The AIDA acronym will be common to marketers and copy writers the world over.  It outlines the steps the marketer must take the customer down on their way to buying whatever it is they're promoting.  I'm sure you've heard of it already, but if you haven't, AIDA stands for:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The idea is that your advert or copy first has to grab the attention of the reader.  You then build their interest in your product by focusing on their needs.  You then build desire by reassuring the reader that your product does all you say it does with testimonials, awards, money back guarantees etc. before applying the call to action that gets them buying.

Now AIDA has been used for around 100 years now and has guided marketers the world over.  For most of that period of time however we lived very much in a push world.  Companies would make things, which they would then advertise to customers.  There may have been nominal market research performed but by and large you'd have the same product promoted to a mass market via mass market mediums like television and print advertising.

The problem is, this world no longer exists.  Ok, that's not strictly true, it still exists, but the web has changed things in a fundamental way.  Now we're increasingly living in a pull world where consumers are in complete control.  We live in a world where consumers decide what they want and companies will make it for them, often in a bespoke way.  We live in a world where consumers expect things on their own terms.  They want content that is tailored just for them, and they know when they want it and how they want it.

And this shift is ignored completely by AIDA because AIDA takes no account whatsoever of context.  You can tick every single AIDA box, but if you're still sending out generic emails to your entire mailing list then you're not going to achieve the results you could do.

Context is key

People don't mind receiving emails if they're emails they want.  It's when they're getting lots of generic content that is not relevant to them that they hit the unsubscribe button.

So rather than worrying too much about AIDA, the first thing you should be focusing on is that you're sending

1. the content people want
2. when they want it. 

If you can't do that then don't be surprised when you join the rest in achieving 11% open rates.  When you think 9 out of 10 people aren't bothering to read what you write it puts it all into perspective doesn't it?