Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action– the four key stages a buyer goes through when deciding to purchase a product. These are the four pillars of the AIDA Model, which has been widely used in digital marketing and sales strategies over the last decades. It is one of the oldest and most effective frameworks for selling, so it is no surprise that many marketers build their campaigns and strategies around it.

The AIDA Model capitalises on consumers’ tendency to want certain products as soon as they see them. As mentioned, the AIDA framework has four stages: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Here’s a more in-depth explanation of what the model is, as well as tips on how you can apply it to help boost your brand’s growth!

Breaking Down the AIDA Model

When approaching the AIDA Model, think of it as any other marketing funnel. Each stage will become narrower and have less consumers to get you to your target buyer. As a consumer goes deeper into each level, the more familiar they become with your product or service. This also makes them more connected to it, making it more likely for them to purchase it.

The model’s conception can be traced back to 1898. Advertising Hall of Fame inductee, Elias St. Elmo Lewis, brought up three principles that he used all throughout his advertising career in a column on The Inland Printer. According to St. Elmo Lewis, to successfully sell, one needs a consumer’s attention, then interest, then conviction. This school of thought later paved the way for the AIDA Model.

Attention

The first stage of the AIDA Model, Attention, is especially crucial because it is your target consumer’s first interaction with your brand. The digital space is saturated with all sorts of content across various platforms, and you would need to stand out to get noticed. Grabbing your target consumers’ attention is the first step to getting them to convert. 

In this stage, your target consumer learns about your product. However, it is also important to remember that attention does not necessarily translate to retention. Your consumer can forget about your brand as easily and as quickly as they learned about it, so you need to provide them with all the information they need. This will help build interest in your product or brand, which would prompt them to go further down the marketing funnel.

Here are some ways you can capture your consumers’ attention across the digital space:

• Pop-up ads across social media platforms
• Eye-catching photography on print
• Powerful headlines for both print and digital content

Interest

Once you capture your consumers’ attention, you can begin fostering interest. At this stage, you can start showing them more of who your brand is and how your product can, essentially, improve their life. Here, they will decide whether they like what you have to offer, or not. This is also where you can work on retaining their attention and develop a relationship with them.

To successfully lead target consumers down to the Interest stage, you need to do deep research. Find out what makes your target customer tick, and incorporate it into your content creation. Knowing your target customer inside and out will help you develop marketing strategies that deeply resonate with them. Doing so will help you move them further down the marketing funnel, into Desire and, eventually, conviction.

Desire

Attention and interest together breed desire. This is the stage that the consumer begins feeling like they must obtain what you have to offer. It goes hand in hand with the Interest stage but where the Interest stage gets a customer to “like” your brand, the Desire stage gets them to “want” it. Your connection with your target customer has become deep enough for them to want your product or service, and it will be easier for you to drive them towards conversion.

The Desire stage is where you further nurture this connection by continuously providing high quality and engaging content. Make sure your prospective customers keep interacting with your brand because this will build trust. Encourage them to sign up for your newsletter, post high-quality blogs, and have a dedicated lead nurturing strategy in place to build Desire.

Action

The Action stage is the final stage of the AIDA Model, and this is where the consumer is persuaded to convert. This is the culmination of your consumer’s journey down the funnel, and the goal is to get them from liking your brand, to wanting your product, to, finally, purchasing it. This stage is dedicated towards driving them to act, hence Action. 

In this stage, you need to develop a sense of urgency. You need to convince your target customer that it is imperative for them to purchase your product now. You can do this by providing them with limited-time offers, or using strongly worded copy that spurs them to act.

The AIDA Model is a powerful framework that you can apply to strengthen your marketing initiatives. By using it as a basis for your marketing strategies, you can boost brand awareness, improve reach, and drive sales to help your business’s growth.

If you’re looking to apply the AIDA model into your sales funnel, tools like Zym can help you. Equipped with all the tools you need to schedule, develop, and analyse content and communicate with your team, Zym can help you develop content that works.