What do I write to be strategic with my content?

Schedule your free discovery call to see if SEO is the secret sauce you need

We'll talk about your business and how SEO can help level up your success to where you want it.

[wc_button type=”secondary” url=”https://calendly.com/claire-premium/discovery” title=”Visit Site” target=”self” position=”float”]schedule your free call now[/wc_button]

People ask me all the time what the heck they should write about.

If you know your goal, it’s really just a matter of guiding your reader through the mental process from being unaware of the problem you’re solving with your stuff/services all the way through to them wanting the solution you’re offering.

There are several different copywriting formulas that do this in slightly different ways, but my favorite is AIDA.

(And no, I don’t mean the slightly psycho android “Artificial Intelligence Data Analyzer” from Marvel Comics. But she’s cool too.)

AIDA is a handy acronym: Attention – Interest – Desire – Action.

Why do we need this?

Here’s the thing.

Even if your ideal client/customer needs your stuff (which is why you created it in the first place), they might not necessarily know that they need it.

So in this post I show you how to use AIDA to help get them from not knowing, to knowing, to wanting, to taking action.

So how do we perform this epic piece of mind-bending?

Let’s go through it one letter at a time:

Step by Step through the AIDA Copywriting Technique

Attention:

I also like to think of this one as Agitation. This is the step where you’re catching your reader’s attention and making them problem-aware. A shocking statistic can be handy here, or a story that sounds like something straight out of their life right now. Our goal is to press on their pain points, as they relate to your topic, until they can't ignore them any longer.

Example post types:

• Mistakes
• Myths
• Why their ___ isn’t working
• The cost of ___ (pointing out how they’re doing it wrong)
• X Things You Didn’t Know About ___

Interest:

In this step, your goal is to grow their interest in the topic and display your expertise. It’s where you add educational value (which also helps with the Know-Like-Trust factor). The key here is to hint at the solution without giving it all away.

Example post types:

• The Ultimate Guide to ____
• How-to’s and tutorials
• Tools and resources
• Answers to questions you get asked

 

Desire:

In this step, you’re illustrating what life is like after the solution (whereas in the first step you’re illustrating the before). Show off the benefits. Brag! Not directly about you or your product/service, but about what their life if going to look like once they take you up on your awesomeness.

Example post types:

• Case studies of past clients/customers
• X Ways ___ Helps with ____
• What it takes to _____

 

Action:

This is where you tell them exactly what action to take next to get the solution. Always use a clear call to action and make it as simple as possible for people. Too many choices or options causes decision paralysis.

• Instead of using another blog post, consider your sales page the content for this step. (Your sales page will probably include all of AIDA within it, but it’s the last A for the content leading to it).

 

Putting AIDA to Work

See how each of these steps naturally leads your reader through the mindset change to be ready to purchase from you?

To make this work for you and your business, do a brain dump of all the mental steps your ideal needs to go through and little things they need to know about in order to get the most out of working with you or buying your stuff.

Then, with all that still at the front of your mind, come up with a few different article ideas for each of the first 3 steps of AIDA.

Once you have a short list for each one, figure out how they could fit together, one leading naturally into the next. You’ll scrap some, and come up with some new ones, and tweak some more when you sit down to write them, so don’t worry about being perfect. It’s a matter of going through the exercise and getting something on paper that fits together and works with your goals.

What I like about using AIDA as a formula for this is that it’s not about tricking anyone, it’s just about showing them what they might not have been aware of before. You’re still focused on serving your audience; you just also happen to be serving your business (because ya gotta make money if you want to keep helping your peeps!).