Yawning Increases Time Spent With E-mail 12X

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Yawning increases time spent with e-mail 12x. Need a source for that stat? OK, it's from me; Jeanniey Mullen, 2011. I reached this conclusion while working on research for my day job as Zinio's CMO. As the world's largest digital newsstand, we give reading fans the ability to buy content once, on whatever device they have (iPad, iPad2, iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, etc.) and read it on whatever device they have with them at the time. This column is not about Zinio, but about digital content engagement. Keep reading, I think you will find it interesting.

Much like e-mail, digital reading is not becoming less of a novelty and more of an integration into lifestyles. It is pretty interesting. And lately, we have been seeing new trends in digital reading that also support new trends of e-mail interaction. The most impactful trend we have seen is the correlation of time spent waiting places or for things to the time spent reading items on your mobile devices.

It might sound either silly or pedestrian, but for us marketers, I assure you, it is neither. In fact, did you know that the average social worker spends 12 hours every month doing nothing but waiting for overbooked courtrooms to open up? Did you know that the average person spend five years of their life waiting in lines, and six month of their life waiting at traffic lights? Americans, age 15 and older collectively spent 847 million hours waiting for medical services to be provided in 2007. The list of time spent waiting could go on and on and on.

What is fascinating about this, is that technology has turned the old adage of "idle minds are the devil's playground" into a business opportunity for many of us where "idle minds are the digital content's playground."

The combination of wait times and access to technology (aka access to mobile e-mail and other elements) have created a new trend that results in nothing but good news for any marketing person looking to reach their consumer through digital channels.

When you wait you get bored.

When you are bored you pull out your mobile device.

When you pull out your device you read things you may not have read in the past, you go back and reread things you've enjoyed, and you click through things you haven't had time to click through to before.

So as an e-mail marketer, use this to your advantage. Understand that you now have access to people who will go back to read older content. The life of your message has just been extended.

Now, fess up, how many of you read this article while you were somewhere…waiting?