There’s a well-known structure in successful website copy, depicted by the acronym AIDA.
AIDA stands for:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
First, you seize your prospect’s attention. This is done with your headline and lead. If your copy fails to seize your prospect’s attention, it fails altogether. Your prospects don’t read your copy, and don’t order your product or service.
Then you want to build a strong interest in the subject matter from your prospects. You want them to keep reading, because if they read it, they just might buy.
Next, you channel a desire. Having a targeted market for this is key, because you’re not trying to create a desire where one doesn’t exist already. You want to capitalise on an existing desire, which your prospects may or may not know they already have. And you want your prospects to experience that desire for your products or services.
Finally, you present a call to action. You want them to pick up the telephone, return the reply card, attend the sales presentation, contact you for more information or order your product online. You need to ask for the sale (or response, if that’s the goal). You don’t want to beat around the bush at this point. If your copy and AIDA structure is sound and persuasive, here’s where you present the terms of your offer and urge your prospects to act now.
A lot has been written about the AIDA copy writing formula. I’d like to add one more letter to the acronym: S for Satisfy.
In the end, after the sale is made, you want to satisfy your prospects, who are now customers. You want to deliver exactly what you promised (or even more), by the date you promised, in the manner you promised. In short, you want to give them every reason in the world to trust you the next time you sell them a back-end offer. And of course you’d rather they didn’t return the product (although if they do, you also execute your return policy as promised).
Either way, you want your customers to be satisfied. It will make you a lot more money in the long run.
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