What is the AIDA approach?
The AIDA concept was developed by American businessman Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898. Lewis was an advertising advocate who wrote and spoke often about advertising’s potential. This model describes a series of steps or stages that customers follow when making purchasing decisions. The AIDA stages are:
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Awareness: Customers are made aware of a product, brand, or service. Awareness typically comes from advertising.
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Interest: Customer interest grows as prospects learn more about what benefits the product has to offer and how it fits with their lifestyle.
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Desire: The customer develops a connection with the product and moves from being interested to wanting or “needing” it.
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Action: Customers decide to interact with the product or service, by downloading a trial version, creating an account, subscribing to an email, or making a purchase.
The AIDA approach has proven to be important to and effective for advertisers and marketers. It is over 100 years old and is still being used today in one form or another. The model has been modified and expanded over the years as new media and communications platforms have entered our lives. The AIDA model now belongs to a class of models known as “Hierarchy of Effects” models. But more on that later.
Understanding the AIDA model
In the late 19th century when AIDA was developed, there were not that many media channels available for advertising and marketing communications. Today, there are so many media channels that it’s almost impossible to avoid advertising messages.
Some digital marketing experts estimate that we are hit with 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every day. Of course, how many ads you are exposed to depends on several factors such as what type of job you have and how you spend your leisure time. A factory worker on an eight-hour shift probably is not exposed to as many ads as somebody engaged in social media during that same amount of time.
With so much competition, it can be very difficult for you to get your message to your intended target. The AIDA principle can help you stay focused as you work through your message to grab potential buyers.
Attract attention
At this stage of the AIDA model, you want to make potential customers aware of your brand, product, or service. Types of content commonly used at the awareness stage include advertisements, videos, podcasts, and social media.
Your biggest challenge may be attracting the attention of your target audience. You can’t engage with potential customers if they don’t know you exist. People may be exposed to 4,000 ads per day, but how many do they actually see? How do you break through the clutter?
To attract attention, you may need to be a little disruptive in the following ways:
- Position striking pictures in unexpected ways.
- Use bold colors that attract the eye.
- Create a sensational and entertaining video.
- Add a provocative graphic on a landing page.
- Use music that evokes nostalgia.
The idea is that you are trying to startle the customer into paying attention. Be careful about being too disruptive. There is a fine line between being clever and annoying.
Use Lucidchart to create low-fidelity mockups of webpages, ads, and other types of content—visuals can help you more easily relate to team members what you expect to see from this content. See how the marketing manager at PlanSwift communicated his ideas and kept his team on the same page through Lucidchart.
