The advertising model AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) originated in the late 1800’s and became the most widely used model for understanding the customer’s experience when making a purchasing decision. It is still used today. Humans have been making decisions in the same way, likely for hundreds of thousands of years, regardless of the advancement of technology such as written language, books, the telegraph, television, computers, the internet, and now Ai models. To learn about the history of AIDA, you can read this article “The Origin of AIDA”.
A missing piece in AIDA is that it does not include what happens after the customer action, which is where the greatest opportunity for sales lies. The majority of sales usually occur due to people telling their friends about their purchase.
There is something else. AIDA is an overview of our decision-making journey, but is not fully a model. It doesn’t tell us what information customers need at each level, or where to publish that information. These two areas are where BASE3 improves upon AIDA. They are discussed below.
What is BASE3?
BASE3 is a marketing model that combines three certainties in digital marketing. 1. the customer’s decision journey, 2. information they need along that journey, and 3. channels to deliver that information. It is represented by a visual chart that can be used as a guide, and for diagramming marketing campaigns. It can be used as a guide for building tech systems for managing sales and customer service and support. The logic can be programmed into Ai models and applications. Our goal is for it to be taught to all marketing and IT students as a foundational model. See the below BASE3 chart.
A Closer Look At The Features BASE3 Adds To AIDA
BASE3 provides two additional features:
- Additional customer journey levels after action is taken, and
- A content topic publishing matrix, which results in a full model for decision-making.
Overview of the new features
1. New Levels: In the BASE3 model, the customer Action is a single point in time, not a phase. The BASE3 model includes two additional decision levels after the customer Action: Validation and Promotion.
VALIDATION. The “Validation” level is the time period where the customer is deciding whether or not they have made a good decision. They are looking for Validation that they made a good decision.
PROMOTION. The “Promotion” level is where, after validating their decision, the customer feels qualified to tell others about their decision, whether good or bad. If they feel their decision was bad, they are going to blame the company. But if the customer feels they made a good decision, they are going to take credit for that decision and promote that decision to others, encouraging them to copy their decision which would demonstrate influence. This is how businesses usually grow.
2. Content Topic & Publishing Matrix: AIDA is simple enough that it is not affected by changes in trends or technology. It is rooted in human behavior, which has generally not changed in the past couple of hundred thousand years. BASE3 achieves a similar immunity to change because of the human decision being at it’s base. The content topic and publishing matrix are equally reliable in that they will be correct even if technology changes.
Expanding From AIDA
By mapping out the content customers need at each of these decision levels, and the channels we have available to deliver that content, what emerges is a chart that can be used for planning campaigns and creating a production plan. The logic of the BASE3 model chart also can be written into Ai tools that can perform a wide range of tasks including making campaign recommendations, and building out a full campaign and production plan.
The overwhelmingly positive results of moving to BASE3
By using the BASE3 model, you follow every step of your customer’s journey through your system and find costly gaps that may have been leaking leads for years.
A client came to us who had spent $20,000 with a previous agency on ad spend and received zero leads. When we applied the model to follow the customer journey, we looked at who was seeing the ad, then what page they landed on, what the call to action was, and what our client’s process was for handling that inquiry, and there we found a terrible fact. The inquiries were being sent to an email for the developer who built the website, and the website company was not in business any more. That $20,000 was literally thrown out the window. The agency didn’t know, because they didn’t have a process for following the entire journey. After we fixed this, they became inundated with requests and sales.
Another example, a client came to us who was seeing their search engine impressions go way down. We followed the model, and by looking at “Discovery” data, which is in essence “impressions” we discovered inside of Google Search Console that there were hundreds of 404 errors to .pdf documents that were not on their site. This indicated that the site had been hacked. It was, and had been blacklisted. We cleared the hack, and applied for the blacklist to be removed, and it was. Impressions increased by 700%.
We are able to create fully automated systems for businesses. For example, we worked with a Construction Manager who is doing networking and speaking. By diagramming out his activities, we created fully automated system for him. There is a QR code on his website that leads to a special landing page to collect information. His slides have a QR code that goes to a special landing page. His brochures have a QR code that also go to a landing page. All information collected goes into a CRM that he can easily access and manage through his own email account. This means that all of his activity is collected, whether he is at his local cafe meeting people and handing out his card, or presenting to a room of colleagues. No lead is lost.
How to incorporate BASE3 into your process
Understanding the model only takes a few minutes. Using it once gives you the experience you need to apply it to other businesses. Once you see the power of its structure and how it ensures there are no gaps in your customer’s journey, you will want to refer to it consistently. You will likely begin to adjust your process to the BASE3 model.
Licensing: Keep in mind that you may use the model for your own business for free, but if you wish to use it with other businesses you need to get BASE3 certified to ensure the model is being used correctly. Certification comes with a license to use the model with your clients for two years.
There are three main slides that you will use to apply the model, and as you begin to learn BASE3 you may create your own tools to fit your process. The model will soon also be available as an app that calculates journey level data, and there is an Ai chat on this website that knows the model and will answer questions for you based on the logic of BASE3. Please note that the chat is Ai based and may give you incorrect information at times.
The three BASE3 starter slides are shown below. The first is the customer journey population chart that you use to get a high-level overview of how many customers are in each level for a business. The second slide is a grid of the channels to make an assessment of which are needed and what their status is. The third is the full chart, which you can duplicate and use to diagram campaigns. Even small businesses will have four or five different campaigns happening at the same time. Each diagram can become a production plan.
Take A Certification Course
The Orange Belt Certification Course is designed to give you an easy-to-apply explanation of how to begin using BASE3 in your process. It also provides a license so that you can use the model with your clients. Whether you want to use it within your own organization or with clients, you will gain an understanding of how to leverage the BASE3 model to guide your customer’s journey. Click this link to view the BASE3 model Orange Belt course.
