Have You Tried the AIDA Marketing Model

The AIDA marketing model was first introduced in 1898 by E. St. Elmo Lewis and it aimed to explain the theoretical process of the customer journey.  Lewis outlined four stages of this process – Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, creating what is most likely the oldest acronym in marketing – AIDA.

Due to its straightforward approach, this hierarchical marketing model became timeless and is still in use today.

In this article, we will explain each phase and how to implement it in your marketing strategy.

Attention

In this first stage of the conversion funnel, the user’s attention is attracted by the product or service. This is where your marketing campaign engages with your prospects through various marketing tools and channels – paid ads, social networks, personalized massaging, etc. 

Interest

This second stage is where the user starts getting interested in the product or service. This is where your marketing campaign should aim to raise interest in your brand and appeals to certain people often called prospects in business terminology. These prospects will search for more information and express an interest in learning more about your product or service.

Desire

At this stage, your prospects develop the desire for your product or service but still have some obstacles to overcome. This is where your prospects are one step away from becoming customers. 

Action

This final stage of the AIDA marketing model is where the prospect’s desire for your product or service leads to a concrete action – purchase. This is where businesses and companies use various techniques to help prospects convert to customers, which will be covered later on in this article.

How to Attract Attention

In today’s competitive market consumers are constantly being overloaded with information. This makes attracting the attention of your target audience very challenging. 

This pushed businesses to be more creative and take a more unique and proactive approach to their marketing campaigns.

How do you attract the attention of your target audience? Here are four tips that will help you stand out from your competition and make your brand more noticeable.

Paid Ads  

The key to a successful paid ads campaign is choosing the platform where your target audience is most active. The biggest online advertising platforms include:

• Google Ads – is the most popular advertising platform on the internet. It allows you to advertise on the Google search engine, YouTube, and many other websites and apps. Google ads operate by matching keywords and people with your ads by collecting user data.
• Linkedin Ads – this platform targets users based on job title, the industry they work in, and their interests while also using geographic and demographic data to help your ads reach the target audience. 
• Facebook Ads – include not only the Facebook platform but Messenger and Instagram too. It offers to target audience based on many criteria – interest, liked pages, demographic, etc.
• Twitter Ads – target people based on keywords, conversations users participate in, their interests, etc.

All of these platforms use a pay-per-click advertising model based on real-time auctions.

Social Media

When using Social Media to attract the attention of your target audience, try doing the following:

• Plan your activities with a social media calendar
• Choose the right platform or platforms for your business
• Get to know your audience
• Expand your audience 
• Build relationships
• Follow the trends
• Track your performance

Email marketing

Email marketing is a very useful marketing channel that can help you connect with your audience, build brand awareness, and create better prospects’ engagement.

The most common types of email marketing include:

Welcome emails might include an introduction to your products or services, providing customer service contact information, stating your value proposition, etc.

Email newsletters might include articles about your business, any business changes that might be relevant to your customers, case studies, etc.

Stand-alone emails include sales, special offers, special events, etc.

Prospect nurturing emails serve to guide your prospects through the buying process and must include an effective Call to Action.

Transactional emails typically include order information, shipping confirmation, customer feedback, subscription renewal, etc.

YouTube videos

YouTube is a great platform for promoting a brand, product, or service. It can involve multiple marketing strategies:

• Organic promotional videos
• Cooperation with influencers
• Paid advertisement

If you choose to use YouTube for gaining more attention, make sure you create the content your target audience wants to consume.

Various marketing tools can help you boost your YouTube marketing results, such as Hootsuite, Mentionlytics, Channelview Insights, etc.

How to Generate Interest

When your prospect passes the attention phase, they usually want to know more about your product or service. Your goal is to provide them with the information they need and to demonstrate your product’s unique selling points.

To nurture your prospects’ interest, you can use storytelling, offer facts about your product, and explain how it could be a solution to your prospects’ problems. Here is where blog posts, guides, video tutorials, webinars, and articles on social media can come in handy.

Creating quality content is not only good for better engagement and relevance, but also leads to a higher ranking for your website in search engine result pages (SERPs).

How to Stimulate Desire

To stimulate prospects’ desire, offer them discounts, product demonstrations, user-generated content, case studies, “before and after” proofs, etc. 

The goal you need to reach in the desire phase is to show your prospects how your product or service is going to solve their particular problem. 

How to Initiate Action

To initiate the desirable action, focus on making the purchase process as easy as possible, Try doing the following:

• Include details in your Calls to Actions (CTAs) – for instance, “Get 15% off your first order by signing up for our newsletter” can be a very persuasive method.
• Design a user-friendly website – optimize your website for mobile devices and quality user experience. 

This is where you can use the help of some of the popular web development companies. As a user-friendly website is not only good for initiating the desired action, it is also crucial for your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

• Give a sense of urgency – include information about the promo expiring date or show that the product’s value increases in time.

Best Examples of the AIDA Marketing Model

Some of the world’s most popular brands have been using the AIDA marketing model very successfully over the years. 

Here are just a few examples that illustrate how the AIDA model works.

Apple

Attention stage – Steve Jobs announces the new product release, stating that it is something no one had ever seen before.

Interest stage– Steve Jobs explains the product’s technical characteristics before the big reveal.

Desire stage – Steve Jobs shows the product and highlights features that people always wanted.

Action stage – Steve Jobs uses the product thus showing that it is real and within everybody’s reach.

Adidas

Attention phase – Adidas often uses famous people for their commercials, and famous people always draw attention.

Interest stage – in these commercials, celebrities say or do something funny, motivational, or intriguing while promoting the product’s characteristics at the same time.

Desire phase – the prospect feels the desire to look like famous people and wants to feel that passion.

 Action phase – Adidas always highlights the product’s name at the very end of their commercial, so that prospects know what to look for when they decide to buy the product.

Nike

Attention phase – Nike often uses sports superstars to attract people’s attention.

Interest phase – They strictly use motivational sports messages. This type of advertisement evokes people’s interest in sports excellence.

Desire phase – Once the prospects get familiar with the product, they start desiring to improve their performance in sports.

Action phase – Nike’s famous “Just do it” slogan indicates a very clear call to action”.

You might be thinking that it is easy for these mega-companies to apply the AIDA marketing model with their almost unlimited resources. We will show you how you can do it even if you are on the budget.

Let’s imagine you want to open your restaurant or you already have one. Here is how you can implement the AIDA marketing model in this situation.

Attention phase – create posters with an attractive colorful image and strategically place them on the busiest streets of your city. 

Interest phase – to spark people’s interest, highlight your most popular dish and provide some uniques features of your restaurant, such as location, children’s areas, pet-friendliness, etc.  

Desire phase – make special offers for groups and make them pop up from your posters.

Action phase – make these special offers limited in time. This will create a sense of urgency and your prospects will be inclined to act fast or lose the opportunity.

Conclusion

The AIDA model explains how marketing should guide people’s decision-making process toward making a purchase. The key to a successful AIDA implementation is identifying your target audience.

Even though consumer behavior and advertising methods have drastically changed since 1898., AIDA marketing remains relevant to this day. It has proved to be effective and stood the test of time.