Marketing is like having a date
We’ve all been on a date, whether it was pre-planned or spontaneous.
It’s something we can all relate to, and we know what we’re ‘supposed’ to do.
Imagine that you’re going out for a first date or to meet someone tonight. The objective is to meet somebody you’ve never met before, have a successful date, and arrange the next one.
You can’t meet them online first so this is go out, find someone, talk to them, and get their phone number so you can arrange another date.
Perhaps more of a ‘pick up’ than a date.
And one measure of the evening’s success could be that you get on well enough to go on a next date together.
Write down what you would do to prepare for it.
If a traditional view of marketing is that it’s about:
- Gaining attention
- Creating interest
- Creating desire
and combining them to produce an action, (AIDA remember) then in terms of the date we can break it down a bit futher to:
- Attention Making someone notice you.
- Smiling at them.
- Meeting their eyes.
- Saying hello.
- Interest Talking to them.
- Asking questions.
- Being interesting.
- Being interested in them.
- Desire Getting them to like you.
- Getting them to want to see you again.
- Action Having a successful first date.
- Agreeing on a 2nd date.
So imagine you are walking into a bar. You walk confidently, smile at a few people, stand at the bar, and order a drink. You look around the room to see who could be interested and vice versa. You could meet someone’s eyes, and go over to say hello – ATTENTION
Then you might talk to them, being both interested and interesting by asking questions, listening to the answers, and hopefully building some sort of rapport – INTEREST
If there appears to be some sort of mutual attraction, you carry on talking and building that connection – DESIRE – then, when you ask them if they’d like to see you again, they are more likely to say yes – ACTION.
Of course it is a very simple analogy but if you try to think of Marketing as like going on a date, it might make it a little easier to understand. However, the simple AIDA model is a bit too broad and misses out a few key steps, so we take it a bit further. (It’s just that HAIDADAB isn’t quite as snappy…)
