The best thing to remember when it comes to copywriting is that the tried and true works.
PhDs from across the world have been studying what works to get people to act for as long as marketing and advertising has existed. The main formula that is taught in schools is the AIDA and it works.
AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action.
When you use the AIDA formula, you want to grab your audience’s attention or make them aware of your offerings, grab their interest enough that they study you and then make them want and desire your offerings and finally make it easy for them to act upon your offering.
No matter what formula you find out there on the Internet, they all start with AIDA and they all do essentially the same thing.
They give you a mode to explain what you have, what it’s going to do for your audience, and what the audience can do next. It’s all about the way in which you deliver that message that’s going to make a difference. How you deliver the message all depends on your audience.
Some audience’s prefer to read offers in story form. This formula tells the story of a main character who is suffering from the same problem as your audience, and who found the solution which of course is your product or service. You’ll explain how, in story form, everything works together. The story grabs their attention and makes the audience aware of the problem, and aware of a solution, and then explains how the solution works.
Another audience will react better to being taught directly about the problem (awareness), and the consequences of not having the solution immediately (desire), and then providing the solution in a clear, concise way that helps calm their fears and solve the problem once and for all. Using this method works well with highly reactive audiences.
You can improve upon AIDA by expanding on awareness and attention, as well as interest, desire and action in ways that work best of your particular audience but that’s where it all starts. For example you can expand on awareness by explaining the problem more thoroughly so that you improve your audience’s comprehension.
Further, you can expand on desire by discrediting other solutions when you offer your own. The sky is really the limit, but every formula you use must have at least these four criteria to expand awareness, get their interest so that you can develop their desire for your solution. Finally, you can expand their action by creating exceptional calls to action. Everything in the copywriting formula works together to create a desire and a need in the audience to buy what you’re offering.