What is the AIDA Model in Marketing and Why It Is So Important?

In 1898 Mr Lewis wrote a beautiful definition of good advertisement, “The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement.”

In other words, copy is only good if it attracts attention, generates interest, and creates conviction, in that order.

This became popular as AIDA model and has shaped the views on marketing and sales strategies for over 100 years. I believe it’s a very practical thing which can help you define the goals of your marketing campaigns and pull or push customers to purchase action or to put differently – it’s a proven model to convert strangers into customers.

AIDA is an acronym which stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire & Action. This is a logical sequence for making any marketing or sales strategy work by making the customer traverse the journey from being aware of your product to actually buying it.

Awareness: How do you make the prospective customers aware of your product or service? Personalization and guerrilla marketing are two perfect ways to master this step of capturing the attention or making the customer aware of your product/service.

Interest: How do you gain their interest in your product or service? 

Desire: What makes your product or service desirable? It can be cognitive (giving features, results or any other information which customers want) or affective (feeling) but the customer should feel intensely about the product. It takes the purchase away from the need towards the want. 

Action: What are the calls to actions? Finally what makes the customer shell out the money and carry your product or service home?  Good advertising should elicit a sense of urgency that motivates consumers to take action immediately. One commonly used method for achieving this goal is making limited time offers (such as free shipping) or discount to first n orders etc.

A major deficiency of the AIDA model and other hierarchical models is the absence of post-purchase effects such as satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), consumption, repeat patronage behavior and other post-purchase behavioral intentions such as referrals/recommendations or participating in the preparation of online product reviews. Just to cover this, post purchase behavior of the buyer, a letter R for ‘Retention’ has been added and you may as well hear the model being called as AIDAR Model.