One of my favorite Super Bowl commercials is 2020鈥檚 Boston-set , which heralded Hyundai鈥檚 self-parking feature.
Rachel Dratch鈥檚 and Chris Evans鈥 exaggerated Boston accents grab your attention. John Krasinski confidently eyeing a too-narrow parking space piques your interest.
If you鈥檝e ever squeezed into a parallel parking space, lurching back and forth a few inches at a time, this ad probably awakened a burning desire for a self-pahking cah.
By the time David 鈥淏ig Papi鈥 Ortiz leans out of a nearby window and watches the sedan easily slide between two poorly parked cars, you鈥檝e gone into action and pulled up Hyundai鈥檚 website on your phone.
Attention, interest, desire, and action: The four components of the AIDA model form the backbone of many great marketing strategies.
This advertising formula was laid out by eventual inductee Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898, back when the world鈥檚 fastest car, a non-self-parking Porsche, hit a breakneck speed of 39 miles per hour.
More than a century later, it鈥檚 still a solid framework to write marketing copy that attracts and engages customers, generates leads, and closes deals.
Even in the era of artificial intelligence, using an old-school marketing model can help make your marketing copy sing.
The first 鈥淎鈥 in 鈥淎IDA鈥 stands for attention. 鈥淚鈥 and 鈥淒鈥 stand for interest and desire, and the final 鈥淎鈥 stands for action.
This four-stage model is based on the hierarchy of effects theory, meaning that customers have to move through each stage to complete the final desired action.
Like a typical marketing funnel, each stage has fewer consumers than the previous one; unlike a marketing funnel, it鈥檚 more linear and doesn鈥檛 have as much flexibility in accommodating different user journeys.
The AIDA model uses similar elements to a good storyteller who makes you lean in for more. So even if you haven鈥檛 heard of the AIDA model, there鈥檚 a good chance you鈥檝e used it in marketing materials without realizing it.
By bringing a little bit of structure to your instincts, you can create content and design your website with more control over your prospects' paths to a purchasing decision.
Here鈥檚 a guide to understanding and implementing each stage of the AIDA marketing model:
What words will spark your audience鈥檚 curiosity about your company鈥檚 service or product? In the 鈥渁ttention鈥 stage of this marketing model, the consumer is asking, 鈥淲hat is it?鈥
Note that this step usually follows or overlaps with your efforts to increase brand awareness.
Pro tip: I am a big fan of starting small by making lists of words 鈥 use tools like ChatGPT and online dictionaries to help, but avoid words that aren鈥檛 already in your vocabulary, don鈥檛 come naturally to marketing copy, or simply don鈥檛 speak to your target audience.
For this article, I asked HubGPT, 探花精选鈥檚 internal AI tool, to make me a list of 20 words to use in marketing copy that would spark curiosity.
It returned words like 鈥渄iscover鈥 and 鈥渆xclusive,鈥 which are widely applicable, but it also suggested 鈥渕ystery鈥 and 鈥渆nigmatic鈥 鈥 neither of which I鈥檇 likely use unless the service in question involved a magician (and probably not even then, but you know your audience best!).
You鈥檝e captured their attention 鈥 now you have to hold it.
Your audience wants to learn more about your brand, the benefits of your solution(s), and your potential fit with them. In this stage, the goal is to use persuasive, exciting content to get them to think, 鈥淚 like it.鈥
Pro tip: You can do this with a hook. What makes your product or service distinct? Avoid industry jargon or cliches by being as specific as possible. People remember stories more than facts and figures, so storytelling is a simple and effective way to spark curiosity and find resonance with your audience.
To generate interest for my new small business, a magician-staffed house-cleaning service that declutters your home with the flick of a wand (if only!), I began with my list of curiosity-sparking words.
鈥淒iscover the magic of a clean house鈥 grabs the attention of people with messy houses, and 鈥渕agic鈥 suggests something distinct about the service.
Your audience鈥檚 affinity for your brand needs hits a certain threshold. The more aligned you are with their needs and values, the more likely you are to find success.
The 鈥檚 tagline, 鈥淎ll your news. None of the bias.鈥 speaks to an audience that is frustrated with opinion-based news sources.
A brief description demonstrates the brand鈥檚 alignment with an audience that wants to broaden its news diet (鈥淲e scour 100+ sources鈥) but doesn鈥檛 have much time (鈥渁ll in a five-minute read鈥).
The goal of this stage is to turn that 鈥淚 like it鈥 into an 鈥淚 want it.鈥
You can accomplish this the same way social media influencers do: by building trust with your audience. You鈥檙e much more likely to want a product if you trust that the influencer actually uses and loves it.
Adapt that to your own brand on your website, newsletter, downloadable offers, and social media, and keep serving content that鈥檚 interesting, accurate, and builds a rapport with your audience.
For my magical house-cleaning service, I can build trust through empathetic content that doesn鈥檛 alienate my messy potential customers.
The prospects you鈥檙e most likely to close are the consumers who envision a future with you 鈥 they already enjoy consuming your content and think your product or service will be even better.
For this reason, you must demonstrate a gap between where they are now and where they could be with your solution. At the same time, you must establish social proof with case studies and testimonials.
Pro tip: 鈥淏efore and after鈥-style content is a great example of how to evoke desire while gaining trust.
Check out the headline on this case study by Calendly: This helps a prospect envision a future with this product (鈥淲hat would my life be like if I achieved similar results?鈥).
The before is the prospect鈥檚 current stage, and the after is the vision of saving nearly $200K for their business. Then, if they read the full case study, they鈥檒l see social proof from a customer just like them.
After you generate enough desire for your product or service, give your prospects the chance to act on it. The goal is to transform their desire into action and compel them to respond with low-friction but high-incentive calls to action.
You want their 鈥淚 want it鈥 to convert to 鈥淚鈥檓 getting it.鈥
Pro tip: No matter how close your prospect is to a purchasing decision, you should present a high-value demonstration of how you will help them.
If I鈥檓 offering a free cleaning to kickstart my magical house-cleaning business, 鈥淒on鈥檛 wait for the magic to happen 鈥 summon your free cleaning today,鈥 establishes the outcome and value of my offer.
The CTA should be prominent, clear, and uncomplicated, such as a button or banner that spells out what action is necessary and what鈥檚 in it for them.
Eliminating friction increases your likelihood of success. , a site that provides resources on personal finance topics, has such a CTA for its credit card comparison tool.
The button is simple yet descriptive: 鈥淐ompare credit cards.鈥 It鈥檚 highlighted on the Nerdwallet homepage with a clever headline and a short, value-driven description. The setup is uncomplicated and friction-free, and it can generate leads while empowering and delighting those leads with high-value information.
The AIDA framework has its limitations. Not all purchasing decisions are linear, and the AIDA model doesn't account for increasingly common non-linear funnels. It also doesn鈥檛 account for post-action strategies like customer delight.
A prospective customer might go looking for a solution to a problem and find your company at the 鈥渄esire鈥 stage of the model. Plus, today鈥檚 more informed, more engaged consumers set a higher bar for brands to clear in order to attract attention and generate interest.
Even though we鈥檝e broken the AIDA model into four distinct stages, it鈥檚 important to remember that it鈥檚 part of a holistic . Applying one letter of the model to a single tactic in your marketing strategy will leave you with a short-sighted plan.
An effective ad, like Hyundai鈥檚 2020 Super Bowl ad, might prompt three or four stages of the AIDA model and spur a potential buyer to action. Models like the may be more foundational to your overall strategy.
Because the AIDA model is so linear, and because emerging tech like artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) can feel downright chaotic in comparison, it鈥檚 not unreasonable to question the AIDA model鈥檚 relevance in 2024.
The AIDA model and AI/ML aren鈥檛 mutually exclusive. A 2022 paper in the peer-reviewed journal makes a compelling case for retailers to use the AIDA model to understand consumer data retrieved by AI/ML.
The paper鈥檚 authors, Dr. Yang-Im Lee and Dr. Peter R.J. Trim, use the AIDA model to focus and interpret customer data retrieved by AI/ML. At the consumer鈥檚 鈥渋nterest鈥 stage, retailers are showing off their brand personality and characteristics.
At the same time, AI/ML-powered chatbots, live-language translators, and the like are gathering key demographic data on their consumers.
Understanding the latter through the lens of the former 鈥 stick with me here 鈥 opens up new opportunities for AI/ML, like defining customer groups and sending 鈥減ersonalized messages based on the result of combining various data sets and interpreting market and consumer intelligence.鈥
The paper goes on to explain how correlating the AIDA model and AI/ML can lead to better marketing policies that build trust and prioritize online safety, and it鈥檚 .
Even in 2024, 126 years after Elias St. Elmo Lewis developed the AIDA model, it鈥檚 still a sturdy framework for understanding the buyer鈥檚 journey.
Whether you apply it to AI/ML data or use it as a cornerstone of your marketing strategy, you鈥檒l be using a time-tested formula to engage, persuade, and convert your audience into customers.
Editor鈥檚 note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.