How to ‘get around’ the constant white noise...

The No1 Secret to grabbing & holding your audience’s attention.

Today more than ever, the battle to hold anyone's attention (even if it is to their ultimate benefit) is one of the hardest things to do and a constantly evolving puzzle to most corporates and marketers alike... If you’ve had a sit down meal with teenagers, complete with their mobile devices in tow recently, you’ll know exactly what I mean!

 But, what if I told you that with this No1 Secret, you can ‘hold the floor’ and have your audience ‘glued’ to your every word and bring potential new clients and increased traffic to all your marketing campaigns?

Let me illustrate my point with a story about a friend and work associate, who had plans to get a really intricate tribal tattoo which would cover half of his face… yep that's right, half of his face!

To add to the complexities of the issue, he also planned to surprise his future wife and Fiance of three years and to ‘get the ink done’ one week before his wedding…

Was his future wife ‘in appreciation of facial tattoos’ and did his unique facial augmentation plan align with her hopes and expectations for her big day?

Had he considered that as a new manager in a well known publishing company, could this plan have a negative impact on his fledgling career?

We’ll get to more about my mate and the dreaded ‘tattoo outcome’ in just a moment, but before we do, consider that like all of us, your potential clients are bombarded with television, social media, emails, facebook posts, instagram, snapchat, tik tok and on and on the list goes… 

You only have to ask your closest teenager a question at the dinner table to see this in action. Usually it takes a couple of seconds or so for ‘the questionee’ to lose the vacuous stare, before there’s an acknowledgement of your question in the first place. 

But I digress, It’s really hard to compete with social media, which is why it’s generally a stellar idea to leave media devices in the hallway drawer or anywhere! Just miles away from the dinner table...

We’re all so distracted these days, right?

And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better...

However, with the right approach, broken down into 3 specific steps, you’ll be able to grab and hold your prospects attention and lead them to an understanding of your message and to a place of ‘what’s next’ which should mean a positive learning experience for them, increased traffic for you and ultimately a ‘value exchange’ and profit for both of you!  

Why would you believe anything I’ve got to say on the matter of providing you with this No1 Secret and it’s three specific steps to grab attention?

Well, with years of copywriting and broadcasting experience in the Media industry with loads of testimonials as proof, also as a professional communicator, narrator, storyteller, father, husband of 27 years, mentor and trusted friend, I can tell you I’ve used this secret method, time and time again and it’s always given positive dividends... In fact, I can break this concept down for you into specifics, so it’s really easy for you to grasp and utilise in holding your audience's attention and anything you present in future will have your audience hanging on your every word…

Ready? Want the secret sauce? On the edge of your seat?

Here’s the three steps:

1. Your idea or presentation
2. An engaging start to your story...
3. And then, off onto another concept to suspend the attention! - In the meantime, your audience is waiting for you to come back to ‘finish off’ your original story...

Remember my friend at the start of my article that was about to get married? You know how he was off to ‘get himself inked’ a week before he ‘tied the knot’ with the love of his life?

So, what happened? You happened! 

Or specifically, your ‘story trigger’ happened… which I’ll also explain in a moment…Forgive me, but what I’ve done has triggered your interest in ‘the story’ based on the tale of my friend and his Fiance and the tattoo and the wedding… 

We all love stories, right?

You’ll note, I also shared a little about social media, getting teenagers to put down their phones which is really just an opinion on the difficulty of holding a person’s attention and competing with the ‘white noise’ all around us, but what's most important is, both of these stories have led you to the crux of the secret…remember the No1 secret?

This ‘secret’ is known as a hot cognition story…

It’s the secret sauce, the pinnacle, the one thing that ‘draws in’ your audience and is totally irresistible to human beings... and this is because we all have an area at the rear of our brain called the reticular activating system.

A reticular what?

I’ve researched Google (which, I do a lot) for a definition of the ‘RAS’ process, which says:

“The reticular activating system performs a crucial role in maintaining behavioural arousal, consciousness and motivation.”

What this small area at the rear of your brain does is, holds your attention or arousal to the story being provided to you, until it’s resolved! 

If you’ve ever sat up way over your bedtime, just getting in another netflix episode to finish the latest series you just can’t give up on, knowing you’ll be tired tomorrow...

Or if you’ve ever seen a stand up comedian performing, weaving and twisting stories one into another, only to go back and resolve a story, then continue a current story, whilst weaving in a new one?  We’ve all seen this occur… This is an alternative use of a series of hot cognition stories to hold your attention and lead you through the show! Before you know it, you’ve laughed for two hours and time has flown, because you've been totally engaged from start to finish!

Now, as I’ve promised, here’s the process:

1. Start with your headline or idea...

2. Then weave in the beginning and some details of your story,

3. Then head off on a ‘subtle tangent’ with the advice that you’ll be back to the original story in just a moment... in doing so, you’ve triggered your audience's RAS process!

If you’d like to grab your audience completely till you’re finished with your message, your ideas and then a call to action, introduce a hot cognition story into your writing and you’ll 'turn heads' with your audience on the edge of their seats wanting to know more,

It’s really that easy...

So, What happened to my friend and associate with the tribal tattoo over half of his face?

Truth of it is: He's only an illustration and exists in my imagination. Nothing more than a hot cognition story… 

But you know what? He also exists in your mind due to your reticular activation system! 

If you close your eyes you can see his wedding, the church, the look on his Fiance's face, the cars they had, the flowers, the priest, the suits the groomsmen wore…

Which leaves us with the question… Was our groom's face tattooed or no? 

Well that’s completely up to your imagination…

Stephen McNamara is a conversion copywriter and media producer who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia… If you’d like to learn more about RAS triggers and how to build engagement and traffic to your projects, get in touch here via LinkedIn or at https://www.stephenmcnamara.com.au