Millions of Americans are bored at work, and that’s the perfect time to engage them with your message.
Do you know what percentage of the American workforce is sloughing off right this moment? I’ll give you a hint: All of it.
Since so many people are messing around on the job anyway, they might as well be consuming your brand’s content while they waste away in their cubicles. Whether they’re minimizing windows on the company desktop when the boss walks by or clandestinely enjoying their smartphone, getting people’s attention during the 9 to 5 window is a content marketing imperative.
Think about it. A lot of people have jobs that really require them to show up, and that’s about it. Another large percentage of people don’t need nearly the full eight hours of a standard workday to get their jobs done. This leaves plenty of people with lots of time on their hands. And these people are begging you to distract them from their boring, arguably meaningless existences.
That’s where your content needs to come in. Because once that work window is closed for the day, it gets a lot harder to reach people.
See, the thing is, doing nothing all day is actually quite exhausting. By the time most people get off work, it becomes a lot harder to grab their attention. This makes sense. When the average Joe or Jane leaves work, most of them dive into the things that really matter to them. In other words, they dive into a Costco-sized vat of ice cream, binge on some Netflix and then pass out on the couch with Twinkie wrappers stuck to their faces before waking up to do it all over again.
And that’s if they don’t have kids. If they do have kids, you can forget about getting their attention once they leave the office. In between carpool, soccer practice and all the other activities your intended audience has to lug their kids to on the daily, you can bet you’ll never reach them after work hours.
That’s why great content marketing should be packaged as an easy to digest distraction that just happens to tell your brand’s story. Everyone is willing to invest a few minutes to be entertained if it gets them that much closer to quitting time.
Seriously, think about all the people sharing Facebook posts chronicling what type of animal they would be or what their name means in Sumerian (or whatever, you know what I’m talking about). Nobody really cares some mindless meme generator says that they’re Noble Warrior Unicorns. People are just bored and eager to share that boredom with the world.
That’s a capital opportunity for marketers.
Good old American laziness, apathy and boredom can be a content marketer’s best friend. If you can harness those forces, the mindless zombies we call the proletariat will consume your content like the tastiest of brains and then share it will all their friends, followers and connections.
It’s the American way.
