Rediscover The 100-Year Old AIDA Formula
Pop Quiz: Of the many advertising formulas around, which one has been time-proven for over 100 years and involves only 4 simple steps?
Answer: The A-I-D-A Formula.
The 4 steps are simple to remember: First, you grab your prospect’s Attention (A) about your offer. Second, you elicit their Interest (I) about your offer.
Third, you amplify their Desire (D) to purchase your offer. And fourth, you influence them to take Action (A) and descriminate in your favor with their wallet.
Here’s a quick recap for your review:
A = Attention
I = Interest
D = Desire
A = Action
Easy right? Not exactly. My experience with the time-honored AIDA Formula is that it’s simple to learn, but not easy to implement.
Over the years, I’ve observed dozens of veteran marketers make the mistake of moving too fast to second half of the AIDA Formula – the Desire and Action part – which results in losing the sale (and the prospect) for life!
The AIDA Inverted Triangle: The best way to envision how the A-I-D-A process can work better into your marketing communications is to picture an inverted triangle like the one you see above.
As you can see, the inverted triagle has four sections. Each section (from top-down) grows smaller in size because each section depicts the percentage of prospects you’re likely to influence to move through the AIDA process.
The first section at the top (Attention) is the largest because getting a prospect’s Attention is easier than eliciting their Interest to continue watching, listening or reading more about your offer.
Moving downward, the second section (Interest) is, of course, larger than the third section (Desire) because it typically is easier to elicit a prospect’s Interest about your offer than to amplify their Desire to buy.
Moving farther down the inverted triangle, you’ll notice how the third section (Desire) is larger than the fourth and final section (Action). This is because it’s easier to amplify a Desire to buy than to influence Action.
The biggest mistake I’ve observed most marketers make is that they expect one promotional communication such as one email message, one teleseminar or one direct mail letter to do all of the heavy-lifting and capture the sale.
It’s much easier to convert even your most skeptical prospects into buying customers, if you split the AIDA Inverted Triangle in two parts.
I want you to imagine that Attention-Interest and Desire-Action are split into two separate parts instead one 4-step formula and let’s turn to Teleseminars as our marketing example.
The aim of your Teleseminar is NOT to move your listeners through all 4 steps of AIDA. Teleseminars work wonders in grabbing Attention and eliciting Interest from prospects to learn more about your offer, but it takes a website to amplify their Desire and influence Action.
Case Study: One of my most profitable Teleseminars I’ve ever conducted took place on the evening of December 4th, 2008. It was the Preview Call to help fill my Teleseminar Secrets training series.
Over 255 new students took Action and made a $2,500 decision. Yet if you listen to the call, you’ll notice how its context was to simply grab Attention and elicit Interest from my listeners. That’s the A and I, or half of AIDA.
Where the D and A came in is when I referred the 1,600+ listeners to my website www.TeleseminarSecrets.com
It was at that website where most of the promotional heavy-lifting was done with video testimonials, frequently asked questions, success stories, irresistible bonus gifts and a solid money-back guarantee.
What To Do Now: Split the AIDA Formula in half the next time you conduct a Teleseminar promotion. The aim of your Teleseminar is to grab more Attention and elicit more Interest about your offer … that’s the job of Teleseminars.
During the call, send listeners to your online sales letter (website) in order to amplify their Desire to buy and take Action with their wallet.
As I said before … AIDA is simple, but not easy. But once you decide to split it in half, you can lengthen and fatten the bottom section (Action) of the AIDA Inverted Triangle.
Please write me a comment about what you think.
Tags: advertising, AIDA, alex mandossian, formula, info publishing, online marketing, Teleseminars
This formula is over 100 years old, yet it still holds true even today. Please read this post twice and remember that you can’t execute all 4 steps of AIDA with one promotional event.
~ Alex
Hi Alex!
Nice division of the AIDA formula and how to split it into two processes with teleseminars.
I’m living proof it works because…
1. It worked “on” me in ‘06 when I first took TeleSeminar Secrets
and
2. It’s been working “for” me ever since with my Article Marketing Teleseminars.
The same AIDA formula works very well for Article Writing as well:
Attention: Article Title & Description
Interest: Beginning of Article
Desire: Middle to End of Article
Action: End of Article flowing into the Resource Box and Invitation
While the entire formula is captured and conducted in the article, the key is stacking and repetition: keep creating and submitting great quality articles, taking your reader repeatedly through the AIDA process, and you will increase your prospects, publicity & profits.
And then when you send prospects to an Audio Replay of a TeleSeminar in the Resource Box and then follow up with regular Teleseminars, then you have a simply unbeatable winning combination…
Thanks again for a great post,
Jeff Herring
Article Marketing Guy
http://www.ArticleMarketingGuy.com
The AIDA formula applies to all blog writing too.
Attention – The title must entice the reader to want to read the post.
Interest – The first sentence of the post must entice the reader to want to read the rest of the post.
Desire – Keep the reader interested by giving excellent content.
Attention – Always have a call to action at the end of the post. It doesn’t always have to be to spend money. It can be to leave comments, register for something free, take a survey or poll or whatever you think of to get your reader to become involved.
You follow the AIDA formula in all of your posts and it shows in the number of people who return again and again to your blog.
Cathy Perkins
The WordPress Wizard
http://www.TheWizardTeleseminars.com
Hey Alex,
The AIDA formula applies to Spectacular Presentations as well:
Attention – The Presentation must engage the viewer to want to look at it. This can be done through a visual representation of the presentations in your blog post. Or it can be a free give-a-way as part of the resource box in an Article.
Interest – The first couple of slides of the presentation must entice and engage the viewer to want to view the rest of the presentation..
Desire – Keep the viewer interested by giving excellent content during the presentation.
Action – With a Spectacular Presentations you can automatically have a re-direct to your call-to-action at the end of the presentation. This makes it so easy for the viewer to get to your call-to-action, it’s robotic for them.
When you follow the AIDA formula in all of your Spectacular Presentations it shows in the number of people who return again and again to your Presentations, blog and articles.
Pat & Lorna Shanks
TheCoolestCouple.com
http://www.PatAndLorna.com
Hi Alex!
Being new to Marketing, this is a new concept for me but I can certainly see how I can use it. Excellent information.
I can see using AIDA in a client’s Career Coaching process…Fantastic!
I think I see how I can use it to coach clients in their job search. There is no doubt that the Job Seeker has to get a potential employer’s Attention; has to peek their interest, and of course create a desire – the action part is what the job seeker hopes to get from the potential employer but all the job seeker can do is to encourage, facilitate and support Action from the potential employer. Thanks again.
Gilles L’Heureux.
Hi Alex,
Perhaps a childhood case study is in order to simply demonstrate the AIDA formula.
When I was a child my granny was always after me to clean up my room (her desired outcome). The following AIDA method always worked for her.
While playing ball or toy soldiers I would hear this very distinct Scottish flavored voice call out my name – with a volume that penetrated the neighborhood. She certainly had my attention and a few other kids!
I would run to my granny and she would explain to me what a wonderful meatloaf dinner she was preparing for us to eat. Being a fan of her fabulous meatloaf I was very interested!
She then turned on the oven and my senses filled with an urgent desire to hang around until the meatloaf was cooked.
Ding! My Granny would open the over door and the aroma created visions of joy in my watering mouth – I had learned from many examples from the past that the meatloaf was mine – I really wanted it now. Boy was I hooked!
Then just at the right moment my granny would look at me with a smile and in a gentle voice, “now go clean up your room and I’ll have two slices ready on a plate just for you.”
I could not take action soon enough so as to act on my strong and growing desire. My room was cleaned up in seconds!
My Granny’s name was Minnie but to me she was the Queen of AIDA!
Granny got my attention, she peaked my interest, she built desire by reminding me of past experiences and then hooked me into taking the action needed to complete her desired outcome.
I miss you Granny! But I remember the lessons you had taught me.
Thanks Alex for reminding us of the basics and for prompting this good memory.
Terry
http://www.TheTeleWebcastGuy.com
Great Formula! It definitely stood the test of time.
Another great post, hit the nail on the head!
Bonjour
Je suis en recherche d’un producteur.Grace à mon recherche je vous ai eu et je sais qu’avec vous j’ai mon esproire.
merci
I was just thinking about how unique individuals are and this opens the possibility that their personal lives will prepare them to move through the triangle at different rates. For example, someone might be eager to find a new opportunity whereas others, at the same time, may be more lethargic because of contentment with their current situation.
The triangle is a wonderful template but I believe we need to remember that each person moves at his or her own pace based on a number of factors. Some might NEVER get to Action whereas others may have warmed up the cheque book even before becoming aware of you and your business. They were just waiting for time and opportunity to meet!
Not that I’m impressed a lot, but this is a lot more than I expected when I found a link on Delicious telling that the info here is quite decent. Thanks.
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