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!
