AIDA Formula: How to Use it to Drive Hot Results with Your Copy
Recently I’ve been learning more and more about one of the most important weapons in any marketer’s arsenal — copywriting.
So, what is Copywriting?
Copywriting is arranging words so that they sell better.
Why is it important?
If you want to generate more clicks, leads and sales — good copy is essential. You could have a killer product or service but if people aren’t intrigued or persuaded into clicking the link or visiting the website that you are sharing, you don’t have customers. I’ve taken courses on Facebook Ads, how to build websites and they do what they say, however, they miss out on the most important aspect of all — how to write attractively.
How do I write good copy?
Luckily for us, copywriting is no new topic. Like many things, there are guides on how to write copy effectively. For someone like me who is a complete novice when it comes to selling with words, it’s super handy to have an outline of what to do. Enter the AIDA formula.
So what is the A.I.D.A formula?
The AIDA formula is a proven and ‘old school’ model copywriters use to guide a prospect through to making a sale.
This formula can be used for all different types of advertisements. You could use it for paid ads, Instagram posts, emails, direct mail or even TV and Podcast Ads.
What are the stages of A.I.D.A?
AIDA is broken up into four components. Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
ATTENTION
This stage of the model is all about getting your brand in front of as many (of the right) people as possible. Also known as Brand Awareness.
The main things to remember are:
- Dive deep into your audience, do your research i.e. who’s going to be interested in your product or service?
- Building up a persona of a hungry-to-buy customer (passions, pain points, solution they wish they had)
You can create attention by using a headline, a main image or a video that speaks to the above ^. Create content that stays congruent with your marketing message. You can use Facebook, Instagram, and other social media as well as organic traffic to your website to get this content out to your audience.
INTEREST
By now, you’ve managed to create attention-grabbing content that leaves your audience wanting to know exactly what it is your service, product or company does. Now it is your job to guide them through to the next stages of your marketing funnel.
To do this, you need to give them a reason to stick around.
But why won’t they just keep reading?
Well, the average attention span of humans today is 8 seconds…let that sink in. You’ve probably looked away in the time it took you to read this sentence.
So how do we maintain the reader’s attention?
Luckily for us, before starting any writing we did a deep dive into our audience to know exactly who we are selling to.
So what we do is reflect upon our in-depth market research where we learned what pain-points our audience have and speak to them personally.
For example, if you own an underwear company, and through your market research you ascertained that the market was lacking a good looking maternity bra for breastfeeding mothers — you need to let them know that you understand the pain they go through. ‘Do you want to feel better about yourself?’
It’s critical to be as personal as you can be here, so that the person reading your copy feels as if you are speaking to them and only them. This is why it’s important to do thorough market research and know who your audience is.
DESIRE
This is where you get to show your prospect the perfect solution to their problem.
How?
Demonstrate your offering’s features and (more importantly) benefits related to their situation.
You can use different methods to portray these. Photos, before and afters and statistics are all common ways.
In our example of the underwear company, we could use a before photo of a woman in an ‘ugly’ bra, and the same woman in one of the good looking maternity breastfeeding bras as well as a list of benefits that describe why our product is a better fit for them.
If you do this correctly, you will have a prospect ready to make a purchase and flow through to the next stage of your marketing funnel.
ACTION
Once a prospect has enough desire, your next job is to convince them to take immediate action.
You have probably experienced this step in person, where a salesperson asks you for the sale ‘so, would you like to take this one?’ ‘which color do you want?’ ‘do we have a deal’?
Online, it’s a little different. Many advertisers will create urgency, to get the prospect over the line and converted into a sale. For example, things like ‘sale ends this Thursday, 20% off for the next 100 orders’ are ways of instilling urgency in people.
It’s also extremely important to make this process as simple as possible to not deter your prospect from following through. Add your office phone number if you want more phone calls, or a call-to-action button leading them to make a purchase.
There are many ways to make these call-to-action buttons stand out, from using contrasting colors on your website to the specific placement of them (view without needing to scroll down).
So, let’s see an example in action
AIDA Model for Coca Cola
The company behind Coke and Diet Coke have been using the AIDA template for years.
The company attracts Attention by blasting out their message to the masses using a variety of mediums. It’s common to find Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and other of the brand’s offerings on the Internet, TV, ads before movies begin at the movie theatre, paid digital ads, and many, many more.
Coca Cola spends nearly $4 Billion in worldwide advertising and each year that number continues to climb.
The brand that develops Interest by mentioning the ingredients from its beverages in each of its advertisements. This is particularly true for brand offerings like Diet Coke and Coke Zero, where you’ll often hear about how great the beverages taste without all the calories.
The brand creates Desire in its customers by explaining how its sodas are so satisfying for consumers. For example, Coke Zero, allows you to enjoy a delicious new formula whilst maintaining good shape.
The latest Diet Coke ads show hip and cool customers drinking the delicious beverage, which is intended to create Desire in you to do the same.
With all this media marketing and messaging that entices you to drink Coke and all the brand’s beverage iterations, the product is placed everywhere you may shop or hang out. You’ll find Coke brand items in grocery stores, convenience stores, movie theatres, and in vending machines everywhere.
Mass exposure and availability succeeds in creating Action. Customers want to drink it and they keep drinking it. It’s no wonder Coke is the top soda brand in the world.
Get the attention. Maintain the interest. Create the desire. Call to action
Go get it.