The web is a crowded place, more customers and more competitors.

Online marketers can add a huge value to brands by using the web as a medium for exploration, organic growth, experience sharing, relationship building, making every customer both a convincing salesperson and a compelling advertising medium.

But companies require clear strategies to make their target audiences to be aware of their online presence, to stimulate their interest in it, to make them want to experience it, to make them take action and spread the word by recommendation.

The RAIDAR model

This model stands for Research, Attention, Interest, Desire, Action and Recommendation.

Characteristics:

• It happens online (although some stages are reinforced offline)
• It happens in real-time (any moment of the day, on the go by using mobile devices)
• The customer is in charge rather than having the info pushed by companies
• The conversations are multi-way: marketers, friends, strangers, websites and experts compete for attention

1. Research: Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) are the most important components. Here is where first impressions happen and the path to purchase often begins. When consumers hear about a product or service, their first reaction is ‘Let me search online for it’, and so they go on a journey of research and discovery. This is what Google call the ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth).

2. Attention: can be stimulated by using advertising (online / offline), Public Relations and Events. Attention also triggers a desire for more research and referral from actual customers before a real interest is formed.

3. Interest can also go through more research and community engagement (referral checking) before the desire and action takes place. User Generated Content (UGC) is an important component both in the Attention and Interest stages.

4. Desire and Action goes hand by hand with usability.

5. Recommendation this part is one of the most important, people hardly believe in brands, they believe in what other people like them say about a brand. Recommendations (UGC and social network sharing) it boost search ranking. In this stage the first user experience is closed and the viral spiral starts.

Remember: the better you know your audience as individuals (not as a mass) the better you are able to solve your audience’s problems at a profit.

Usability and appealing value propositions are key to take your customers through an experience that is so remarkably satisfying that they will want to recommend it to their friends.