Introduction – Marketing is a PROCESS

Often, people think of marketing as an event, such as placing an advert or exhibiting at a show. However, marketing is about relationships with other people. This lasts longer than a simple advert or single event and is all about regular communications. 

The more often you communicate, the more your customer is likely to trust you and the more likely they are to buy from you when they are ready. There is much more about this throughout the chapters of the book, and in the individual sections which we are releasing now for people to download.

In this first chapter we concentrate on a key part of the marketing process AIDA.

AIDA is a marketing formula that has been around for many, many years (the name was first used as far back the early 1920s, but the principles go back even before then). In spite of its age, the name and the process has never been bettered. So what does AIDA stand for? Like many things in today’s world it is an acronym, designed to encapsulate a number of key things that marketers can benefit from being aware of as they think about how to best get their products to their chosen marketplace. AIDA stands for:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire 
• Action

The principle is really simple, and it applies to almost every form of communication – an advert, an e-shot, an email, a presentation, a letter etc.

If you want potential customers to engage with you rather than a competitor, work through the following stages:-

Attention: Before you can get anyone to do anything they have to notice you. This typically consists of the headline or a distinctive image on something you are doing. 

Interest: Having got someone’s attention, it is important to build their interest in what you have to say. And the best way to do that is to talk about them and their problems, not about you and your solutions.

Desire: You now need to move that interest into a desire to do something about it. One common way to do this is to offer something of value to the prospect, such as the promise of a consultation or a free gift of some sort.

Action: It is pointless creating desire for a customer to do something unless you give them an immediate way to do something about it. “Call Us Today”, “Enter your details for your free report”, “Click here” are all “calls to action”. 

A quick look in the classifieds at the back of any magazine will give you a lot of good examples of how AIDA works, and as it’s one of the most expensive places to advertise anyone whose ads aren’t working won’t stay there long. Almost without exception, these ads use the AIDA formula.

Look out for a new marketing guide next week, but if you would like to download the whole book immediately, click the button below to register your interest.