The time-competition conundrum

What it is and how to solve it

In the world of marketing, your brand is no longer competing for peoples’ wallets. Not directly, anyway. Instead, you and your friendly competition/mortal nemeses are—in fact—competing for peoples’ time.

Studies vary, but the general consensus is that we’re exposed to around 5,000 advertising/marketing messages every day. That’s a lot of stuff. So, if I ask you to recall specific interactions you had with a branded message yesterday…how many can you describe in fairly good detail?

Chances are you’re thinking of a particular handful right now, probably just the best one. The reason is because you deemed that interaction to be worthy of your time, both before and after you committed to interacting with it. The brand approached with something valuable and relevant and you decided to invest some time into learning more. After the interaction was over, you felt that it had been a valuable use of your time.

That’s what sets good marketing apart from the other 4999 daily splats of crap. Good marketing succeeds in convincing its intended targets to give up some of their valuable, limited—and above all—precious time. And the way it does this varies, depending on who that intended target market is, what message you have for them and what interaction you’d like to see happen as a result of them listening to it.

Importantly, I don’t mean that the loudest, shoutiest, brightest messages will win in the battle for given-time. Just because something is big and attention-grabbing doesn’t mean it warrants the time of your target market. Even if your target market is convinced enough to give your message some of their precious time, you could now be fighting an uphill battle—what if your brand/message is one that requires a touch of subtlety? You just shouted your prospective customer down in the street and now you want them to sit with you and talk at length about an important purchase decision?

Uh-uh, that ain’t happening.

So, how do you make your marketing worthy of someone’s time? Well, there are a few home truths that you need to understand.

Time is valuable

Time is a limited resource. Not only do people have a set amount during our daily lives, we only have a set amount during our lives, period. That means time is probably the single-most precious commodity available to a human being. If you understand that, you’ll understand why your target market needs a damn good reason to give some of theirs to your brand. It has to look—and be—worthwhile.

Time is short

When you factor in the notion that most people will eat, sleep and generally ‘do life’ for the majority of their day, you have to recognise that the time you are trying to glean from your prospective customers is very limited. Time is short, so try not to fuck about.

Time is relative

Nobody sets aside an hour of their day to ‘consume marketing messages’ (and if they do then I would question how much you really want to open a dialogue with them anyway). That means when you’re convincing them to give you some of their time, you need to remember it will mean that they will have less of it to “spend” elsewhere. Your initial pitch—and the message that follows—therefore needs to be valuable. For instance, if you’re trying to take thirty seconds away from a new parent and their baby then you better be sure those thirty seconds won’t be wasted.

Time is different

My fiancée hates the mornings with a passion that—quite frankly—scares me sometimes. At that time of day, it’s not a good idea to try and open up a discussion about car insurance (in actual fact it’s probably best to steer clear of any conversation altogether, at least until the kettle has been on a few times). The type of time you are trying to get ahold of should be considered. Don’t just think ‘time-of-day’ either; consider the mood that you want to catch them in or the activity you want them to be just starting/finishing. Ever notice that TV adverts for takeaways are always on during the late afternoon/early evening? Yeah, not an accident.

Time is exchanged

When you bid for someone’s time (by presenting them with your branded communications) you are asking them to exchange it for your message. I’ve already discussed how valuable time is, so if they commit to the exchange and are then disappointed by what they receive in return, they will not remember you fondly. If the hook itself is a dupe, they will realise and they will not like being tricked into giving up some of their valuable time.

Simply put, time is precious, don’t waste your customers’.