One of the primary purposes of every business and organization, both online and offline, is to make sales. But does it mean that every business makes sales as soon as they are established? Definitely not! Some businesses online have failed to understand why they have not been able to make tangible sales over some time. Some of these businesses spend a lot in their marketing campaign but generate little profit. There might not be any particular reason for this low sales rate, but the absence of a compelling CTA is one of them.
CTA, which stands for “call to action”, is used to motivate potential customers. Also, it is a marketing term that is used mostly in advertising and selling. It refers to any device designed to prompt a response or sale. A call to action in most cases is words or phrases that can be fused into a sales script, advertising message, email forms or web pages in other to make customers take immediate actions.
Getting enough leads is vital to the growth of every business sales, and they can’t be separated from CTAs. People get to visit websites that sell a product that they need, but sometimes they end up not buying from them. But the presence of a CTA can turn these potential customers into leads which in turn can lead to sales.
The action can either be to buy a product, or to sign up for a newsletter, or to sign up for a free product. Even with giving out freebies, a CTA would determine whether people would sign up or not; unattractive CTAs are as good as nothing.
Using a simple CTA or not having any at all can do your business more harm than good. According to Adroll, adding CTAs to your Facebook page can increase the click-through rate by 285%. Also, according to Wordstream, emails with a single call-to-action increased clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%. CTAs that are well placed and written attractively can serve as a big boost for any business.
A lot of big businesses have testified how good CTAs acted as a massive boost on their businesses, and you too can benefit from a CTA. You might not know how to write a compelling and sales-driven CTA, but this article is here to guide you. At the end of this article, you would not only be able to write a converting CTA, but you would understand other technics involved.
When writing a CTA, regardless of the purpose, there are specific rules that must be observed in order to get results.
The first thing to do when writing a call to action that would generate leads and sales is to make use of strong and catchy words. Until there are words in your call to action that can get the reader’s attention, it would remain useless.
A CTA is incomplete without having a strong word. Action words such as “buy now”, “View Demo/Book a Demo”, “Get Started”, and “sign up”, make up a good CTA.
In the image above, the “GET EBOOK!” is a clear strong word that can persuade readers to give out their email addresses, which is a lead for the website. They understood how effective an action word can be for their CTA, and they utilized it.
Another essential factor to consider when creating a good call to action is how short and concise the call to action is. Creating calls to action that are long and require more time for the reader to understand is wrong. A reader shouldn’t spend more than 3 seconds trying to figure out what your call to action says.
There is a big difference between a sales copy and a call to action. Also, including strong vocabularies in a call to action makes it less effective. People are always in haste and on the move, so the faster a call to action can grab a reader’s attention, the better. Call to actions are means to be short, precise and straight to the point.
The image above depicts a perfect example of a concise CTA. The entire CTA design speaks the same thing and can be understood quickly. Definitely, a lot of persons want to make money sleeping, and this CTA (with the action word “learn more”) can drive in tons of leads.
Consistency in a call to action is something that cannot be overlooked. When creating a call to action that would convert, do not confuse your readers; stay consistent.
Let’s say you want to share a vegan cookbook with your blog readers, having a call to action that says “Sign up for a vegan cookbook” is better than just having “sign up”. Let there be a flow in the entire process; you can’t be promoting software and having a call to action that has “hardware” as a keyword.
One thing many persons who write CTAs do not understand is that readers want to benefit from it. They don’t want to do you a favor, but themselves. So, in your call to action, let your readers know that they are the ones benefiting.
An example of a call to action that shows the values are the ones with “Free trial”. When a person needs a service and is offered on a free trial basis, there are higher chances of making a lead.
In the example, there is a free trial option which the company is offering. Now someone who wants to try their service can turn out to be a lead through the free trial option.
Do you want your blog reader or potential customer to drop their email now or later? If later, what if they don’t come back to your website or landing page? Then a sense of urgency needs to be triggered.
Creating a sense of urgency in a call to action is a faster way to generate leads; this factor has been tested. CTAs that include keywords such as “limited time” and “hurry now” are a perfect example of CTAs that create a sense of urgency.
The “expires at midnight” line included in the CTA would definitely make the majority of the readers click on it. Nobody wants to miss out on any goodie!
Some CTAs are written in a small and unclear way. The fonts used and also the font size of the CTA can determine the result you would get. Why call to actions are meant to be written in a bold and big way is to enable readers to locate and recognize them quickly. After all, what is the use of a call to action if people who visit your website can’t see it easily?
There is no standard font size for a call to action, but you should not make it the same size as that of the general content. When the font size of a call to action is the same as the content on the website, it can be easily overlooked.
One way to get your reader’s attention and make them take a favorable action is by having a call to action that can stir up curiosity. Curiosity, when used in the right way, can lead to an increased result from CTAs.
According to Andrew Sobel’s 6 rules for evoking curiosity, “tell people what you do and the results you get, not every detail about how you do it.” This would help to get more leads from a call to action. Here is an example:
The majority of readers on the Crazyegg website are website owners, and seeing the “What’s making your visitors leave?”, would get them curious to know more. It would serve as a bait, and then the “Show me my heatmap” is the main CTA that would yield results based on the stirred curiosity.
You might go through the list of things to do when writing a lead-generating call to action, and think you cannot write one. Well, anybody can write a call to action that can generate leads, but what makes it possible for someone to write a CTA is the knowledge of one’s audience.
When you know your audience, you would understand what interests them and what they seek. From the knowledge of who your audience is and what interests them, you can craft an attractive call to action.
When creating a call to action that would generate desirable results, 4 essential elements must be considered, and they are:
The hook of a call to action determines whether the reader gets attracted to the call to action. Just like the name “hook”, it is meant to get the reader’s attention. The entire call to action becomes useless and irrelevant if there is no hook.
Nearly every website owner with less than 5,000 subscribers would turn out to be a lead for the makers of this CTA. The first line is very attractive and is a perfect hook.
A copy is a short explanatory piece that accompanies the hook. A copy is meant to be concise and straight to the point. No time to tell stories in the copy used in a call to action. When writing a copy that would generate leads, making the audience understand the value they can get is vital. Also, a copy can be used to create a sense of urgency. Below is an example:
Notice how interesting and concise the copy for the CTA is? A few keywords that hit the nail in the head can make the whole difference.
There are tons of call to action templates, but how many of them are appropriately designed? The design of a call to action also plays a vital role in getting conversions. When a CTA template is not designed correctly or in an attractive way, it makes the CTA get overlooked easily.
When designing a call to action that would generate leads, a perfect color combination must be used. Also, including icons that aren’t relevant to a CTA would affect the CTA negatively. A clean and clearly designed CTA is bound to convert well.
This call to action was designed in a simple but effective manner. Smooth color combination, and see how the “free trial” and “get started now” where designed with an attractive color.
The last important factor to consider is the placement of the call to action. Call to actions needs to be appropriately positioned for effective engagement. There are different areas to place a call to action, and some of them are:
All of these areas are good for CTA placement, and it is advisable you try them out and know what works best for your audience.
Creating a call to action to generate leads is an effective online marketing process that has been proven to be trusted for growth. Also, the process of creating a lead-generating CTA can be complicated, especially for newbies, but can be very rewarding once gotten right.
Every tip and factor shared in this content has also been proven to generate results, and can be fused into any CTA. What is more important is giving them a trial and figuring out what works best for you.
Content marketing guru at Mailmunch. I’m passionate about writing content that resonates with people. Live simply, give generously, stay happy.
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