Why did I name this blog ‘Hovering Over The Back Button?’
I started using this phrase around 2008, in various presentations and articles I was writing to describe the challenge of what we called back then “web engagement”.
Call it web engagement, customer experience, digital experience, or content marketing it is about getting consent.
A rare commodity that indicates the point at which your audience is willing to listen, be educated, persuaded, or even sold to.
When a visitor engages with your content, they have sought you out, maybe they have sifted through a billion Google search results and as they arrive they are engaged, ready to listen, learn how to solve their problem, or get something done.
They have given their consent for you to talk to them, but this opportunity is extremely brief – some say it’s as short as 5 seconds – before they go back to the search results and try someone else.
There is no barrier to leave – they are hovering over the back button.
This blog is about how we might keep them from clicking on it.