Comms writing for minimal attention spans and maximum impact

During Ragan’s Writing and Content Strategy Virtual Conference late last year, Michael Rothman, former senior editor and content strategist at TD Bank, told the audience that comms pros need to write precisely for their target audiences to ensure their messages hit home.

“Communications of all kinds, across all platforms online, are getting extremely personal,” said Rothman. “So should content, headlines and everything else. They need to be personalized, customized and you need to connect with the reader. Otherwise, they’re just going to ignore you completely.”

Rothman added that internal communications should lead with relevance rather than just pure information dumps in their written comms if they want employees to engage with content.

“There’s an overwhelming amount of white noise, especially with AI accelerating content creation,” he said. “People spend one to two seconds on something before moving on, and bounce rates can reach up to 90%. If you want attention, you have to create a visceral response. Make people feel something and show that you value their time.”

To do that effectively, Rothman said communicators need to rethink how they structure their content from the very first line.