Is the AIDA model applicable to internet marketing?

Some say Domino's USP "Fresh Hot Pizza Delivered To Your Door In Under 30 Minutes Or Its Free! Guaranteed" revolutionized the pizza business and made Domino's a household name.

Not so.

The real genius behind that USP is the Target Profile, because if they got their Target wrong, from the beginning, the USP would have never have been created since it speaks directly to "students".

I mean, if Domino's targeted "couples" or anyone with a mouth and a stomach, that particular USP would have not had the same impact.

If you look at your examples above with "Mini" and "BMW" - they got their Target Profile right, right? Doesn't have anything to do with AIDA, although that formula can certainly be used on a direct mail letter or even a digital sales page.

Back to Domino's.

Let's say they chose to market their pizza to "couples" instead of students. It would have obviously diluted the marketing message that followed, considering "couples" don't really care about getting a free pizza if it's late.

It'd be nice to get it for free if it's late, but it certainly "wouldn't" be the reason they would order it. In fact, I bet "couples" would care more about "great tasting" pizza than they would anything else, right?

Think of the competition Domino's would have created for themselves if they didn't choose "students" as their Target Profile?

First, they would have had to compete with other pizza joints, like Pizza Hut.

Second, they would have had to compete with other fast food service (Thai - Curry - Indian) because well, couples, and just about anyone with a mouth and a stomach, would likely alternate between different takeout menus, right?

And third, because they couldn't differentiate if they chose "couples" or "anyone" who eats fast-food, that brilliant USP would have never been created.

So, imagine Domino's optimizing all their marketing campaigns if they chose "couples" or just about anyone with a mouth and a stomach?

They could have optimized a million different things, and yet, just by going back and changing ONE thing - the Target Profile - from "couples" to "students", that alone would have made them more sales than those million other optimized campaigns. NO AIDA formula would have had as much impact as the Target Profile.

I like to think of the Target Profile (your ideal customer) as the centerpiece of ALL your marketing campaigns. Like a seed that everything else grows out of. Get it right, and everything that stems from that seed will flourish and be infinitely easier than if you get it wrong.

When you gave the examples above of "Mini" and "BMW" I don't see any AIDA formula. What I see are two companies that got thgeir Target Profile right from the beginning.

In my opinion, AIDA is not nearly as important, or even that necessary, if you get your Target Profile (centerpiece of all your marketing) right.

That alone is why MOST marketers struggle. Because without a specific target Profile, you'll find it incredibly difficult to stand out, differentiate, and get attention unless you lie, cheat, badger, harass and shout louder than everyone else.

And that's what we're seeing now online, and it's the reason most marketers are hated by the majority of people.

That's my two cents.

Just one last note: I think the majority of people calling themselves "marketers" are nothing more than "salespeople". Everything they do is forced. How many people build their email lists WITHOUT engaging their prospects BEFORE they ask for their contact details? That's NOT marketing. That's "selling" and it's the reason most email lists are worthless.

Well, if we look at AIDA for what it is, then of course it's still relevant.

Too many wannabe marketers think about such things as if they were magic formulas. When in reality it's little more than a simple acronym to describe a basic foundational concept.

It's like writing TGIF on your shoes to remind you that your Toes Go In First. It doesn't explain exactly how to put your shoes on, but it's a reminder of where to start.



Online or offline, if we don't get consumers Attention, then they'll never know we exist. And there won't be any interest.

If we don't get Interest, then we can't build desire.

And without Desire it's tough to get most people to do anything. Like take action on our offer. (or even get off the couch)

And if we can't get people to take Action, how else are we going to sell them anything?


For the sake of conversation I suppose we can add the word "Engagement" to the acronym, and make it AIEDA. But it's still just a reminder... not a magic formula.
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Attention. Is the only "formula" one needs today. From the first blush to the sending of the dough. Lose it anywhere along the way, no biz for you.

The "modern" approach to AIDA (which is incomplete, there should be an S on the end, for Satisfaction, because that is the repeat biz part of it)...

modern approach is to understand today's preoccupations per TARGET, and what is going to get and KEEP their attention.

GordonJ

I find 'pain, dream, fix' to be more helpful and effective.

This is quite a provocative way to put it, and I think you should give us more of an argument as to why traditional AIDA simply won't work.

The way I see it, us marketers create demand for a product/service by redirecting some basic desires (such as desire for survival and reproduction, desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain, etc.). The AIDA model gives us a way to approach this process of creating demand. Part of it is finding out which segment of a market is going to be helped by your product/service and then selling it to them.

And this process of finding out is iterative. You don't know when you start with your product. You don't know what the "Target Profile" (as Declan calls it) (or Buyer Persona as I call it) is. You make an educated guess based on your market research and available data. And then you test that guess. The way you do it online is very simple. You can run some ads, say on Facebook, and see what kind of CTR you get with a headline targetting that particular "Target Profile". And that's what? That's testing for Attention (& Interest)!

In other words, I disagree with Declan - I think AIDA comes before the Target Profile in importance because it lays out the way to get to the Target Profile. You know you have your Target Profile when you can get their attention relatively easily.

If you suffer from diabetes, and I tell you "My company has just discovered a permanent cure for diabetes" - then I'll instantly have your attention (and probably interest too!). No need to scream and shout. I'll know that you (and others like you) should be my Target Profile based on how easy it is to get your attention. If you don't suffer from diabetes, you will probably shrug your shoulders and move on. It will be HARD to get and keep your attention.

So the way I see it, AIDA is simply the process you have to use as a marketer to create demand for a product - to make the ACTION happen in a market. It all starts with getting Attention. You make getting attention easier, and you solve the attention stage by zooming in to your Target Profile, or Buyer Persona. You could also solve it dishonestly, by getting attention with some pleasure/pain that has nothing to do with your product (in that case, you will struggle with the later stages).

Then comes the interest stage. If you have done your job right and have gotten attention the right way (honest attention, as opposed to attention that is elicited by other means - for example, dishonest attention would be the kind of attention a salesman could get from you by harrassing you repeatedly - just to get rid of them, you may give them a moment of attention), then gaining their interest won't be too difficult.

After you successfully get their interest, you have to re-direct their existing desires towards your product, which must be shown as the solution to whatever desires they innately have.

And finally, you have to overcome the factors that stand in the way of ACTION. This is usually fears, otherwise known as reasons to avoid buying.

Whether offline or online, the principles remain the same. It's just that the ways of applying them are different. How do you get attention online? Powerful visuals, headlines that target powerful pain-points/desires, etc. You need to resonate with the buyer to get their attention. Then you build up interest by maintaining their attention throughout.

Hi Enzo,

AIDA, also known as the Purchase Funnel, is as relevant today as it has ever been. It is based on a sequence of steps that a customer must pass through on the way towards a purchase.

Note that I said "must". It's not optional at all. Simply put, these are Laws of Human Behavior at work.

Let's look at it rationally, shall we?

A customer will not take Action and make a purchase, or complete a lead form, unless they first Desire the offered product or service. Desire must proceed Action.

A potential customer will never Desire anything without first taking an Interest in the benefits of said product or service. Interest must proceed Desire.

A potential customer cannot take Interest in a product or service until they first become Aware of its existence. Awareness must proceed Interest.

These are laws of Human Nature:

• Awareness proceeds Interest
• Interest proceeds Desire
• Desire proceeds Action
• Action is motivated by Desire. Desire is sown by Interest, Interest is made possible by Awareness

This is a sequence that must logically occur, whether you are aware of it or not. It is what happens during almost all transactions. Sure there can be an outliers like fraudulent transactions that suddenly appear on your credit card. But that is crime, not marketing.

Not sure how you made a logical leap from AIDA to USPs or Value Propositions?

Those are completely separate topics and it felt like you were trying to conflate those separate topics.

To be clear, AIDA is a purchase funnel, a logical process to be considered in any marketing strategy. Your suggestion of "Pain, Dream, Fix" as a replacement seems to miss the mark a bit. You seem to be conflating copywriting formulas with strategic marketing processes. One is related to marketing strategy, while the other is a copywriting tactic. No reason I can see that those tactics cannot be used within a marketing strategy for completing the AIDA purchase funnel.

The AIDA process can occur within the scope of a single website visit, or play out over a sequence of marketing campaigns that last hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. There are many possible strategies for marketing and the AIDA can and should be a core part of every strategy.

Without an effective marketing campaign your copywriting tactics will not make much difference if nobody is seeing your sales copy. So the success of your "Pain, Dream, Fix" copywriting tactics depends a great deal on the effectiveness of your AIDA marketing strategy.

HTH

Don Burk

I believe it is still working. the only difference is that we are just using some new phrases . However, they all refer to the same thing desire, need interest and action.

To a degree you actually are answering your own question. What should be the modern approach? No pop ups... and understanding what is creating the bounce. When you look at the 4 steps with AIDA, you have; Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. easy enough.

The issue as I see if for more than most marketers is they are not paying attention to INTENT. Each of the 4 steps, the INTENT is different. INTENT in our modern era is so critical that Google is delivering search results based on AI that helps them better understand INTENT. That in itself should be a big red flag to the marketing world.

Looking at a basic online buying cycle you have 6 basic steps; Initial broad search, a more refined search, comparison, looking for the best offer ( price and USP are variables here ), buying, and then after sales support. I would suggest a "Good" marketer will have intent based content at each level. single ads and single pieces of content simply do not, and have not for a good few years worked.

If you look back to say the 80's when you had but a few networks ( ABC, NBC, CBS ) that had all of our attention, a single ad was effective. But today given the many choices of media.. be it video, news, music etc choices have grown laterally in a otherwise vertical market. meaning Attention is spread real thin across many platforms.

The principle remains intact, the form that he principle is applied has changed, and many have not made that switch.

Short answer is: Yes.

Long answer is that there's way too much misinformation in this industry promising people about making money without doing much work, or any work at all by
using some magic software that would magically pop money out of their
computer, it creates confusions to newcomers into unnecessarily complicating
things in this industry, forgetting about the basic fundamental marketing that is
every bit related to making money online just as it did in the "offline" world.

A quick example is related to Sun Tzu's military concept: "Know thyself and know your enemy, then you will not face danger in a hundred battles." It may surprise you
that I have gone through some $2000+ programs created by top gurus in this
industry. One of the key things they teach is to know your customers, and using
various research methods to understand the vast majority of them, so that you will
know exactly what kind of message to write to them in your Sales Letter or other
marketing materials that you choose to use, and this tactic of course, is directly
inline with the AIDA concept. Without knowing what they want, without knowing
what they are like, you won't be able to effectively create your marketing messages
to capture their Attention, get them Interested and stir up Desire in them so that
they would take Action.

Regards,

Heng Liangteng (Tianjie)