With today’s marketing strategies focusing on exciting website design, mountains of social media, and innovative strategies with the hopes of standing out in a crowded marketplace, it’s easy to forget the basic principles of advertising that still serve as the foundation for everything you do. However, turning to the basics can help you refine even your boldest tactics for greater success.
The AIDA principle—Attention, Interest, Desire, Action—is the earliest and still most effective marketing approach. Here’s a quick refresher course on this powerful strategy, and how it applies to the modern online world.
Attention: The prime directive
The first part of AIDA is Attention, sometimes referred to as Awareness. Without this step, your marketing efforts amount to nothing—after all, if customers don’t know that your products or services exist, they can’t buy them.
Catching the attention of today’s consumer, in a way that makes them want to spread awareness, is essential to your success. This is where social media comes in handy—all those Like and Share buttons make it easier for people to spread awareness, and for their networks to notice.
Of course, your message must be interesting and relevant to your target customers, or the first step in AIDA will be your last.
Interest: Generating curiosity
Once you have someone’s attention, you need to get him or her interested in what you have to offer. Design and copywriting principles for your social media pages and email marketing come into play here. Great images and compelling descriptions serve to generate interest in your viewers, so they’ll want to know more.
Tweets and Facebook posts also fall under the Interest category. With the brief, fleeting nature of social media, you’re posting teasers that create interest, and get readers to either go looking for more information—or preferably, click through the link you’ve already provided.
Desire: Answering the ‘why’ question
You have a customer’s attention, and they’re interested in what you’re doing. Now they need to know why your products or services matter to them. Your informative website content, blog, and descriptions should convey the benefits of your offerings clearly and quickly, so that visitors will move on to the final stage…
Action: From observer to customer
AIDA strategies are designed to move people through the stages and get them to take the desired action of your marketing campaign—whether it’s signing up for a mailing list, starting a free trial, or making a purchase. Well-written calls to action and prominent Buy buttons or subscription boxes serve this final step.
Next time you’re creating a marketing campaign, take the time to return to basic AIDA marketing principles, and ensure that every part of your strategy feeds into this formula for success.