well-told story. The theme is often not stated directly in the story, but it is the essence of the core idea at the story root. A clear sense of your theme or controlling idea keeps you from trying to throw too many ideas into one story.

Good stories are about challenge or conflict. Without these elements, stories aren’t very interesting. In its most basic form, a story is about someone who wants something, and either gets it or does not. That character’s desire brings out the conflict that moves a story forward.

The appearance of the conflict is the beginning; the resolution is its ending. The compelling part of a story is how people deal with conflict–-so start with the people and the conflict. Make it hard to separate the challenges from the characters.

Start working on your ending as soon as possible

Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working upfront.

Capture attention … construct anticipation

Raise questions. Provide “bait.” The anecdote should raise a question right from the beginning. Implied in any question that you raise, however, is that you are going to answer it. Constantly raise questions and answer them. The shape of the story is that you are throwing out questions and answering them along the way.

Attention-grabbing statements … give characters personality and opinions

Give your characters a unique personality and opinions on various topics. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal? Personalities add greatly to the stories.

How to capture attention in a speech … tap into your audience’s emotions

Whenever I can listen to the best storytellers capturing their audience, I am struck by their power to pull listeners in. It is much like a gravitational force that’s impossible to resist. The best way to pull your audience in is to make them care … emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically. But how do you make the audience care?

This is the most fundamental question of all. There is no single answer. One important answer is having empathy for your audience and trying to craft your story and design your content always with the audience in mind.

Stories in all their many forms are never just about transferring information alone. We are emotional beings. To make the audience care enough to listen to you, you have to evoke their emotion.

Build mystery and surprise

A well-told story is one where you can stop at any point and have the reader wonder “….and then what happened?”Each time a piece of the mystery is solved, another one appears. That’s what keeps us listening until we reach the ending. If you find yourself struggling at times, step back, and find some mystery.

Use language to show and not tell

Show and don’t depend just on telling. Intensify the story with vivid language and intonation. Tap into people’s emotions with language. Use metaphors, idioms, and parables that have emotional associations.“Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.” — Ernest Hemingway

Show creativity

Be creative. Create a storyboard; draw it out. A good story always has ups and downs, so “arc” the story. Pull people along, and introduce tension. Make it just like in a fairy tale. There should be nothing that is standard fare. Focus on making it always creatively unique.

Employ curiosity at the end

Great stories pull readers past the obvious (but wrong) to show them the profound. You don’t have to beat people over the head with your message, nor do you need always to make your message painfully obvious. This is not about being vague or unclear. It is about letting the audience work on their own a little to figure things out.

Always create some curiosity. That’s one of your jobs as one who creates a story. We’re born problem solvers. We’re compelled to deduce and to deduct. That’s what we do in real life. It’s this well-organized absence of information that draws us in.