By Mitoné L. Cooke 

Did you know that in advertising, every ad–and yes, your business card is an ad–should contain the following elements? These elements are remembered through the acronym AIDA.

1. A = ATTENTION
2. I = INTEREST
3. D = DESIRE
4. A = ACTION

Now what does this mean, and how can you apply it to your business cards to help you increase your sales?

ATTENTION

Look at the business cards you have now, or maybe one you’ve picked up somewhere. Is it a standard white card stock? Perhaps a vanilla color? What are the ink colors? Standard black? Burgundy or Brown?

These color choices are safe, but they certainly don’t get attention.

INTEREST

What is written on this card you are studying–the same ol’ same ol’ information? Name in the center. Title just below. Address on the left bottom corner. Phone numbers on the right bottom corner. Maybe an email or web address somewhere in there. Maybe there’s a stock logo, maybe none at all. I ask you, Is this Interesting? So far, you’re not sure why you should even bother doing business with the person whose card you are holding. What would pique some interest? Maybe a catchy tag line, an unusual graphic or picture?

DESIRE

Well, if you’re not interested in what’s on the card, you really won’t have any desire to investigate the product, person, or service any further. What does build desire in advertising? Making a product or service personal, learning the benefits–not the features and applying it to your customer’s needs, desires and wishes…and you can do this through the power of words and images. For example, if you’re selling pizza, you may think people will buy it because it tastes great. So maybe you put “Great tasting pizza” on your cards. Wrong. People need more descriptive, tantalizing images to work with. Remember the old Wendy’s commercial where the folks would bite into the burger and all the juices would squirt out? Now that said, “Our burgers are the juiciest, mouth-wateringest burgers ever.” And people went out and bought them.

ACTION

This, I think, is the most important element of advertising design. Even if you can’t get someone’s interest or cause them to have a great desire for your product, you can still ASK them to do something. Sometimes, all it takes to make a sale is to ask for it. So on your cards, the one thing you want to make sure you have on there, is the call to action. “Visit our website for a free coupon.” “Email us for a free estimnate.” You get the idea.

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