Author Bio: Callum is the head of marketing at Warble Media. They are a boutique website design agency in Dubbo, NSW, Australia. He is passionate about helping local small businesses achieve success with their marketing.

It was 1898 when, looking for a way to optimize sales calls and amplify customer engagement, E. St. Elmo Lewis came up with the AIDA model. AIDA is an acronym that stands for the four individual stages of the customer journey, as defined by Lewis:

  • Attention

Raising awareness and attracting the target audience’s attention using various eye-catching advertising materials.

  • Interest

Fuelling customer interest and enticing prospects to find out more about the brand, and the products and services you offer.

  • Desire

Showing your products’ strengths and how they can help in overcoming various pain points and encouraging the prospects to move from merely researching your brand, to wanting your products or services.

  • Action

Establishing a connection and encouraging customers to take action and move towards their desire.

Throughout the years, the AIDA model has become the most widely-used marketing model in the world. Even today, many marketers swear by its principles when trying to build compelling offers to turn prospects into loyal customers.

The problem is, the AIDA model was developed in the 80s when the customer journey looked a lot different than what it does today. So, it is only natural for marketers to be looking for an alternative model that better fits today’s ways of doing business and the ever-evolving buyer’s journey.

In fact, most industry experts claim that the traditional marketing funnel is dead. However, often these theoretical musings end with a conclusion that most people are already aware of (if the buyer’s journey is evolving, so should the funnel) – and rarely do they explore alternative solutions to the outdated AIDA model.

That’s exactly what we will try to do in this article.

But, instead of jumping right to the three steps you can take right now to drive engagement and nurture your pool of customers, let’s first understand the two key factors that have transformed the way customers interact with buyers.

The Rise of Digital: Mobile and Video

We live in a world shaped by digital technologies. With a 24/7 access to the internet, we have the world at our fingertips, even more so with the rise of mobile. Stats show that in 2018 52,3% of the global website traffic was generated through smartphones.

Be it replying to an urgent email, jumping on a Skype conference call, or merely checking the latest news, people are used to accessing and transferring information on the go. Our habits have changed as social media and mobile apps have made smartphones an indispensable part of our daily life. Bearing this in mind, the rising importance of mobile SEO should come as no surprise.

And then, there’s video as well. Research shows that videos enhance engagement, simplify the process of product comparison and hence play a vital role in the customer decision -making journey. It wouldn’t be an overstatement if we said that videos are the most engaging and persuasive type of content one could possibly create.

If Not AIDA, Then What?

The AIDA model proposes that the customer journey looks like a funnel: wide at the top and narrowing down as the customer gets closer to making the purchase.

So, according to the traditional marketing funnel, it is during the first and second stage of the journey, that the customers face a wide array of choices and weigh various alternatives that could potentially satisfy their desire.

This makes the AIDA model inapplicable to modern buyers. The customer journey is no longer so simple and linear as it once was. The contemporary marketing funnel starts narrow, and then widens towards the middle, and then narrows down again.

The easiest way to understand why and where an old premise is flawed is by introducing a newer, superior theory.

That’s where David Edelman’s CDJ (customer decision journey) model comes into play. This model was discussed in detail in ‘Branding in the digital age,’ an article that appeared in the Harvard Business Review. We will be discussing the CDJ model more in-depth in the next part of this series—stay tuned!