AIDA don't forget the R

AIDA - the age-old ad model of the cognitive steps of people's buying process. This model works tremendously well with social media advertising. But, for it to be the most effective, you can’t forget to add the R….

Here’s the simple breakdown of each step:

Awareness: Getting people aware of your brand, product or service. This is simple awareness and not pushing for the close. Often used as a lunch or coming soon style campaign. I always like to create a little mystery here to help with the next stage… You can also use non-sales content like awards, staff success or broad stores about the business. Remember, here. We do not want to sell; just tell the story.[nbsp_tc]

Interest: is where we focus on garnering interest in the benefits of your product or service, with the goal of people seeking more information. Here is when you start to engage influencers who can help provide the information people seek through blogs or vlogs. This way when people look, they’ll find reinforcing messaging from various sources.[nbsp_tc]

Desire: here we connect the emotional element into the story as we move from the like to a want phase in our language and shared information. Sharing elements of the story showcasing success, people delighted, and people happily using the product or service.

Action: in this stage, we start to introduce the call to action. Often this is done with the goal of either a direct purchase or by building a lead database of people who want your product or service.

Don’t forget the R, Retention: for me, this is the most critical phase in the space of social media. You want to retain clients, developing them into raving fans of your brand, product or service. Why? Because nothing sells better than an endorsement from a friend and it’s always easier to sell to those that know your brand than those that don’t. Here you want to introduce things like Trust Pilot or Google Reviews, showcasing your aftersales capabilities and care for your clients.

Try this approach when you're putting your next campaign together, as it provides great structure and a great path to follow for execution. Naturally, you will be tracking and monitoring it. Then once you’ve got your template, you can start to tweak components with each campaign, further improving the results.