Donnie Bryant: Is AIDA Outdated As A Marketing Process? (Part I)

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Almost every marketer and salesperson in the English-speaking world knows about AIDA. It’s often one of the first lessons in many of our training programs. As a framework for persuasion, it has stood the test of time in every industry you can think of for over 100 years.

A – Attention
I – Interest
D – Desire
A – Action

I often say that marketing principles don’t change over time because human nature doesn’t change. The way our brains work hasn’t changed much since Adam ate from that tree in Eden.

Tactics change. Tools change. Principles remain (largely) constant.

Despite that fact, something is missing from the AIDA equation. And today, more than ever, the missing element can have a major negative impact on your marketing results.

The First Step: Getting Noticed
Even if you’re not new in your market, it’s easy to feel like an incoming freshman in a big high school… in a town you just moved to. Getting noticed and gaining acceptance can be a struggle.

On top of that, imagine the school is for extremely near-sighted people. No one will be able to see your good looks from across the cafeteria. If you’re not right in their faces, they may never see you at all.

How do you overcome that kind of anonymity? How do you get the attention you need to start working on AIDA?

It’s usually a multi-step process. It takes work!

Robert Collier wrote that “There is just one reason why anyone ever reads a letter you send him. He expects a reward. That is the key to holding his interest.”

For the sake of argument, let’s start from here. You’ve sent a letter or package to a potential client to get his attention. What you’ve packed inside the envelope is the “reward” which is the “key to holding his interest” and cultivating his desire.

What are you promising you’ll do for the reader? Do you have a specialized product that will help him achieve some goal he desperately wants to reach? Are you offering a free trial of a service that solves a problem that’s been irritating the heck out of him?

Maybe the reward is an entertaining story related to your business. (If you haven’t seen Dan Kennedy’s 3-step Giorgio’s Italian Grotto letter sequence, you’re missing something special. You can find it if you Google hard enough.)

Keep in mind, most customers don’t buy the first time they hear from you. Winning hearts and minds is usually a multi-step process.

Check back next week for more on AIDA marketing…