People Do Read Online -- Who Knew?

For some reason, it seems that there's a belief that people don't actually read online content. Well, thanks to research by the Poynter Institute's Eyetrack study, we now know that's untrue. Who knew?

Big heads up to all those whose web sites are full of static content that's been up for a gazillion years. Or to those websites with all their content focused on their products.

"When readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids…

In addition, nearly two-thirds of online readers read all of the text of a particular story once they began to read it, the survey revealed."

The key here is "story." Not data sheet or product features lists. People want to read content that has benefit to them. That tells them a story about how their lives will change if they use your products, or even better, why they should disrupt the status quo and bother at all, in the first place.

How many times have you received the exact same email multiple times? For the sake of discussion, let's say you were interested in the information in the first one. Maybe you even clicked through and took a look at the content at the end of the link. Will you do it again? Will you even read the SAME email a second time or instantly hit delete?

Instead of irritating your list, build a story. Create a series of email messages that lead to progressive articles on the topic. Draw the reader in and move them forward to whatever call to action you want them to take. Expand their knowledge. Link the articles together so if the user missed the first one, they can pick up on it now. Your first try may not get them to act. But the message in subsequent emails may peak their interest.

In a B2B complex sale, the way to persuade people beyond curiosity to interest and build toward preference is to tell a story that transfers knowledge and builds their trust that your organization has the expertise they are looking for.  People won't trust you until they get to know you.  Using progressive emails to get their attention and following through with progressive and informative content that speaks to a value they want will get traction.

The key is to measure user preferences and make adjustments to leverage opportunities. Stale content that doesn't interest your users is not going to help you generate leads or  drive prospects through the sales funnel. And, it certainly isn't going to engage anyone.

Thanks to Grokdotcom for the post that led to this one. There are comments worth reading at the bottom. You can find the article about the study here.

Update: Take a look at Neil Sanderson's blog update about the Poynter report. Apparently they aren't as sure there's a difference between online and print reading, as first thought. Be that as it may, people still read and the quality and engagement of your content is still very important to creating engagement. The better story you tell, the more opportunity you have to get your content read. Thanks to Neil for pursuing the question when he had doubts, and for making sure we got the update!

Comments

[Neil Sanderson]

Poynter is now reassessing their original claim that online readers read more of each story. See http://neilsanderson.com/?p=276

[Shama Hyder]

Very interesting. I think stories (as in narratives) often keep an audience's attention-versus just plain facts.

[ben]

Hmm. Starting your 'people do read content' article with a typo and then following it up with an incorrect use of an apostrophe in the next paragraph ironically did not make me want to carry on reading!

[Ardath Albee]

Shama - thanks for your comment. I agree that narrative can help draw engagement by connecting with people in a different way than facts can standing alone.

Ben - thanks for the edit. My apologies for the typos - they've been fixed.

Ardath