When Aida isn't just an opera - a Marketing 101 skill for physician entrepreneurs

As physicians, you are in the marketing business all the time whether you know it or not. When you are not busy "selling" patients on an exercise program, a drug treatment or the best operation for their condition, then you're trying to convince them that you're the best doctor in your specialty for them to continue seeing or believing. Or you're hoping to persuade colleagues with the utmost subtlety that you're the top person to whom to make referrals - right?

If you are contemplating a new business, upgrading your medical practice to entice your ideal patients to join, or simply hoping to persuade someone to change behavior or act upon a suggestion, you will need to master some of the basic skills of marketing that I know were overlooked in my residency training!

Just to set the stage - think of yourself in a typical working day. It has been calculated that you are bombarded by several thousand marketing messages a day, all competing for your attention and your pocket. How many of them do you actually notice, let alone act upon?

Here's where AIDA comes in - an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

A memorable message will be "sticky" and arouse your:

Attention. In the cacophony of message noise, yours must stand out sufficiently to get noticed. You must arouse awareness that you and your message exist.

Interest. Awareness isn't enough. You must awaken interest. The most common and effective way to accomplish this is to touch (or even hammer) a painful nerve. Or agitate a fear. The second most common way is to tap into yearning and longing for a better future state.

Desire. The hankering for pain relief or the yearning can be transformed into desire if you offer the solution that is most likely to provide the results that the listener or reader wants, or begins to imagine he or she wants after feeling the emotional force of your message.

Action. It isn't sufficient to create attention, interest and desire, if this doesn't result in action - of the kind that YOU want. If you want your "customers" (think patients, clients, true customers, potential employers, bosses, employees) to do something, you have to be specific in your call to action.

It must be highlighted that none of this will work if you do not know the needs, wants and desires of your "customer". If you do not know what is bothering them, keeping them awake with fear or frustration at night, or filling them with hope and longing, you will not accomplish AIDA.

So here are a couple of situations in which AIDA might apply:

You have a great "Quit Smoking" program you are offering in your practice. What pain of your potential participants is sufficiently dire or noxious that they will sit up and notice you? What must you say or do to catch their attention? What emotions must you awaken? What benefits does your program offer that will match their desires and alleviate their fears? What must they be told to do to follow through and commit?

or

You want to persuade your boss and the senior team to start a new program in your organization. What is keeping them up at night? How does your plan solve their problems? What words must you carefully select to dissuade scepticism and encourage excitement? What bold plan can you put forth that provides the solution, puts you in the driver's seat AND refrains from increasing the senior team's work load or stress? What action steps must be spelled out for them that offer them a simple and easy way to agree?

I hope you get the gist by now ........ the onus is on you to arouse the four responses.

Here's a good reminder article by Tom Chandler of The Copywriter Underground blog.

Understanding the needs and desires of your "target", appealing to them using emotional cues, and getting your target to commit to an action that you have intentionally set up are the requirements for a stunning and memorable performance!