I talked last week about the importance (and difficulty) of being able to grab the attention of your potential clients given just how much information they're being exposed to each day.

I mentioned entertainment and usefulness as two key strategies for getting attention. Let's look behind them a bit more.

If you look at scans to see what stimuli actually light up the attention centres of the brain, it comes down to two different but related factors.

The first is novelty.

Millennia ago, our ancestors who noticed when a new funny looking cat creature with big sharp teeth appeared tended to survive. Those who didn't, well, they didn't last long.

You see it today in the way almost all of us are drawn to try new foods or the way we love a surprise ending in a TV show.

New stuff stands out, and we're drawn to it.

The other key factor is salience. Is this something that is similar or reminds of something that is already important to us?

We're great at spotting yummy red berries against the green of the jungle. Because we know those berries are good for us.

So how can you use this in your marketing?

Often a good way is to use a novel presentation of a valuable idea.

Remember those “whiteboard explainer videos” that were all the rage a few years ago? Where an idea was explained by a voice over while simultaneously being sketched out on a whiteboard.

The first few times you saw them you paid attention because they were interesting and new. And if the message in them was useful, they kept your attention to the end.

But fast forward a few years and you don't see them much any more. The novelty has worn off and we tend to ignore them as they scroll past on our social media feeds.

Same thing with live video. Or long, long Facebook Ads.

Give your great idea an unusual presentation and you can get the attention you need to get your message across.

At least for a while.

But is there a way to get attention that doesn't go out of fashion?

More on that next week…