Charlotte Cunningham, MSc Digital Marketing Management student
One of the key areas to running a successful business is to ensure you understand the customer’s buying journey. The traditional marketing funnel has gone which has now been replaced by AIDA.
The fundamentals of the old and new marketing funnels are the same, however, the order and the tactics are completed in different ways. The old funnel was used to raise awareness around the new customer funnel and how to adapt to it.
There are many tools that can be used to establish the customer journey, however, AIDA is today’s modern digital marketing funnel.
AIDA is a well-known marketing model. It can be applied to everyday life of a business and is said to make a marketing communication plan affective.
What does AIDA stand for?
Awareness: creating brand awareness and association with a product or service.
Interest: creating interest around a service or product that benefits it by increasing the interest that encourages the customer to find out more about it.
Desire: by creating an emotional connection between the brand, product or service can move the customer to from liking it to wanting it.
Action: This moves the potential customer to interact with the brand, or even make the purchase.
HubSpot is a firm believer that AIDA is a proven framework, if AIDA is used within your content marketing, it will constantly engage, persuade and converts the watchers into buyers.
Are businesses using the Customer Funnel to their advantage?
The marketing that is being used by Graze creates an emotional connection with their viewers, as they use the AIDA framework. They have a call to action on their website when potential customers want to find out more information, this can encourage them to purchase and complete the action stage.
Aida has transformed digital marketing and digital marketing has transformed AIDA. However, Ralph Haberichsays that AIDA is too general, he says that it is outdated, there are apparently newer and better frameworks out there, such as RES and the 5 A’s. RES is apparently the new marketing funnel… do you agree?
Are people ready for change?
Change happens all the time, making a change in the marketing strategy should not be seen as bad. Making a change in your approach to marketing, can be the new model RES.
RES stands for Relevance, Engagement and Success.
The relevance part is apparently better than the A in AIDA, as the customer is already intrigued by the product or service, the relevance will also give an organisation a better chance of knowing what to do to get the customers involved.
The Engagement is key to create a powerful engagement the potential customers but having powerful engagement can set you above the competition. Engagement is meant to give more insights and power than the I and D in AIDA.
Success, the success differentiates itself from AIDA as it doesn’t just stop at the customer purchasing the product, but also upselling and ad on selling makes it a success, which then increases profitability with these extra additional products.
The 5A’s Framework stands for Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocate.
Aware: Consumers are passively aware of brands, their advertising and how it affects the influencers, friends and family.
Appeal: When consumers have seen the brands message/advert, they can create a connection to it, from just remembering what has been shown. If a brand is more memorable than another then consumers will forget previous brands. The consumers surroundings and peers have high influences the appeal of the brand. Which does relate to AIDA.
Ask: This is the section where consumers want to find out more about the brand, whether it’s from friends and family or the media. Consumers connect with each other and build relationships which can either strengthen or weaken the brand appeal.
Act: Not only does this cover the purchasing stage, but also how the product or service is used and what happens after the purchase i.e. leave feedback, happy with your product? Try and sell similar products.
Advocate: This stage shows the loyalty that can become from making a purchase. Whether it’s a consumer repurchasing their product and referring them to a friend.
The pros and the cons of the different marketing funnel need to be determined by the organisation or marketer, to see what work best. The different marketing funnels will have benefits to every organisation, it’s whether the marketer decides to stick with what they know or adapt to a new marketing funnel. The choice is yours….
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