This is an excerpt from my upcoming marketing book addressing communication and attention span. Wise marketing communications are key to an effective marketing program.
"Your website reflects your business personality and is your first contact point with prospective clients/patients and customers. Hence, it's essential to communicate in a way that captures and holds their attention. Remember also to follow the brand guide you created.
If you've received an advanced professional degree (e.g., ND, Ph.D., MD, DC, MBA), chances are you have acquired much knowledge. That's awesome; congratulations! You should be proud of yourself, seriously. You may be an educator by nature who wants to help and heal others. Your website is your welcome mat, and when folks visit, you'll want them to feel welcomed, right, not lectured at or talked to - who wants that? Nobody, yet I see this all of the time with long, excessively, and painfully long lists identifying a medical textbook's worth of treatment options and modalities used in practice, then another long list of the sorts of disorders the provider specializes in. Long lists give the impression that you need to figure out what you're doing, and one cannot be an expert in everything.
“An Expert of Everything is an Expert of Nothing.” ~Brad
There is a delicate balance between clearly articulating your expertise and overwhelming a potential client with a mountain of information. Would you want to visit someone who talks at you for 5 minutes, telling you all the fantastic things they can do in extreme detail every time you knock on their door? It's tempting when building your website to view successful business or medical practices' websites and your colleagues' pages and to model your website after theirs. We've done the same thing and came to another conclusion - to keep our sites attractive and streamlined with the essential elements designed to pique interest and elicit contact - because once a client/patient reaches out, you'll likely book them. I like to think of our website as a dance we're having with potential and current clients - all of whom have short attention spans but ultimately need our help. Let's meet them where they are.
Attention spans have decreased in recent years due to the increased use of technology and the constant bombardment of information. In the past 40 years, the average attention span has reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. This has made it more challenging for written communication to capture and retain readers' attention.
To increase readership, it is vital to make the content engaging and easily digestible. You can accomplish this by using:
Short paragraphs,
Bullet points,
Headings, and
Images to break up the text
Additionally, using simple and direct language can make it easier for readers to understand the content.
It's also important to consider the format of the content. For example, videos and infographics can be more engaging than text alone. Moreover, storytelling and personalization can connect with readers on a deeper level and make the content more relatable and memorable. Another way to increase readership is to optimize the content for search engines, which can yield greater visibility and reach a wider audience.
Finally, sharing content on social media can also help increase readership. We'll talk more about Content Marketing later on."
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