The fact that our attention span as human beings these days is incredibly short, is a well-known fact. There are about hundreds of things dueling for our attention at the same time, in addition to the fact that FOMO is now a thing. So, there’s so much happening and being communicated at us that it’s just obvious that the only thing you’ll pay attention to is what you find interesting or relevant to you.

Just think about it for a minute or two, what are the things you end up paying attention to as you scroll through Facebook, your SMS pile, emails and communication apps? They’ll most likely fall into these two categories: things that are relevant to you (that is, your life, work/business, growth/expansion etc) and things that you find interesting. Those are the two categories of things that we pay attention to, because there’s a lot going on and you can’t pay attention to everything. The human mind doesn’t even work like that.

Now, take these two categories and what I’ve explained above and apply it to how you’ve been communicating with your customers and prospects. Have you been communicating relevant information to your customers in interesting ways?

Thinking about this will help you in the next step.

If you have answered that question, drill it down by asking yourself how you can ensure that you communicate in relevance. What information will my customers find relevant, especially as it pertains to what I have to offer them?

Next think about your communication channels – SMS, email marketing etc. Have you been using these channels to serve your customers relevance and interestingness?

If your answer is yes – how do you know that for sure? Have you been getting positive feedback about your communication and the messages you share?

If your answer is no or I don’t know – then you should take a step back in analyzing what you offer and what your customers will find very helpful. You can ask them directly what their pain points are, and begin to tailor your communication to solving those problems. This is how you’ll start communicating for relevance.

For interestingness, play it cool depending on the communication channel. If you are using SMS, short, brief and sweet is really all you can afford. But with emails you can have awesome headlines, play around with gifs in the body of the content. Generally, interestingness can be a slippery slope because you are never accurately sure what can put people off or if you are going overboard.

It is better to always shoot for relevance and then back up with interestingness.