Posted on Sep 7, 2011

The Essential Perpetual Launch Model

Recapturing Audience Attention

Something I was thinking about last night…

The attention span of your audience is largely out of your control, no matter how awesome you treat them.

This is just something we have to accept. Of course you get the rare hardcore true fan if you are good, but the average person will drift off no matter how awesome you are.

My personal experience is that whenever I buy someone’s product that person/company has got my full attention, be it Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Jeff Walker, Apple or some other guru or product.

But my attention fades whether they reach out to me (i.e email me) daily or once a month. I learn from them but eventually

  • feel the need to move on and learn from others,
  • just get bored, or
  • the stage I am at in my business or life moves on and what they discuss now doesn’t apply to me so much

Eventually I may unsubscribe, or just only check their emails very very occasionally as I become programmed to ignore them. Only a major announcement gets my brief attention.

Recapturing Attention…

However, when those people launch a new product I am keen to see what it is because I liked their first product. I’ll probably buy it based on my previous good experience. By buying I make a commitment to read/watch/use it, at which point they recapture my attention all over again.

I go through the cycle again of paying attention and gradually drifting off (just probably quicker).

Therefore the best way to recapture the attention of your audience is to launch a new product. It refocuses the attention of your existing subscribers, as well as bringing in new ones.

In essence you have to keep re-creating news. Just like people will pay attention to a celebrity when something news worthy is happening, but they’ll lose interest when nothing new is happening.

You have to keep creating news and drama. For product vendors the new product launch is the best way to do that.

If it works for Apple, it will work for everyone else!

The perpetual launching of new products is built into our psychological make-up and is ingrained in our society.

Just like the government has to keep launching new politicians into the scene to takeover from the predecessor, and a new cell phone model seems to launch almost daily, we are addicted to the new!

Perpetually launching products is a robust and proven business model. Keep launching or your audience will get bored!

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5 Comments

  • Chris says:

    Really good advice! I’ve used this method to keep my readers attention and interested.
    Advice like this is great because what we all know about people is they hate change but love new things.

  • Mike Teavey says:

    I can completely see what you’re saying, and I agree with you, but how are beginners at IM going to be able to create, and then re-create, products that have any value to the average buyer?

    I’ve written a couple of Kindle books, but they’re hardly what you’d call ‘products’ – If you have any advice on product creation that would be really useful to newbies like me.

  • very wonderful piece of article i must confess. Its howver not so easy launching new products, as one must ensure quality and content. No need churning out a product that is half-baked and lacking depth.

  • New has been a powerful word in advertising in modern times. The big question here is how can we implement this strategy effectively.
    Interesting article.

  • Brad Spencer says:

    Hey Chris,

    This is totally spot on….I wish I understood this MUCH more in the last year…I’d have probably made about $50,000 more by just doing more launches in a shorter (6-8 week) time frame rather than a bunch of mini ones periodically that got no news.

    Cheers,

    Brad

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