With few exceptions, I follow a familiar process before I decide to purchase an item, subscribe to a service, or engage with a business. When I have a need or desire for something—for example, to have my house painted—I begin by researching local companies online or asking my social network for recommendations. From there, I proceed through a logical series of steps before hiring a painter.
While there are variations and nuances, this familiar framework has been utilised by marketers for decades to win new customers and clients via advertising and sales techniques. This framework is known as the AIDA model, an acronym for Awareness Interest Desire and Action.
While there are variants of this theme, the basic idea has remained unchanged since Elias St. Elmo Lewis coined it in 1898. Its effectiveness and simplicity make the AIDA model a powerful tool when designing marketing campaigns—particularly for digital marketing initiatives.
What is the AIDA marketing model?
The AIDA marketing model aligns with the cognitive stages people typically go through when considering a purchase. As a marketer, by being mindful of these stages, you can craft an experience across marketing channels that raises awareness of your solution and convinces prospects why you are the best option for them.
The AIDA model is sequential—each step building upon the previous—to lead customers to the desired conclusion (usually to purchase your product or service). Let’s examine each step in more detail.
Awareness
In the awareness stage, a potential customer knows they require something to address a need or desire. They don’t have the solution yet and haven’t decided to resolve it for any number of reasons. They may have pre-existing biases for or against various solutions that can influence their decision-making process.
They often begin looking for a solution by turning to their social network of friends and family members, or by performing research online. They may search Google for “Exterior painter near me” to begin researching local companies. Or if they feel particularly unqualified in how to compare service providers, they may search for “How to find a qualified house painter.”
As a marketer, you can make buyers aware of your product or service at this stage via digital marketing channels such as paid search ads that will meet prospects exactly at their moment of implied interest.
You may also employ SEO strategies by creating content optimised to rank well for these and related keyword phrases. This is the beauty of digital marketing; it allows you to meet potential customers right when they express an interest.
Further examples of an awareness campaign could include social media ads or video ads on YouTube. These often employ striking imagery, engaging videos, or attention-grabbing music paired with a message.
Creating landing pages on your website that speak to a specific audience about their distinct pain points and your battle-tested solutions is a great approach.
In contrast, many traditional marketing channels rely on a shotgun approach in distributing marketing flyers, mailers, and other material broadly, in hopes of generating interest among people who may happen to be in-market at that moment in time (but many of whom are not).
Many companies have also had great success employing guerrilla marketing tactics to gain brand awareness. We will discuss some examples in a bit.
Interest
While the ad copy and initial messaging on your landing page serve to attract the attention of your target audience, you need to quickly pivot to capturing and holding their interest. Content at this level is often considered to be “top of funnel” and as such, needs to address the primary questions and concerns your prospective customer has.
Page copy needs to be informative, address pain points, be easy to understand (think in terms of bullet points) and include social proof in the form of customer ratings and reviews. Images and videos can break up blocks of text while reinforcing your message quickly. Think about the frequent use of before/after images as a case in point and find ways to incorporate something similar in your marketing strategy.
Desire
It’s not enough to just proactively address your site visitor’s questions—you need to give them a compelling reason to want your solution.
Think about the features, advantages, and benefits of your offering, and then distil those concepts down into bite-sized phrases, with particular emphasis on the benefits you provide. Take the features of your product or service and turn them into solutions so your prospects understand the value and why it should matter to them.
Most people won’t care that your widget comes with an interchangeable doodad. Explain the benefit of the feature so that it becomes an advantage in their mind and something they can’t live without.
For example, let’s imagine Premier Painting uses only Sherwin Williams Exterior Acrylic Latex Paint. They may have to charge more than Uncle Elroy’s Painting because the cost of materials is higher, but that’s not the optimal approach to take when explaining why a customer should choose Premier over Uncle Elroy.
Instead, Premier Painting should explain how the paint they use resists dirt, mould, mildew, and fading—which means the customer’s home won’t need to be power-washed as often and won’t need to be re-painted in four years because the colour faded or paint chipped. This saves the customer both time and money. It’s our job as marketers to explain why people should care by answering the question “What’s in it for me?”
Action
The final stage of the AIDA model lies in getting your prospect to take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, registering for a free trial, or submitting a contact form. The desired action must be reasonable and simple to navigate. Request only the minimum necessary information from the prospect at this stage to keep them from abandoning the process.
Reinforce the value of your offering, provide reminders of social proof (a customer testimonial or a 5-star rating), and if possible, provide an irresistible offer to grease the decision-making process. This could take the form of a risk-free trial of your solution, a free consultation or strategy call, or a money-back guarantee, depending on your business model.
Ecommerce sites infamously offer promotional discount codes just for providing your email address or phone number. This is because the power of email and SMS marketing is well-documented, and the ROI is incredibly high. Think about how you can apply this concept to your business and test different offerings and strategies to see which call to action (CTA) drives the strongest results.
AIDA model examples
Before we put theory into practice, let’s first examine some AIDA marketing examples.
Using celebrity endorsements: State Farm and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in a SuperBowl ad for State Farm was a mad success because it leaned into his instantly recognisable voice and folksy inability to pronounce the word “neighbour” in State Farm’s tagline—with several winks at his most famous movie scenes thrown in for good measure.
Your business may not have a multi-million-dollar budget, but by using popular memes, you can craft a compelling, attention-grabbing social media post or ad campaign that similarly resonates with your target audience. Memes allow brands to jump on trending topics and engage in timely exchanges.
Using adorable pets: Booking.com and Instagram Reels
Online travel site Booking.com tapped into our collective adoration of cute pups and the relatability of looking for love with an Instagram Reel about a lady and her fur baby.
Turning crisis into an opportunity: KFC’s chicken shortage
When Kentucky Fried Chicken ironically ran out of chicken at some of their restaurant locations, they ran this eye-catching ad in newspapers. Enough said about this attention-grabber.
The power of memes: Engaging social media audiences
A well-timed meme can go a long way in capturing eyeballs and connecting with your target audience. Scroll through social media long enough and you’ll start to notice what is trending, or turn to Reddit to find the most popular memes.
Brainstorm creative ways to incorporate your brand messaging into a meme, add a clever caption and perhaps some relevant hashtags, and you are well on your way to capturing the attention of your ideal customers.
Targeted vs. non-targeted marketing campaigns
Some of these examples are highly targeted at a specific audience, while others cast a wider net. Examples of other non-targeted marketing campaigns include:
- Postcards from real estate agents asking if you’re interested in selling your home and/or buying a new home
- Flyers offering 0% financing to replace your windows
- Mailers offering free installation if you purchase a new set of tyres for your vehicle
- Vouchers for restaurants and stores you’ve never heard of
In addition to raising Awareness, these campaigns also often include:
- Social proof in the form of testimonials and 5-star ratings to create Interest
- Pictures of yummy-looking food, a new house, or slick tyres in order to create Desire
- A promotional offer to entice you to take Action
One significant benefit of digital marketing is the ease with which you can target specific audiences, maximising any financial investment while focusing exposure on those most likely to engage with your brand.
Limitations of the AIDA marketing model
In many cases, and particularly in our increasingly digitally connected world, the customer journey is not as linear as the AIDA framework would imply.
As consumers move between devices, platforms, and websites seeking information, the AIDA framework model may become inadequate in and of itself. This is where constructing related content in the form of infographics, videos, or complementary articles that address specific aspects of your business offerings can become a vital part of your sales and marketing ecosystem.
By creating content that speaks to various stages of the buying cycle, acknowledges different buyer personas, and presents content in a variety of formats, your organisation can become a comprehensive authority on the subject—making it more likely that prospective customers will engage with you across multiple touchpoints.
Additionally, your business may rely on customer retention or repeat purchases, which are not addressed as part of the AIDA marketing model. There are numerous resources available for customer retention strategies, which often include email marketing and customer rewards programs.
Implement the AIDA model for your business
As they say, practice makes perfect. But why go it alone? Let us help you map out a marketing campaign using the AIDA model to achieve remarkable results. We’ll help you refine your strategy, test different approaches, and optimise your campaigns for maximum impact.
Transform your marketing strategy with cutting-edge, multi-channel campaigns— contact us today to unlock new growth opportunities for your business.