AIDA formula

The AIDA formula was developed in 1898 by the American marketing strategist Elmo Lewis to provide salespeople with a guide for successful, customer-oriented sales pitches. The first president of the Association of National Advertising divided the sales process into four stages, which a consumer goes through on the way to making a purchase decision and which can be used by salespeople and marketers to formulate appropriate messages.

AIDA is an acronym of the English terms Attention, Interest, Desireand Actionand describes the four stages that, according to Lewis, consumers go through before making a final purchase decision. By taking these stages into account when designing advertising measures, messages and sales pitches, companies and salespeople can exert a certain influence on potential customers and consciously steer them towards a purchase decision.

A - Attention

The first stage of the AIDA formula is about attracting the attention of the target group. While this was relatively easy until a few decades ago, this stage now presents companies with a major challenge. Globalization and digitalization have not only significantly increased the range of products and services on offer. At the same time, the volume of advertising messages has increased many times over - particularly due to the development of social media. With the mass of advertising messages that consumers are confronted with on a daily basis, messages can only be perceived selectively. The difficulty for companies is therefore to stand out clearly from the competition. In order to attract the attention of potential customers to themselves and their own offer, advertising must be eye-catching and appealing. The design and content of offline media such as posters, flyers or displays or online websites and landing pages can certainly deviate from the norm in order to stand out. This is possible, for example, with eye-catchers that remain in the memory of potential customers through concise and activating key messages. This is the only way to ultimately trigger a desire to buy and lead the customer to the final purchase action.

I - Interest

Have you successfully captured the attention of potential customers with your advertising message? Now, in the next step, you want to transform your target group into prospective customers and not simply let the attention you have gained fizzle out. This stage of the AIDA formula focuses on communicating relevant product information and addressing potential problems of the target group. In any case, a connection to the advertising message that was used to attract attention must be established. Depending on the offer, special product features or price advantages can be presented at this point, for example, to arouse the interest of the audience. In addition, an appealing design and the textual layout of messages can arouse curiosity and help to attract prospective customers.

D - Desire (desire to buy)

The "Desire" phase of the advertising impact model often goes hand in hand with the "Interest" phase. In order to persuade prospective customers to make the final purchase, you must now trigger the desire to buy in the consumer to really need and want to purchase your product. The focus here is on communicating added value. By presenting aspects such as USPs and advantages for the customer, you offer consumers a solution to your problem, convince interested parties and trigger the desire to buy. Communication on an emotional level is particularly promising. Here, too, an appropriate visual and textual design can achieve a better advertising effect and remain in the memory of future customers in the long term.

A - Action (purchase action)

The last phase in the AIDA formula is reached when the advertising effect occurs and describes the purchase action and, according to Lewis, the conclusion of the sales process. The initial letter A stands for Action. Whether in online or offline retail or in the design of landing pages and advertisements, a sales pitch or an advertising measure finally ends with the purchase action. While in a personal conversation the purchase is the natural result of the previous conversation, companies can use calls to action in the online store or on landing pages, for example in the form of call-to-actions, to persuade potential customers to make a purchase decision. This form of call to action can also be used on offline advertising materials such as flyers, posters and advertisements to make it easier for customers to make a purchase decision.

Due to the many points of criticism of the AIDA formula, scientists have spent the last few decades looking in detail at adaptations and extensions to the stage model. Various studies dealing with the modern sales process, the development of advertising strategies and research on the advertising effect have gained new insights and shown that modeling the sales process must take other principles into account. Based on this, the AIDA formula has been further developed by various authors. For example, the AIDAS and AIDCAS models are now more frequently cited and applied in practice than the classic AIDA formula.

AIDAS

The acronym AIDAS covers the four known areas of the AIDA formula and has been supplemented by a further initial letter and aspect: Satisfaction. This advertising impact model does not end with a call to action or the completion of a purchase, but with customer satisfaction. The focus is on satisfying customer needs and can in turn be the starting point for subsequent purchases.

AIDCAS

With the initial letter "C" inserted in between, the AIDCAS stage model stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Actionand Satisfaction. Like the AIDAS principle, this advertising effectiveness principle includes the additional aspect of customer satisfaction and therefore focuses on the satisfaction of customer needs and the prospect of possible follow-up purchases. The principle also proposes the addition of the aspect of persuasion. In this additional stage, the customer is explicitly convinced of your offer and makes the decision to choose your product or service over the competition. In the conventional AIDA formula, the stage of persuasion takes place at the same time as the development of the desire to buy.

Despite various points of criticism and extensions of the stage model, the basic construct is still recognized and used: potential buyers go through various stages until the final purchase decision is made. Although the AIDA formula was originally developed for the design of successful sales pitches, the stage model, albeit in a modified form as the AIDAS or AIDCAS model, is still used in the age of online retail and the like. The principles can still be applied in stationary sales as well as in online retail in telephone sales conversations or customer advice via chat bot or email. The AIDA formula can also be taken into account in the design of advertising, in content marketing when creating advertising texts etc. and in email marketing, thus guaranteeing a certain advertising effect. In addition to the AIDA formula and variations such as AIDAS and AIDCAS, there are now many more marketing models that deal with customer behavior.