'he need to maintain things short and sweet in online marketing is not something new, but it is a frequently-misinterpreted principle. More than ever, too many different things compete for consumer attention simultaneously (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.), partly thanks to the advent of tabbed browsing and real-time data. Consumers even have a term for content or marketing produced by people or companies who in most likelihood were not mindful of the need to be short, succinct, and interesting, “TL;DR” or “too long; didn’t read.” Here is an interesting example of a TL;DR landing page:

We recently pitched our SaaS daily deal solution at Echelon 2011 Singapore Satellite, one of Asia’s biggest web/mobile conferences, and we were reminded first-hand of the crucial need to break everything down into bite-size nuggets of information, i.e. easy and quick to consume. Presenting information in a way that helps people to “get it” immediately is a way to get past the first stage of AIDA: Attention. Give consumers too much text and their minds automatically switch off; no one wants to read too much text before they are sure that they are interested in something.

For those of us who have done summaries back in school, there are generally two techniques of shrinking a prose of text:

1) keep everything there but make each point really, really short, possibly sacrificing some coherence; or

2) remove some points but ensure that those that remain there are coherent, effective, and more important than those that were discarded.

In marketing, there may be value in using a hybrid technique: reduce the number of points while keeping them relatively coherent (bullet points are the number one enemy of coherence, by the way, followed by parentheses) and have an option to learn more for those who are interested by using CSS tabs, more pages, etc. Interested prospects are likely to take further action anyway. This is a practical method for keeping information bearable at first glance, in that there is no wall of text, while still being comprehensive in substance by offering the choice to read more. In other words, this tactic of presenting information takes out the bombardment factor without sacrificing any part of the message.

When it comes to information consumption, length is sometimes not as much of a problem as the nature of information presented, particularly whether it deals with vague/difficult concepts that tend to confound people at first glance. Ensuring that both are in check goes a long way in getting potential customers to care in the first place – attention is the prerequisite for engagement after all.