How to Get Customer Attention? Strategies & Tips

Attention is crucial for effective marketing. Previously, gaining attention for an event or special promotion was easier due to less competition. However, with the rise of online business, the market has become more competitive, making attention a valuable currency.

Today, every marketer strives to create strategies that impact customers, but this can only happen if the customers are paying attention. No matter what you’re selling—technology, sports apparel, clothes, or anything else—it’s essential to spark curiosity in your audience.

This article aims to help you achieve that.

Customer Attention and Its Importance

What is Customer Attention?

Customer attention refers to the focus a potential or existing customer directs toward a specific brand, product, or service. It’s the mental space a customer gives to your offering, allowing you to communicate your value proposition and potentially convert them into a paying customer.

Why is Customer Attention Important?

Customer attention is crucial for businesses because it translates into:

• Increased Sales and Growth: The more attention you capture, the more likely people are to consider your brand and ultimately purchase your products or services.
• Enhanced Brand Awareness: A customer noticing your brand is a sign of its relevance. Effective customer attention strategies boost brand recognition and establish you as a thought leader in your industry.
• Stronger Customer Relationships: When you capture customer attention and convert it into engagement, you build stronger relationships. This fosters trust, loyalty, and advocacy, leading to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth promotion.
• Improved Customer Experience: Understanding what grabs your customer’s attention allows you to tailor the customer experience. This can involve personalized marketing messages, streamlined purchasing processes, or exceptional customer service, all leading to a more positive customer journey.

Customer Attention Examples

Understanding the concept is great, but seeing it in action brings customer attention to life. Here are some detailed examples across different industries:

For E-commerce:

• Hyper-Personalized Recommendations: An online beauty retailer analyzes a customer’s past purchases and browsing history. Based on this data, the website recommends complementary products and offers personalized discounts. This targeted attention makes the customer feel understood and entices them to explore new products within the brand.

• Abandoned Cart Reminders: An online furniture store sends a friendly reminder email to a customer who abandons their cart with a selected couch. The email includes high-quality product images from different angles, customer reviews, and a special discount offer. This re-engagement strategy capitalizes on the initial customer attention and nudges them towards completing the purchase.

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For Retail:

• The Personal Touch: A high-end clothing boutique remembers a customer’s preferred style and size from a previous visit. When a new collection arrives with pieces that perfectly match their taste, a stylist reaches out with personalized recommendations and styling tips. This attention to detail makes the customer feel valued and keeps them coming back for future purchases.

• Interactive Experiences: A sporting goods store sets up a virtual reality experience in-store, allowing customers to “test drive” new hiking gear in a realistic mountain setting. This interactive approach captures attention, creates a memorable experience, and increases the likelihood of a purchase.

Restaurants and Hospitality:

• Anticipating Needs: In a fine-dining restaurant, a couple is celebrating their anniversary. The wait staff quietly upgrades their dessert to a complimentary, beautifully presented anniversary special. This thoughtful gesture creates a lasting positive memory for the couple and could make them loyal customers.

• Interactive Entertainment: A family-friendly restaurant features a live magic show during dinner hours. This unique entertainment captures the attention of both children and adults, making the dining experience more memorable and encouraging repeat visits.

10 killing steps to get customer attention

1. Build your unique value proposition

In a crowded market, originality is key to survival. Without unique benefits, you can’t compete with established brands. A business with no unique appeal will struggle for attention. Design a unique value proposition by answering questions like, “How can you solve your customers’ problems?” and “What can you offer that competitors can’t?” Focus on your unique value rather than making vague promises online.

Example: Apple iPhone - The experience is the product.

Even in today’s oversaturated electronic marketplace, Apple remains the leading brand in the industry, recording the company’s total net sales amounted to 2274.52 billion U.S. dollars in their 2020 financial year. So what makes Apple The company firmly reiterates its value proposition in the copy about its iPhone range of products. The company builds its value proposition by creating unique experiences for customers.

Why is there nothing quite like iPhone?

“Every iPhone we’ve made - was built on the same belief. That a phone should be more than a collection of features. That, above all, a phone should be absolutely simple, beautiful, and magical to use.”

2. Establish customer trust

People can read your social media messages, but they will only continue following you if you engage them effectively. Be honest in your communication. Building trust from the start wins half the battle. Respect your customers’ time by providing valuable information and resources that meet their needs. Establish trust by becoming an industry expert, offering useful resources, and making customers confident in using your product.

In short, here are some tips to gain the trust of your audience that you can use right now:

• Get to know your audience
• Be credible and helpful
• Show successful results (real case studies)
• Be human

Read more: 7 ways to earn customers’ trust when you have zero sales

3. Have a crystal clear plan

Never wrong to plan on how you can attract customers to your business. Getting customer attention is a journey, and a feasible plan will guide you on each step of this journey.

You can’t plan everything, but when drawing a plan, you will need to anticipate the most important things to do to capture customers’ interest. You will find out more ways and opportunities to attract your potential customers.

A crystal and thorough plan will help you get customer attention in a systematic approach and know what to do next step by step. In your plan, you can test different techniques to select what works best for your business.

4. Figure out who the right customers are

The ultimate goal is getting customers doesn’t mean you will build relationships or talk with everyone. It’s crucial to decide whom you will spend your time with and also the ones that you expect to spend their time with your business. In other words, find the right target market in which you can focus on a specific group of customers.

Therefore, don’t target your customers too generally. You need to identify a specific market segment that you are going to chase. Choose those who will benefit from what you offer. For example, if you open a pick-up fast food restaurant, your customers will be those who don’t have time to cook or can’t sit in the restaurant to eat. Then, you will know your products should be customized to make it convenient for these customers to fulfill their meal without consuming too much time.

5. Understand prospects

There are dozens of ways to get customer attention, but one of the critical steps is to understand people from whom you need attention. Before you want someone to give you attention, you need to understand them to know what they need or what can really include in their circle of interest.

It’s essential to understand your audience prior to delivering your message to them because of many reasons. When you really know your audience, you’ll know exactly what to say in your message to make people want to read, listen, and pay attention to find out more about your brand.

Besides the common information about the demographics, locations, or hobbies, here are some questions you may ask to get a clear understanding of your audience:

• What are the problems they are trying to solve?
• What features do your target audience need?
• How did you hear about us?

6. Create connections with potential customers

Any brand needs to create connections with customers. If you think that the connection is only essential after someone has become your customer, it’s totally wrong. Take a website or an app as an example: you want it to be functional and pretty at the same time (custom UX/UI design) to attract visitors to your web product and deliver a specific public imageor you can hire reliable MSP staffing services for growing businesses. It’s critical to show the human side of your business that will help you get closer to your customers.

Think of the situation when you can talk with your customers like you are talking to your friends. A connection needs to be built between you and your potential customers to make them become more involved in what you say. You can gradually come closer to your prospects by inquiring more about their hobbies and interests.

Make sure you are hitting the spot as it would help you create an emotional connection between your business and your prospects. In the long run, it will help in building brand loyalty that solidifies a long-term connection with your customers.

Here are some tips to connect with your audience:

• Be empathetic and show that you care about your audience
• Be genuinely interested in what your audience is saying
• Build your self-confident
• Make sure the conversation you have with your audience is two-way street

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7. Reach prospects via different communication channels

Your prospects can be everywhere online today, so proactively reach them through different channels to grab a high chance of getting customer attention. In other words, you will leverage omnichannel marketing to get customer attention.

If you want to know which channel is the most effective option for your business, test them out to choose the best. According to a study by Small Business Trends, there are up to 50 marketing channels available to attract customers. You can use traditional channels such as TV ads, Newspaper ads, radio ads, flyers, public speaking, billboard advertising, or digital marketing channels such as Google Ads, social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, etc.).

Social media is essential today, so don’t forget to create an excellent online presence for your business on the social media platforms where your customers are most active. Using different social media channels gives customers more choice to reach you in a user-friendly way that is convenient for them.

For example, if your audience is the most of Gen Z - the most powerful generation on social media. Therefore, you have multiple opportunities to test different platforms, from Facebook, Instagram, to Twitter, because they have a “home” on all of these platforms.

An example: Nike - Gather customers’ attention across social media platforms.

The brands also execute many different viral campaigns on Facebook or YouTube using different forms of content. Nike is really successful in touching people’s hearts and making them the heroes in the story.

Here’s the “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign on Youtube from Nike:

8. Inform customers about vital information

What really makes you different from others or what’s the secret you want to share with your customers to make their life better? Share with them if you already have answers to these questions. This information should be what they want to hear most and what makes them immediately want to open the door to your business.

The risk of doing this is that your competitors might discover you and copy your work. But sometimes, you need to take the risk to gain a competitive advantage in the market and get customer attention.

9. Don’t copy others, be unique

Potential customers are overwhelmed with information, so stand out by being unique. Learn from your competitors’ successful strategies but don’t copy them. Your uniqueness is key to attracting customers. Develop and consistently use your own distinctive voice to build your brand’s reputation. Let your true self shine through.

Uber is an excellent example of the uniqueness of what it delivers to its customers. The Uber brand voice is considerate, simple, bold, and consistent. It expresses exactly what the brand is and what it stands for.

An ideal example of Uber. They create their own tone of voice and consistently use it for any content or information they deliver to the customers.

10. Be enthusiastic to get attention

You will get customer attention if you pay attention to their problems. So don’t stop if you haven’t got a “like” from your prospects. It may take time. But if you give your potential customers dedicated attention, it’s more likely that they will, in turn, give you more attention you want.

Communication is of the utmost importance to get customer attention. So if you are not excited about your products, service, and messages you convey, how can you expect others to give their attention? Express that you are always willing to listen to their concerns and have solutions to deal with.

Additional Tips to Get More Customer Attention

Tell a compelling story brand

Storytelling is an art to attract customers.

Because it connects people and gets people engaged and interested.

Whether you are selling cars, training tools, or clothes, storytelling can bring your business alive.

A compelling story will keep your audience engaged and mark your brand in their minds more vividly. When done right, a story will help you win customers attention and keep them coming back.

There are some techniques to help you become a good storyteller.

• Personalize your story
• Study your audience
• Keep your stories short
• Keep your stories character-centered
• Keep your stories visual
• Say the truth
• Put emotional factors in your story

An example of genius brand storytelling is MouthFoods. The company tells its brand story through indie creators of everything from artisanal chocolates and hand-made cookies to candy with the combination of hand-roasted peanuts, silky dark chocolate, and a sprinkling of sea salt.

The company sells these products as gift packages and subscriptions on its e-commerce site. By posting personal stories of the small businesses, Mouth Foods adds more value to what they sell.

Leverage content marketing

Content marketing is a powerful marketing channel that you can use to attract potential customers. Content is about creativity, so you can use content marketing in different creative ways to make it work for your business.

1. Create a viral content strategy

The best way to earn customer attention is by making something viral.

So what makes things go viral while others do not? Jonah Berger, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School indicated that practical content that evokes high arousal emotions gets shared most. If you are using social media, you will know the fact that people will be more likely to share content that entertains them and make them laugh.

However, keep in mind that the value you provide to your customers is the most important.

2. Use snackable content

Snackable content is straightforward, short-form, and easily digestible content. It tends to be visually engaging, can be posted consistently, and easy for customers to share, especially on social media.

Snackable content is usually used to offer immediate entertainment, enrichment, prompt social interaction, and of course, attract new customers. So if done right, it can help you get tons of customer attention.

3. Use memes in content

This is a trick that you can use to attract people to what you post on social media. Memes that create a sense of humor will make people more engaged and there’s a high chance that they will share your content. One thing to keep in mind is that the memes you use are suitable for the messages you are going to deliver and not offensive to the audience.

4. Create interactive content

Interactive content is the content where the audience actively participates instead of just passively reading, watching, or listening. This kind of content is more likely to be noticed by the audience because the feeling of being involved in the content stimulates them to become a part of it.

5. Follow a trend

You should check out a trend or hot topic that people are viral on the Internet and can be applied to what you are talking about. This content is not just sharable, but also easy to attract customer attention because it relates to what they are already talking about.

Brand out with influencers

Influencer marketing is developing stronger than ever across social media platforms. It is a great way to get customer attention. By collaborating with well-known industry influencers, you can effectively notice people and increase their awareness of your brand.

You should choose the influencers that have followers who match your target audience and can bring your brand to more audiences. Instagram is one of the most important and impactful channels for influencers, where ⅔ of marketers spend the most money on Instagram for influencer marketing.

The bottom line

In today’s information age, there is no doubt that getting customer attention is more and more challenging for every business. One of the easiest ways to be successful is to stand out from the crowd by making your messages exciting, fresh, and relevant. This article has covered the best practices to get customer attention that actually works for many brands. Try them on to see if they work for your business and share with us your success. Thanks for reading!