AIDA Model In Copywriting
You’ve probably heard the acronym Jasper AIDA before. It stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. These are the four steps in the classic marketing funnel that every business should know how to use effectively.
But what does it really mean? How does it work? And how do you get started using this powerful technique to increase your profits?
Let’s take a look at each of these questions one by one.
What Is The AIDA Model
AIDA is the classic model of marketing that was pioneered by E. St. Elmo Lewis way back in 1898. It outlines the four steps pretty clearly:
- You get attention with your ad or sales copy, followed by interest once prospects start reading/watching/listening to your message.
- Once they’re interested, you lead them to the desire for your product.
- They take action by buying your product.
- And then you get loyalty and repeat business with the customer over time as they form an emotional bond with your brand.
By using the AIDA model, marketers can influence customer desire and action.
While AIDA was originally developed for print and direct mail marketing, it’s still effective today in the online world.
Let’s take a look at how to apply the AIDA model to the digital world.
How To Apply AIDA in Digital Marketing
AIDA can be applied online in much the same way it was developed decades ago when marketers took orders by phone and mailing out catalogs.
The key is using sales copy to get attention, build interest, nurture desire and lead customers down the sales funnel. Here are some tips for applying AIDA online:
Tip #1: Start With Attention-Grabbing Blog Posts
The first step is getting people to read your content. The goal here isn’t just for people to see an article you’ve written. You need them to engage with it.
You can get people reading your blog posts (and thus, building attention) in a few different ways:
Offer the reader something free of charge, as an ebook or discount.
Add some shock value to get attention. Before you publish your post, ask yourself, “What is the most shocking thing I could say?” Then write that down and see if it works! (This isn’t appropriate for every piece of content on your site, but some shock factor can go a long way towards getting attention.)
Make another brand or blogger mad. Use someone else’s name in your headline or mention another brand/blogger that has wronged you in some way. (This one can be risky, but it’s done all the time in the news.)
Test different titles for your blog posts to see which gets you more attention. Some bloggers will use automated tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to get data on how people respond to different headline variations.
Just about everybody has an audience of some kind these days, thanks to social media and blogging. If you aren’t yet sure what your target audience is interested in, do some research online using Google Trends or Buzzsumo.
Tip #2: Write Content That Builds Interest Once you have their attention, keeps them with exciting content that builds interest in what you have to offer at the end of the article.
This can be done in various ways, all of which are equally important: Use good design on your blog post to keep people reading. This might include images, bullet points and sub-headings throughout the post. This help break up long blocks of text so that visitors don’t get overwhelmed or bored reading too much at once.
Keep your sentences short and use active verbs when possible to add more life into your writing. For example, instead of “The company started their new marketing campaign…” you could say “The company launches its bold new marketing campaign…”
Make sure your content is well researched so that it will earn trust and respect from readers over time as they see that you are an expert in your field. Add unique, valuable content to your site consistently so that people will keep coming back for more.
Tip #3: Nurture Desire With Content Build anticipation about what the reader will get with your company or product by including case studies, testimonials and free previews of upcoming products or services. If you have satisfied customers, be sure to brag about them!
Do this in the middle portion of the blog post with short blurbs that entice readers into getting more information about what’s being offered at the end.
For example, over at Crazy Egg they used a partial screenshot of one company’s results when using their heatmap tool to build interest:
People want to know that they are getting good value for their money, so be sure you offer proof of your product doing what it claims to do. This proof not only builds trust but also nurtures desire in people who read about it.
Tip #4: Call-to-Action Finally, always include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of any blog post where you’re selling something so that visitors take the next step towards becoming customers.
The CTA should include an image if possible, making it more likely that somebody will click on it. Also, use action words like “submit” or “start now!” to make the reader feel compelled to follow through with your request.
Tip #5: Using AIDA Model for Marketing of Your Business Blog Post Content Finally, remember always to use the AIDA (“Attention, Interest, Desire, Action!”) model of marketing to make sure that you are encouraging visitors to do what you want them to do on your website at every step of the process.
Benefits of using AIDA Model
• Generate more website traffic
• Get a high conversion rate from your blog posts
• Increase social media presence and notoriety
• Earn a loyal following that will come back to read more
Best practices of using AIDA Model
Attention -> Interest -> Desire -> Action. Steps 1 and 2 should be used earlier on in your creative; while steps 3 and 4 make for excellent “closing” content. If you know your audience well (or even use surveys!), you can tailor each section to appeal to different people based on demographics and interests and goals. The best practices of using the AIDA model are outlined below:
Attention
Create a headline that will hook your readers and make them want to read more. You can also use social media posts or ad banners for this, but the blog post itself is where you’ll need to put in the most effort for this step.
Interest
Isolate one idea from your topic and expand on it using statistics, examples and quotes. The trick is not to go overboard with any of these — three solid points should be enough to get people interested in reading more about what you have to say.
Desire: Use specific figures and graphs here that show the benefits of whatever product or service you’re promoting i.e increased sales, improved search optimization etc). You could even delve into a case study here if you have one.
Action
Make a case for why people should sign up for your newsletter, buy your product or follow you on social media. You could even include a link to a relevant landing page that’s all about getting visitors who come across this blog post to do what you want them to (which is to take the next step towards becoming customers).
AIDA and AI writing assistant
With the help of AI, you can do several things. Your time is more valuable than ever before but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer from your laziness. This article will discuss what AI does for you and how it can be beneficial.
AI writing assistant can not only shorten your work time but also make it better. Some example forms are ebooks, documents, video blogs, newsletters, web content and more.
You need to give something for the reader so they stay interested. This is where an attention grabber comes in. Give them statistics or facts that don’t have little value to what you are selling. Readers will pick up on what draws their interest quickly if you use this method correctly.
Note one of the best AI assistants on the market, I recently told you about it. It turns out that it has a built-in module that helps to unlock the full potential of the AIDA Framework:
and the output already has all the mentioned best practices:
Read more about this magic tool.
Have fun!
