AIDA - THE MAGIC FORMULA TO CREATING COMPELLING COPY THAT SELLS
AIDA is an extremely powerful formula, that if followed will ensure your content is always primed
to sell. It works in four stages, to Attract your customers attention, interest them, and then make
them Desire what you are selling. The final stage is to make them take Action, which usually
means getting them to make a purchase or subscribe.
You can use the AIDA formula in most of your promotional copy, whether you are creating press
releases, landing pages, email campaigns, or product ads.
Let's look at the 4 stages in a little more detail...
FIRST, ATTRACT.
Attracting customers is the first and most critical step. There are many ways to attract
customers using your content, but one important way is through your headers.
With headlines you need to grab people's attention from the off, so they click through or keep
reading on.
Sub-headers are also crucial to help break up blocks of text, and add structure, so use them in
your content but be sure to make them exciting and relevant.
A good header is provocative and presses people's buttons. It can make them excited,
intrigued, or even angry but one thing it should never do is be boring. So, don't play it safe with
your headers
Stand out by asking leading questions or promise value by offering to give people knowledge
they never had before.
You should aim to charge your headers with emotional words, like amazing, exceptional,
terrible, horrible, but don't use too many, and don't go overboard.
"The terrible truth about most skincare products" is a powerfully emotive and intriguing header,
as is "Is your diet endangering your health?"
"10 ways to stop losing money on your Facebook Ad spend," is even better, as not only does
everyone want to save money, you're giving people an incentive to click through and read your
content by promising to give them a practical solution.
Headers can be short or a little longer but try to keep them as brief as possible while still being
specific.
Getting specific is critical, no one is going to click through if they are not sure what they are
going to be reading. Time is precious, so you have to make people want to spend theirs
reading your content, by showing them what's in it for them.
One way of making your headers more specific is by including numbers in them.
"Ten crucial diet mistakes that age you faster" is super specific, as it tells people that if they click
through, they'll be able to find out what these potential ten errors are.
An industry survey conducted by moz.com found that number headlines got 327% more
clickthroughs than question headlines. You won't be able to use them every time in every
header you write but you can supercharge your content but including them wherever possible.
