AIDA four letters to clear the marketing fog

Sometimes it is good to have a formula to help remember what you need to do especially when you are starting something unfamiliar. Over the years a simple formula evolved to help measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts and it is still effective now. The formula simplifies a lot of the concepts I’ve covered here by sifting out the extraneous and leaving only the meat.

Now, of course to really use this formula you’ll need to have just a small amount of work already done, like knowing your buyers, your market, and what you are about. Once have a reasonable handle on these you can use the formula to guide and evaluate your marketing progress. The formula is:

A=attention
I=interest
D=desire
A=action

Attention

This part of the formula is often where you’ll spend the most time and effort, because it involves doing what you need to do to get the attention of your potential buyers. Back in the pre- internet days of Madison Ave. this step took a lot of time, there were few if any tools available that could produce the level fine focus we have today. This lack of both tools and insight produced a marketing strategy model more akin to commercial fishing, casting a wide net with hopes of catching the right fish.

Today this part of the process still takes time and if you’ve done your home work and know your ideal buyers you won’t be casting a net, you will have at least a generally discernible idea of who might want your stuff. Armed with the slowly clearing image of potential buyers you’ll be able to set up beacons to light the way to you and your stuff. Turning each of by your selling venues into bright flashing guides that both send your message and guide the buyers who are looking for you.

Be bold

In order to gain attention, the intrinsic or core value of you and your work has to be extremely apparent. Bold and striking imagery goes a long way in communicating what you and your work stands for. If your message about your work stresses understated simplicity then be boldly understated and simple, use simple photographs of your work, design your booth to reflect that simplicity, but in a bold way in the way a Zen garden’s beauty is subtly and simply beautiful.

Make sure that this boldness carries through in everything that you send out, every message, and every form the message is contained in. Blinking lights on your web site hardly say elegant simplicity, on the other hand a relatively bare site doesn’t say much either. The secret is in designing all the containers that hold and carry your message in a way that immediately conveys the essence of that message.

Images aren’t the only tools in the box, you can use typography and phrasing to convey your message. You can also use color and texture to convey everything from simplicity to extreme funkiness.

There are also channels you can use to send your message through, a Facebook page, Twitter account and blog can extend your reach to the right people easier and quicker than ever now. Designed to match the boldness of your message each can be beacons to help folks find you.

Interest

Once you get the attention of those buyers who love elegant and understated simplicity, you have to capture their interest, you may not have enough of their attention yet for them to see and resonate with your message and style of simplicity. Again, the right amount of boldness will make sure you capture and hold their interest.

At this point, those attracted by your beacon are interested in how your interpretation of understated simplicity matches with their needs. Use the information you know about your favored buyers to emphasize how your interpretation is exactly what they are looking for. In doing so, you are focusing on them which in turn increases the likelihood of them seeing whether your interpretation suites them best.

Consistency

Your message needs to be consistent throughout every part of a potential buyer’s journey to decision. Consistency holds their interest guiding them easily through  your message unifying it into a whole that increases the potential of their connecting to your style.

Photographs or even sketches of your work fit into and enhance an understatedly simple life style. More often than not, potential buyers will need to see how others holding similar values use your work. So, along with photographs of your work by itself you should also have ones showing it in use.

Videos showing a buyer using your work along with a dialogue describing how it works so well for them, will go a long way in helping potential buyers identify with you and your work. Videos work best on the web, however, given recent technology changes video can also be used in many other venues.

You can also use hang tags that carry your message and help deepen their awareness of the depth of your style.

Next week we'll check in on the last two letters Desire and Action.

Related posts:

1. Marketing Monday: doing your due diligence Back in the PI (pre-internet) era if you wanted to learn how your market thought, how they made their buying decisions and what they bought...
2. Marketing Monday: Twitter strategizing rehash Strategic summary or where are we going again? When we started on this journey I described the two general courses of action: * Attraction *...
3. Marketing Monday: building your on-line list Last week we talked about why your list was one of the absolute most important parts of your business and that you had to approach...
4. Marketing Monday: Building your Mothership After you have a clear vision of your art business the next step is to build your basecamp, your mothership your blog. I am not...
5. Marketing Monday: a 21st Century strategy for artists Historically, the process of selling goods and services fell generally into what came to be called the Sales Funnel Model. In this model businesses offered...

Tagged as: action, AID, Artist, Attention, Business, desire, Facebook, interest, Marketing, Social Media, Social network, Twitter