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AIDA: Attention-Interest-Desire-Action
Every day we're bombarded with headlines like these that are designed to grab our attention. In a world full of advertising and information – delivered in all sorts of media from print to websites, billboards to radio, and TV to text messages – every message has to work extremely hard to get noticed.
And it's not just advertising messages that have to work hard; every report you write, presentation you deliver, or email you send is competing for your audience's attention.
As the world of advertising becomes more and more competitive, advertising becomes more and more sophisticated. Yet the basic principles behind advertising copy remain – that it must attract attention and persuade someone to take action. And this idea remains true simply because human nature doesn't really change. Sure, we become increasingly discerning, but to persuade people to do something, you still need to grab their attention, interest them in how your product or service can help them, and then persuade them to take the action you want them to take, such as buying your product or visiting your website.
The acronym AIDA is a handy tool for ensuring that your copy, or other writing, grabs attention. The acronym stands for:
Attention (or Attract)
Interest
Desire
Action.
These are the four steps you need to take your audience through if you want them to buy your product or visit your website, or indeed to take on board the messages in your report.
A slightly more sophisticated version of this is AIDCA/ AIDEA, which includes an additional step of Conviction/ Evidence between Desire and Action. People are so cynical about advertising messages that coherent evidence may be needed if anyone is going to act!
How to Use the Tool
Use the AIDA model when you write a piece of text that has the ultimate objective of getting others to take action. The elements of the acronym are as follows:
1. Attention/Attract
In our media-filled world, you need to be quick and direct to grab people's attention. Use powerful words, or a picture that will catch the reader's eye and make them stop and read what you have to say next.
With most office workers suffering from e-mail overload, action-seeking e-mails need subject lines that will encourage recipients to open them and read the contents. For example, to encourage people to attend a company training session on giving feedback, the email headline, "How effective is YOUR feedback?" is more
A good way of building the reader's desire for your offering is to link features and benefits. Hopefully, the significant features of your offering have been designed to give a specific benefit to members of your target market.
When it comes to the marketing copy, it's important that you don't forget those benefits at this stage. When you describe your offering, don't just give the facts and features, and expect the audience to work out the benefits for themselves: Tell them the benefits clearly to create that interest and desire.
Example: "This laptop case is made of aluminum," describes a feature, and leaves the audience thinking "So what?" Persuade the audience by adding the benefits".giving a stylish look, that's kinder to your back and shoulders".
You may want to take this further by appealing to people's deeper drives"... giving effortless portability and a sleek appearance and that will be the envy of your friends and co-workers."
4. Conviction
As hardened consumers, we tend to be skeptical about marketing claims. It's no longer enough simply to say that a book is a bestseller, for example, but readers will take notice if you state (accurately, of course!), that the book has been in the New York Times Bestseller List for 10 weeks, for example. So try to use hard data where it's available. When you haven't got the hard data, yet the product offering is sufficiently important, consider
generating some data, for example, by commissioning a survey.
5. Action
Finally, be very clear about what action you want your readers to take; for example, "Visit www.mindtools.com now for more information" rather than just leaving people to work out what to do for themselves.
