How to Create Effective Call to Actions That Actually Work
A call to action (CTA) is a valuable tool in your digital marketing arsenal that can help you build your customer base, generate sales, and convert your web visitors into paying customers. A CTA acts as a road sign of sorts, directing your web traffic to complete the desired action. You can employ CTAs on your website, in advertisements, email marketing campaigns, and social media platforms.
However, simply including a CTA isn’t enough to surpass the competition. You need to be strategic and produce quality CTAs, to get the most mileage out of your CTA efforts and drive your business forward. Here are some tips to help you to do just that.
1. Make Your CTA Clear & Concise
There needs to be no confusion about what your offer is. If you're providing tips on how to bake a cake, you may want to say something like, “Download our FREE tips on Baking the Perfect Cake.”
2. High Value, Low Risk
Consumers today are under an almost constant bombardment of advertisements and prompts from businesses offering various products and services, to the point where it can become overwhelming. Your task is to make your CTAs stand out from the pack and to entice your audience to complete the desired action.
To do this, you must ensure that your CTAs offer the consumer a high-value, low-risk scenario. Focus on a high-value, low-risk approach for the customer, and you’ll see the increased traffic flood in! Employ a low-pressure approach, and be sure to let your audience know that by following the CTA, they’ll simply gain information without making any commitments.
3. Start With an Imperative
Your CTAs are the perfect place for verbs in the imperative – verbs that make a command or a request, that is. Your goal with a CTA is to induce action, after all, so start it off strong and waste no time with fluff.
Examples of effective action verbs are:
- Discover
- Download
- Join Now
- Save 40%
- Register
Utilizing authoritative language through imperatives will impact your audience and ensure that they quickly understand what you’re asking of them and what they’ll receive by following through with your CTA. Here’s a list of 100 call-to-action keywords to get you off the starting line.
4. Highlight the Urgency
When writing a compelling call to action, you need to consider not only why your audience will want to click through but also why now. Create a sense of urgency for the consumer through limited-time offers or ticking-clock promotions, so they’re more compelled to act quickly.
Nobody wants to miss out on a good deal which is why you need to take advantage of FOMO. FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out, an inescapable aspect of human nature. It’s also an extremely effective technique to utilize within your marketing strategy. Create a sense of urgency in your CTAs to drive consumers to action, and soon you’ll be speeding along the road to success!
5. Make it Stand Out and Be Bold
You could write the best call to action imaginable, but it won’t yield results if your audience doesn’t see it! Make sure you utilize design elements like contrasting colours and appropriate font sizes to ensure that prospective consumers notice your CTA in the first place. You’ll gain traction through your CTAs and avoid spinning your wheels.
6. Placement
Besides your home page, you will want to place the most important CTA’s on each of your website pages and relevant blog posts.
7. Include CTAs for Different Stages of the Sales Cycle
Different offers will appeal to different individuals visiting your website. A checklist on “How to Hire the Right Contractor” may appeal to someone at the initial stages of the buying cycle, while a “Free Consultation” offer may appeal to those in the later stages. Try and create at least 3 CTA’s on your website for the early, mid and later stages of the sales cycle.
If you need help with your CTAs or any other element of your digital marketing strategy, the WEB ROI experts will get you where you need to go. Contact our team today to discuss your digital marketing needs and to set off on the course to success!