VMAP builds on AIDA as a more comprehensive marketing framework. It’s holistic approach does three big things that AIDA and other marketing models do not.
What is AIDA?
The AIDA model stands for the following four steps:
Attention – let customers know about your product and company.
Interest – share product details and information, build trust, and highlight positive reviews.
Desire – help the customer realize they want your product by explaining how it solves a problem or helps them achieve an identity or feeling.
Action – get the customer to purchase or sign up for a subscription.
Optional 5th step:
Retention – some professionals add retention as a final step, recognizing that the original framework didn’t focus on keeping customers, a vital part of a long-term successful business.
Pros of AIDA:
This model works well because it acknowledges that customers often move through several mental stages before purchasing or using a service.
Following AIDA’s checklist can help you remember the big picture even as you plan smaller steps like social media ads and subscriptions. However, AIDA is one part of the customer’s journey, not a holistic marketing strategy.
Cons of AIDA:
Ignores Key Steps: AIDA mainly focuses on the pre-purchase stage and does not provide guidance for maintaining long-term customer relationships, which is crucial for building loyalty and retention.
Lacks Personalization: AIDA focuses on a linear path from attention to action without considering individual customer preferences or the complexity of the buyer’s journey.
Doesn’t Align To Goals: AIDA focuses on individual products and does not include any method to connect customers to a company’s mission or goals. So companies utilizing AIDA are on their own to determine how and when to make the connection.
VMAP – the Better Marketing Framework
With these limitations in mind, Perk Brands recommends the Velocity Marketing Action Plan (VMAP) for Home Product Manufacturers.
VMAP builds on AIDA as a more comprehensive marketing framework. It’s holistic approach does three big things that AIDA and other marketing models do not:
- VMAP aligns your marketing efforts with your business goals.
- VMAP accounts for every stage of your customer’s journey.
- VMAP understands that customers are human.
VMAP aligns your marketing efforts and your business goals.
VMAP creates sales and marketing velocity by bringing brand, communication, marketing, and sales efforts in alignment with your company’s vision, mission, and goals.
The VMAP framework develops a marketing strategy molded by your company’s direction and speed. This way, brand, communication, marketing, and sales efforts align with your company’s vision, mission, and goals to create momentum toward achieving them.
VMAP accounts for every stage of your customer’s journey.
What is a customer journey? A customer journey is a series of stages that a customer passes through to solve a problem that a product or service can solve. These stages include more than the decisions leading up to buying a product, which is where AIDA stops. A customer’s journey looks at the process from the lens of the buyer, not the seller.
Instead of only concentrating on the pre and purchase stages like AIDA, VMAP brings the entire customer journey into focus, ensuring that the post-purchase stages, where use and loyalty happen, receive as much marketing attention as the pre-purchase stages.
Another benefit of employing VMAP in your home product manufacturing company is that it lays out both the customer’s goals and the seller’s responsibility to their customers at each stage in the journey.
VMAP understands that customers are human.
Many marketing funnels and frameworks suggest only step-by-step forward movement, but the reality is that buyers are human, and the steps they take can stall, skip stages, or even move backward.
A lot can happen during a customer’s journey. They might find other options, change their mind, feel the need to reevaluate, get frustrated, or the problem (your product solves) gets eliminated in another way.
To show the process visually, VMAP envisions the customer’s journey as a gauge – similar to a speedometer. Their journey starts with problem awareness at zero. As they move through stages, they advance around the gauge.
Your Next Steps
About the Author
Jason Otis is the president of Perk Brands and founder of Built for Home. Perk Brands is a digital marketing agency that partners with home product manufacturers to make their products easy to find and buy. Built for Home is a community of home product manufacturers and a resource for buyers to find products that make their lives better at home.
