Is the AIDA model applicable to internet marketing?

by WF- Enzo Administrator
20 replies
The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) is a classic marketing model describing the process of a consumer purchasing a product. Coined in the late 1880s by the legendary Elias St. Elmo, the AIDA model is summarised as follows:

Attention - consumer is aware of a product or brand
Interest - consumer is interested about that product or brand
Desire - consumer develops a desire to buy the product or brand
Action - consumer makes the necessary action (trial, purchase, etc).

The AIDA model worked in traditional marketing, and car manufacturers heavily used the model to find that "consumer sweet spot" (MINI with the fun of driving in a Cooper, BMW with luxury and opulence). Example:



Now that marketing has evolved to become more digitized and the Internet being central to information, traditional AIDA simply won't work - the first website click often leads to a bounce, or pop-up ads which get blocked.

What do you think should be the modern approach to AIDA?
#aida #applicable #internet #marketing #model
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  • 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.
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    • Profile picture of the author Reddevil007
      Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty View Post

      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.

      So engaging with so to be email lists should be the first priority and then we can label ourselves a marketer or else sales people?
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      • Originally Posted by Reddevil007 View Post

        So engaging with so to be email lists should be the first priority and then we can label ourselves a marketer or else sales people?

        If you look at how most people build their lists. They buy traffic. Send it to a short squeeze page. Get the email and then send emails hoping to engage their subscribers.

        Everything they do BEFORE they send their first email, is transactional. No engagement.

        You get me?

        You could argue that the marketing happens AFTER you get the subscribers, right? For most people though, because they didn't engage their subscribers BEFORE they got their email address, they'll find that not many people are opening their emails. So NO marketing ever happened really. It was all transactional. Buy traffic. Sell the free report. Get the email address. That's where it ends for most people.

        There's more to this than I can put here. I don't want to hijack the thread which is about a completely different topic than this one.
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        • Profile picture of the author jdguy99
          If you look at how most people build their lists. They buy traffic. Send it to a short squeeze page. Get the email and then send emails hoping to engage their subscribers.

          Everything they do BEFORE they send their first email, is transactional. No engagement.

          You get me?

          You could argue that the marketing happens AFTER you get the subscribers, right? For most people though, because they didn't engage their subscribers BEFORE they got their email address, they'll find that not many people are opening their emails. So NO marketing ever happened really. It was all transactional. Buy traffic. Sell the free report. Get the email address. That's where it ends for most people.
          Thanks for sharing these insights!

          There's more to this than I can put here. I don't want to hijack the thread which is about a completely different topic than this one.
          I want to know more about this. Please start a new thread if possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author SARubin
    Originally Posted by WF- Enzo View Post

    Now that marketing has evolved to become more digitized and the Internet being central to information, traditional AIDA simply won't work - the first website click often leads to a bounce, or pop-up ads which get blocked.
    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?


    Originally Posted by WF- Enzo View Post

    What do you think should be the modern approach to AIDA?
    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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  • Profile picture of the author GordonJ
    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
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve L
    Originally Posted by WF- Enzo View Post

    The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) is a classic marketing model describing the process of a consumer purchasing a product. Coined in the late 1880s by the legendary Elias St. Elmo, the AIDA model is summarised as follows:

    Attention - consumer is aware of a product or brand
    Interest - consumer is interested about that product or brand
    Desire - consumer develops a desire to buy the product or brand
    Action - consumer makes the necessary action (trial, purchase, etc).

    The AIDA model worked in traditional marketing, and car manufacturers heavily used the model to find that "consumer sweet spot" (MINI with the fun of driving in a Cooper, BMW with luxury and opulence). Example:



    Now that marketing has evolved to become more digitized and the Internet being central to information, traditional AIDA simply won't work - the first website click often leads to a bounce, or pop-up ads which get blocked.

    What do you think should be the modern approach to AIDA?
    I find 'pain, dream, fix' to be more helpful and effective.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action


      Pain=attention and interest

      dream=desire
      fix=action


      Some, most?, people respond to pain more readily, others do it if rewards come into the picture.


      Most things work better with pain...


      So, what kind of things are you selling?


      Originally Posted by Steve L View Post

      I find 'pain, dream, fix' to be more helpful and effective.
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      • Profile picture of the author WF- Enzo
        Administrator
        Finding the pain points of your consumer.

        That works.

        Originally Posted by DABK View Post

        Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action


        Pain=attention and interest

        dream=desire
        fix=action


        Some, most?, people respond to pain more readily, others do it if rewards come into the picture.


        Most things work better with pain...


        So, what kind of things are you selling?
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  • Originally Posted by WF- Enzo

    Now that marketing has evolved to become more digitized and the Internet being central to information, traditional AIDA simply won't work - the first website click often leads to a bounce, or pop-up ads which get blocked.
    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)!

    Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

    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.
    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.
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    • Profile picture of the author GordonJ
      Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      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....

      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.
      Sure, that old way works when you bring out a new product or you put your product first.

      But many of us old direct response marketers prefer the faster, easier and often more profitable way (for the one man band or smaller businesses vs bigger companies)..is to find the prospect first. It is time tested.

      It works. People who buy. Buy often, buy regularly, buy multiples of a similar product.

      And I dare say, I'd bet 90%++ of all Warriors fall into this group, who don't have the knowledge, the budget or the time to do the amount of research you suggest goes into a product first.

      But I don't think you are wrong, just a different more corporate type perspective on things,

      Give me buyers first, and I'll acquire or create a PRODUCT for them. And then I know all I need is their attention at the right time and place for it to be successful.

      GordonJ
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      • Originally Posted by GordonJ

        But many of us old direct response marketers prefer the faster, easier and often more profitable way (for the one man band or smaller businesses vs bigger companies)..is to find the prospect first. It is time tested.
        [...]
        Give me buyers first, and I'll acquire or create a PRODUCT for them. And then I know all I need is their attention at the right time and place for it to be successful.
        Fantastic reply, thanks!

        You make a very important point. My background is in starting, growing and running a direct response agency. I have people knock on our door to ask for help to sell "this", whatever the product or service happens to be. So I guess habitually my thinking works from product to market, not from market to product. Our challenge is always how can we help these people bring so and so product to market.

        One question for you, just out of curiosity: how do you go about finding the prospect first without having a product?
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        • Profile picture of the author GordonJ
          Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

          Fantastic reply, thanks!

          You make a very important point. My background is in starting, growing and running a direct response agency. I have people knock on our door to ask for help to sell "this", whatever the product or service happens to be. So I guess habitually my thinking works from product to market, not from market to product. Our challenge is always how can we help these people bring so and so product to market.

          One question for you, just out of curiosity: how do you go about finding the prospect first without having a product?
          First, history. Old days we had tools like SRDS book of lists. Today, we have Nextmark, which is a basic, fundamental tool, but there are other lesser known, more private purveyors of data, if one knows where to look, can create very targeted lists...based on

          gender
          geography
          age
          income
          The cars they drive, the places they shop. We've become a Great Society living in glass houses.

          Back in the day, I would use lists of Golfers, and SRDS Lists had many numbering into the millions, and segmented out, so if, for example, I wanted to promote to Women Golfers in FL, there was a list and I could construct the copy and send a promotion very rifle targeted. Sold a ton of joint supplements and pain gel this way. If it was a general golf improvement product, like one of my Cassettes (later CD) for lowering your score, it could be more general.

          Nextmark still offers quite a few lists which could be useful to those in almost any sporting niche.

          But online, thanks to Google, Facebook, Amazon and data scrapers along with companies like Zoovu who offer digital "assistants"...who intervene in a browsing/shopping experience to direct an INTERESTED person in a product toward the source.

          Like an ad on Facebook, if it is targeted and gets a decent number of clicks, then I think OR at least I do, I have their interest, they come to the site interested, which is why I say it must get their attention. And hold their attention. I love AIDCAS (the C for conclusion the S for satisfaction)...but through both eye tracking and brain activity studies I have participated in and studied, my conclusion was/IS...

          the moment you lose Attention, they are done. Now the problem with AIDA or whatever parts, pieces or points you have, in remote situations you can't DELINEATE the A from the I or the I from D.

          They may show up with the desire. Or get to it very early on. Copywriters, especially newer ones, THINK that the formula (or whatever their process) DOES have a here to there flow.

          One can't take apart a promotion and say, this is where the prospect goes from attention to interest, of from desire to action. Sometimes, and eye tracking studies back this up, they go from headline to buy button to check the price (old ways= Johnson Box) and if they come to the promotion from a targeted source, they may often buy, then go back and read the whole thing.

          I do like the breakdown, I believe in AIDA, I just think it can't be deconstructed enough to give a marketer a better idea of the point of commitment to take the action. But, I could be wrong too.

          Thanks for the decent discussion.

          GordonJ
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    • Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      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.
      You would have a specific kind of person in mind before you created the campaign though, right?


      Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      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)!
      What's the point of the research? To uncover an educated guess on a wide variety of people who may or may not want what you have? Or is it to uncover a target profile so you can create specific campaigns that call out either a problem, or satiate a desire? Better to go the problem route in most cases, by the way.

      Let's say it's a "problem" based advert you put out. Is that ad aimed at a specific persona/profile? And isn't that what came first? Educated or not, if you do the research, make it count.


      Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      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.
      You're just mixing up words now.

      You get attention BECAUSE you got your target profile right. Not the other way round. Educated guess or not, you should prob'ly make use of that data you mined from the research. If you don't, may as well just pluck a buyer persona out of thin air and hope for the best.


      Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      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.
      Yeah, here, let me pull out the most unique and sought after product on the planet. Sorry, that doesn't fly. Besides, you would know exactly who your target profile was if you had a cure for diabetes.


      Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post

      You make getting attention easier, and you solve the attention stage by zooming in to your Target Profile, or Buyer Persona.
      You're just proving my point now.
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      • Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

        You would have a specific kind of person in mind before you created the campaign though, right?
        Sure, that's part of the process of creating your educated guess. Part of it is your intuition (or a qualitative analysis as we call it) and the next part is market research (looking for similar products, seeing what customers are saying about them, seeing what people suffer from, etc.)

        But my point is that the way to TEST your research is to check for attention. Until you check for attention, you will NOT know if you have the right target audience or not.

        Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

        Is that ad aimed at a specific persona/profile? And isn't that what came first? Educated or not, if you do the research, make it count.
        Of course it is aimed at a persona. But the point is that you don't know for sure if it's the right persona until you test it. And testing it is the crucial bit. I own a direct response agency, and I always have people coming to us with products that were created based on some market insight, but which were never tested. Then what we often have to do is that we have to refine the target profile and test it until we get great numbers. Then we can really start the sales going.

        Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

        You get attention BECAUSE you got your target profile right.
        Correct! I never claimed otherwise. However, how do you KNOW you got their target profile right? That's my point.

        Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

        You're just proving my point now.
        I'm glad that I'm doing that because I don't disagree with your point, I just pointed out that you're missing the system that allows you to check if your target audience has been correctly selected. Nobody "just knows" this before they go test it out. It's a process of iteration, you rarely get it right from the first time. Maybe you do, but from my experience it's hard to hit the bullseye straight away.
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        • Originally Posted by Tanda Copywriting View Post


          I'm glad that I'm doing that because I don't disagree with your point, I just pointed out that you're missing the system that allows you to check if your target audience has been correctly selected. Nobody "just knows" this before they go test it out. It's a process of iteration, you rarely get it right from the first time. Maybe you do, but from my experience it's hard to hit the bullseye straight away.

          From my experience it's hard to hit the bullseye first time too.

          Attention is critical. But it doesn't start there. We do the research. Mine through the data. Create our target profile, and then we test for attention.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    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
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  • Profile picture of the author Medon
    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.
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by WF- Enzo View Post

    The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) is a classic marketing model describing the process of a consumer purchasing a product.

    Now that marketing has evolved to become more digitized and the Internet being central to information, traditional AIDA simply won't work - the first website click often leads to a bounce, or pop-up ads which get blocked.

    What do you think should be the modern approach to AIDA?
    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.
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    Success is an ACT not an idea
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  • 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)
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