How to get attention with B2B audiences using the SURE framework

[Jahangir655]

Getting attention from a senior B2B audience is tough. Today, audiences are bombarded with content and advertising across multiple channels, and it is easier than ever for them to shut out unwanted messages and avoid your attempts to influence them.

So how do you get the audience’s attention in the first place? To stand a chance, your content needs four vital features, which we call the SURE framework. You need to make it simple, urgent, relevant and eye-opening.

In this post, we explain how to apply each of these essential ingredients and provide examples of where they’ve been used to great effect.


Simple

Too much content tries to communicate overly complex messages. Its producers assume that this list of peru cell phone numbers makes them look clever and authoritative, and that they have a lot to say. In fact, the more messages you try to land with the audience, the less successful you are likely to be.

Kantar Millward Brown’s Link database, which tests the effectiveness of different advertisements, found that the more messages an ad tries to communicate, the lower the likelihood of any single message landing. Try to get one message across, and you could achieve 100% success if people engage with it. Try to communicate four, and only 43% will pick up your first message – and this falls to 24% for your fourth (see diagram).

Content is no different: to stand any chance of grabbing the attention of your time-poor audience, you need to keep the message simple.

SURE in action

McKinsey’s The 1.5 Degree Challenge is an example of simplicity in action. Its message is clear and can be summarised in one sentence: the content explores what the global economy needs to do to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. Yet beneath this simple overarching message, there is considerable detail for those readers who want to explore more deeply.



If you want people to remember your key message, you are better off communicating one message – not two or more. Analysis of the Link database shows that the more messages you try to communicate, the less likelihood there is of any landing.