AIDA – The Copywriter’s Favourite Auntie (Part One)

Aunt Aida isn’t, as you would imagine, a sweet old lady living with hundreds of cats who spends all her time baking cakes. In fact, Aida isn’t even a person. But as a freelance copywriter, I can’t live without her. She provides the backbone to all my writing.

AIDA is all about the elements that your writing needs to make a sale. If your copywriting skills are going to be effective you have to learn how to:

• Capture your readers Attention
• Arouse their Interest
• Create a Desire
• Get them to take Action.

That would be far too much information to impart in one article, therefore I shall break down the process and here we shall look at how to go about grabbing your readers Attention.

How does a copywriter grab their readers’ attention?

First things first, if you are writing a sales letter, your attention grabber is an effective headline. If you are writing an email then it is the subject line.

For the purpose of this article I shall be looking at writing a sales letter. Your headline will be at the top of your letter but, to create instant impact, it can also be on your envelope as this will be your first opportunity to grab the attention of your reader.

So what type of headline works best?

• One giving news?
• One promising a benefit?
• One that arouses curiosity?

One that sells or promises benefit will always be a winner, but the most powerful one is the one that is a combination of all three.

If you are stuck for ideas try starting it with ‘How’ or ‘Now’:

‘How this copywriter will increase your sales conversion rate’

‘Now, even better quality, even lower prices’

When is the best time to write it?

I’m not referring to the time of day here. Everyone has their own opinion on this; some say at the start before you write the body of your copy, others say at the end. There is no right or wrong answer so go with whatever feels right to you.

One tip is to come up with several headlines and then pick the best one. You may find that different ideas occur to you at different times in the writing process.

Forget the full stop

Never, never, never end your headline with a full stop.

Why? Well, what does a full stop tell your reader to do? That’s right, stop reading – that is last thing that you want to happen.

How long should it be?

Quite simply, as long as is necessary to get your message across. But be sensible. A headline that goes on forever will be a complete turn-off.

So that about wraps up how to grab your readers’ attention. If you have any other ideas why not post a comment? It would be great to hear someone else’s take on this.

In a few days I’ll post the next article in this series addressing how you can arouse your readers’ interest.