As a whole, traditional internal communication methods need a 21st-century face-lift. Our busy lives make it increasingly more difficult to engage our audience.
On average, 76% of your audience does not engage with your organization’s digital content via email. When did we become okay with mediocrity?
At the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) World Conference this week, Cerkl’s CEO and Founder, Tarek Kamil, shared his insights from analyzing 2 million emails. What we uncovered is a truly seismic shift in the way society digests information. Communicators must adapt or get left behind.
Before sharing any communication with your audience, here are some questions to ask.
Are you Saving your Employee Audience Time?
The average human attention span has hit record lows. To compare: goldfish have an attention span of nine seconds. Humans, on the other hand, have an attention span of eight. Organizations that are successfully communicating respect the value of their audience’s time. Although we wish they did, your audience does not have the time to read every word you produce.
When skimming your digital content your audience is looking for familiar content that resonates with them personally, which leads me to my next question…
Are you Providing Value for your Employees?
Organizations that create compelling and valuable content see 8x more site traffic and overall engagement from their audience. Is your content important & vital to your audience or just to you personally?
If you are not providing value by producing content that your audience wants or needs, you will never gain their full attention. Remember you only have 8 seconds : )
The good news here is that you have jumped the first hurdle of having them opt-in to your digital communications. Now for the harder part; you need to keep them there.
Here are a Few Quick Ways you can Hold the Attention of your Audience:
- Get them involved – make it easy for them to continue the conversation by asking insightful questions.
- Appeal to their emotions – build the case for how you are providing value for them through emotional connections.
- Allow them to explore on their own – provide additional links for them to learn more about your event or a particular topic you are covering.
- Be consistent – don’t set it and forget it, your audience wants to hear from you.
What’s Next?
As a whole, traditional communication methods need a 21st-century face-lift. Our busy lives make it increasingly more difficult to engage our audience. By saving your audience time and providing them value, you will be well on your way to developing a more engaged member base. The payoff? Significant increases in event attendance, giving, participation, circulation, sales & retention. Sounds pretty good to me.
See how else Cerkl Broadcast can help your audience get and stay engaged through internal communications. Schedule a demo today.
