Online marketing continues to evolve. There are now more platforms and new technology available to reach and engage with current and potential customers. What hasn’t changed is the goal.
You still need people to “convert” or click through to your website, subscribe to your newsletter, or pick up the phone if you want to make money. You accomplish this with an effective call to action (CTA), which is the part of your webpage, ad, or blog post that encourages readers to do something.
If you think about every time you’ve handed over your email address, signed up for an online program, or pulled out your credit card, it was probably in response to an effective CTA. These are a vital part of guiding consumers through the buying experience, but how do you create a CTA that will have the most impact?
Here are eight tips for creating engaging CTAs that will help get you the results you want.
1. Identify Your Goal.
Before you can write your call to action, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve with it. Do you want the customer to buy something, subscribe to your newsletter, click and read another piece of content? Determine this first before moving on to the next step.
2. Emphasize Low Risk.
Today’s consumers are somewhat suspicious of the intent of online marketers. They want to trust that they are handing over their information to a reputable source, which is ideally one that isn’t going to fill their email box with spam or call them on the hour with new offers.
Therefore, it’s helpful to let people know that there is little to no risk in their click. If they can cancel anytime, tell them. What about a free trial? Saying things like “risk-free,” or “Start your free trial” in a call to action can be incredibly effective.
3. Be Clear.
You can create the best blog post, landing page, or social media platform in your industry, but it won’t do you much good if readers don’t know what to do after you have their attention.
Your content is what engages visitors and convinces them that you are someone they’d like to explore a relationship with further. It does this by showing how your business’ products or services can solve their most pressing problems.
However, you also have to be clear with your CTAs. If they are confusing or just missing altogether, it is going to hurt your conversions. This is why some of the most effective CTAs are to the point. Some examples are:
- Join our community.
- Try for free now.
4. Use Strong Verbs.
While “Subscribe Now,” and “Click Here” are tried and true CTAs, people may become "web blind" to them after seeing the prompts thousands of times. You may wish to inject some strong verbiage into your digital marketing strategy to spice things up and get a better response rate on your desired action. Some examples of CTAs with strong verbs include:
- Book your next adventure.
- Supercharge your conversions.
- Discover a healthier you.
5. Highlight the Benefits.
One of the reasons that digital everything has become so popular is that the results are instantaneous. Not only can consumers get immediate answers to their questions, but many can also make purchases online and have products on their doorstep in a matter of days or even hours.
You can leverage this desire for instant gratification with your CTAs by letting the reader know that they’ll get “instant access” to whatever you’re promising. Whether it is a white paper, a digital product, or a premium access level, tell them that they’re going to get it “now.”
Even if you’re an ecommerce business, you can let the consumer know how quickly you process orders. Businesses that sell products or services can also offer free downloadable products and shopping guides to build a customer list.
In short, no one wants to click on a CTA button for something that they might get “later.” Some excellent examples of these CTAs include:
- Download Now
- Get Immediate Access
6. Create Secondary CTAs.
Consumers also like to have options. The first tip we listed involved setting some goals, but it might be a bit limiting to have just one. In other words, if you only want visitors to buy your products, and they aren’t ready yet, should they just leave?
When you create some secondary CTAs, you can lower the odds that a visitor is going to hit the back button by giving them some options. So, in addition to the “Buy Now,” CTAs, you can have another offer that allows visitors that aren’t at that point in the sales funnel to get more information. Examples might be “View Products” or “Download Our Free Shopping Guide.”
7. Be Credible.
If you target an audience that isn’t in the market for your products or services, you won’t be seen as very credible. This is a terrible digital marketing strategy.
Instead, your company should spend considerable time and resources on developing its brand identity. Once you’ve established this, you can emphasize it in your CTAs and you will get a better response.
For example, if you are a top cybersecurity firm, use this fact to build trust and get people to click. “Join the 10,000 other companies we’re protecting from data breaches.”
8. Track Your Results.
As with anything else in digital marketing, you should be tracking your CTAs to see what is working and what is falling flat. You can use scroll maps and heatmaps to track the activity on your page as well as code in the CTAs themselves to monitor clicks. Once you figure out a winning formula, you can replicate it on other pages.
Connection Model is a results-driven digital marketing agency that can help you achieve your targeted business growth with a variety of solutions, including creating engaging CTAs. Contact us for an assessment to learn more about the core services we provide that drive market-beating results for our clients.
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Written By: David Carpenter