The Fractured Attention Economy

Q: What is the "fractured attention economy" and why is it relevant to small businesses?

A: The "fractured attention economy" speaks to current user behavior on digital platforms, where people’s attention is highly scattered  across dozens of sites/apps/screen combinations. In addition to the vast amount of content options available, the average human attention span on digital screens has dropped under a minute. This means a marketing message has less than ten seconds to capture interest before a user moves on. Businesses, both large and small, must adapt to this changing landscape and tailor their marketing to increasingly inattentive audiences.

Q: What has caused this continually decreasing attention span?

A: There are several trends that have contributed to this trend, including:

• Technology overload, including thousands of interactions on smartphones per user per day
• Overwhelming volume of content options
• Multitasking culture, which has been shown to actually decrease productivity
• Social media, which conditions users to prefer the instant gratification of quick content consumption, creating an ‘Impulse Generation’ who expect immediate relevance and value

Q: Why are traditional marketing methods struggling to adapt?

A: Methods that rely on single channels, broad messaging, and limited targeting/measurement fall short due to ad fatigue, channel saturation, and a lack of personal addressability. Additionally, user preferences evolve over time, so what worked last year might not work today or tomorrow.

Diversifying Your Marketing Mix

Q: Why are diversification and media testing necessary for business growth?

A: Relying on one channel because it has worked for you in the past wrongly assumes there is no opportunity cost to its success, in that you could be missing additional customers from expanding your advertising mix. Also, putting all your chips on one platform often leads to diminishing returns over time as the audience becomes saturated.  A diversified approach helps your brand stand out, and a robust testing plan is required to churn in/out partners as their contribution to business growth is observed.

Q: How will a multichannel advertising approach benefit my business?

A: Some of the main advantages include:

• Increased reach and visibility: Reaches a wider, more diverse audience.
• Higher Return on Investment (ROI): Allows testing strategies across channels to identify the most effective tactics.
• Increased Brand Resilience: Mitigates risk; if one channel experiences a downturn, the other channels can pick up the slack
• Robust Data Insights: Aggregated data from various touchpoints provides a deeper understanding of customer behavior.
• Long term growth: Creates a sustainable marketing funnel where the channels contribute to each other’s success

Q: What platforms should my small business prioritize in 2025?

A: Some key platforms I would recommend all business owners explore include:

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for organic visibility and Pay Per Click (PPC) brand visibility at top of search pages.

Google, Bing

 

Social Media Marketing

Crucial for mass audience reach and building customer relationships through organic content and targeted ads.

Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, X/Twitter and others

 

Programmatic Marketing

Deliver efficient, consistent, personalized ad experiences across the open internet, using customer data and automation. Media types include Display, Video, Native, Audio, Billboards,  and more.

Google (DV360, Google Ads), Amazon, The Trade Desk, StackAdapt, Simpli.fi, Beeswax

 

Email Marketing

Highly effective and cost efficient for customer retention and loyalty.

Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, Constant Contact, Mailchimp

 

SMS Marketing

Great for instant engagement, with very high open rates of 98%. 

SlickText, EZ Texting, SimpleTexting, Textmagic, Klaviyo

 

Push Notifications Marketing

Own the user’s lock screen with quick, engaging offers or reminders. 

PropellerAds, RichAds, Adsterra

 

Influencer Marketing

Consumers trust authentic recommendations from people they follow and relate to more than traditional advertisements. Focus on influencers with strong reputations in your market area, but some recent national partnerships are listed below.

Ex. Michael Cera for CeraVe, Tina Fey for Booking.com, Sabrina Carpenter for Dunkin'

 

Digital Partnerships/Comarketing

Collaborating with noncompeting businesses that share a target audience. Same as above, focus on businesses with strong reputations in your area for partnerships.

Ex. GoPro/Red Bull. Uber/Spotify, Nike/Apple

 

Q: How should I approach content creation to match my media buys?

A: Content should be ‘Snackable’: use powerful language, intriguing questions, surprising facts, and brief, relatable stories. Try to incorporate eye catching imagery, infographics, and short videos, while optimizing all content for mobile devices. For retention: keep it concise, use testimonials, and try to incorporate interactivity and personalization. For sharing and earned reach, implement ‘click to share’ buttons and repurpose content across all channels for brand consistency.

Centralizing Your Marketing Data

Q: What are the benefits of data collection/aggregation?

A: Data aggregation is the process of collecting, processing, and visualizing data from various sources (like APIs, spreadsheets, CRM systems, and social media platforms) into a single, summarized, and unified dataset. This creates a "single source of truth" for all customer information, making it easier to access, analyze, and take action on.

Q: What are the benefits of a single source of truth?

A: Centralized marketing data offers significant benefits, such as:

• Enhanced data consistency and accuracy: Ensures uniformity in data processing and eliminates discrepancies.
• Improved efficiency and time management: Reduces manual data collection, freeing teams for strategic tasks.
• Deeper insights and better decision making: Aggregates customer interaction data to identify behavioral patterns and trends, leading to more informed decisions.
• Hyper-personalization: A 360 degree customer profile enables highly personalized experiences and cross channel messaging.
• Accurate ROI measurement: Provides a clear picture of return on investment by allowing direct comparison of different marketing campaigns.
• Scalability and future readiness: Lays the groundwork for future marketing automation and predictive analytics.

Powerful/affordable options include Microsoft’s PowerBI, Google’s Looker Studio, Zoho Analytics, Coupler.io, and Metabase.

From Data to Decisions

Q: How does aggregated data help small businesses understand their customers better?

A: It allows them to create a 360 degree profile of a user, so they can perform:

• Segmentation: Dividing customers into distinct groups based on shared characteristics (demographics, psychographics) and behaviors (purchase frequency, loyalty) for targeted marketing.
• Customer journey mapping: Visualizing the customer's entire experience to identify challenges and actions at each interaction stage, revealing opportunities for optimization.
• Measurement of Impact on Business goals: Provides a more accurate picture of ROI by allowing direct comparison of different marketing campaigns, cost per acquisition (CPA), and customer lifetime value (CLV).

Q: How does centralized data enable personalized marketing strategies?

A: A centralized data source is necessary to create personalized experiences for consumers, who expect information directly relevant to their needs. With a unified customer profile, businesses can precisely tailor marketing messages and provide real time recommendations, leading to significantly improved campaign effectiveness.

Navigating the Path Forward

Q: What challenges should I expect to face when trying to get started?

A: Small businesses often struggle with:

• Limited marketing budgets.
• Small marketing teams and the stress of ‘DIY’
• Inconsistent or sporadic marketing efforts.
• Limited content availability.
• Lack of marketing expertise and difficulty keeping up with rapidly changing digital trends.
• Difficulty measuring effectiveness and connecting marketing activities directly to revenue.

Q: How can I overcome these challenges and succeed?

A: There is no foolproof plan, there will be bumps in the road. Here are some recommended steps for business owners to get started.

• Start at a Comfortable Level and Define Goals: Use a crawl/walk/run approach and clearly define marketing goals and key metrics.
• Leverage User Friendly Tools: Prioritize tools that are easy to learn, offer ‘no code’ interfaces, and provide built-in templates.
• Automate Where Possible: Implement tools that automate data collection, reporting, and routine marketing tasks.
• Strategic Outsourcing and Education: Consider outsourcing specialized tasks and utilize free or affordable online resources for training.
• Embrace Content Repurposing: Maximize content by adapting it for  different channels.
• Focus on Your Audience and Personalize: Concentrate efforts on channels where your target audience is most active and leverage aggregated data for personalized experiences.

Measure, Analyze, and Optimize Continuously: Regularly track KPIs, review data insights, and adjust strategies as needed for continuous improvement.