Copyright 2005 Arun Pal Singh

It is very important to realize that persons buy from you. It is the mind at other end of the internet who will decide a sale from you. Thus it is very essential to know how your customer"s psychology works.

What is the process that goes in the mind who reads your promotion? An understanding of the whole process will make you achieve your goals and build your business better.

Many a theories have been developed to explain the process when person views advertisement and then goes for sale. It has been charted and every model points to one thing in common.

The process is not instant. It is sequential.

Anybody who has been marketing on the net must have come across AIDA. It is the simplest advertising model that in short stands for

-Attention

-Interest

-Desire

-Action

This model suggests that advertising must gain customer"s attention, arouse the person"s interest followed by desire for the product and stimulate the action towards the purchase of the product.

This explains and guides how to formulate your advertising. Successful marketers have followed AIDA for generating successful advertisement campaigns.

AIDA is good but is not that well defined. Another model that has gained popularity and is more comprehensive than AIDA is DAGMAR. Its steps are more defined and thus easier to apply than AIDA.

DAGMAR stands for "Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results".

It maintains that all advertisement aiming at a sale must carry the potential customer through four stages.

Awareness Comprehension Conviction Action

Let us assume that you have a product and your target customer is totally unaware of it.

So in first stage you make him aware of the product. For example posting an advertisement on a high traffic website.

Second stage is comprehension. What is your product about? What are its potential benefits and features? How can your customer get it? This is achieved when your potential customer clicks your posted advertisement and reaches the page that contains details of your product.

Next is the stage of conviction. This is very important stage. You need to convince your customer about benefits of your product. Testimonial for your products is an excellent tool to achieve this stage. Visible proof or evidence is another great tool. But be genuine or this won"t work in the long run.

After he is convinced with your product, your potential customer enters into stage of action. This may involve a request for further details, ordering a trial offer if available or the actual sale itself.

Whatever model you may use to build your campaign it must be remembered that a sale is not an instant process. On the contrary it is sequence of the events that your potential customer"s mind goes through. Each stage has to be preceded by the previous. Each one is essential and crucial for a successful sale.

That should remind that instead of running a "Buy Me" advertisement concentration should be on making the flow in the advertisement that begins with introduction of what you intend to sell and why people should buy it.

Use the science for your benefit and see the results.

Wish you success.