October 12, 2016
Marketing Tip of the Month: Using Calls-to-Action
With calls-to-action, you can entice website visitors to take action by clicking a link, filling out a form, downloading materials or completing whatever objective your business finds important. Through call-to-action marketing, you can provide beneficial offers to your customers, and in-turn see an increase in conversions!
1. Know where to include a CTA – Want to create a call-to-action, but not sure where to place it? Think about the content you’re producing for your business, and where it will best serve customers. You could include call-to-action marketing at the end of a blog post or email newsletter, in a sidebar, or anywhere else that makes sense to promote your offer. CTA placement is important; make sure that it follows informative content that will persuade your customers to take the next step.
2. Make it attention grabbing – If the offer is blasé, this won’t be an effective call-to-action. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes; what catches your eye when you come across a marketing call-to-action? Make sure that your call-to-action web design components stand out, use colors, buttons and links that will make customers want to follow through. If your call-to-action is lackluster in design and content, there will be no reason for customers to pursue it.
3. Use action-oriented language – When crafting your marketing call-to-action content, make sure that you’re including action verbs! Words like apply, download and complete will be more likely to convince customers to participate. In addition, ensure that customers understand the offer by using related keywords. You don’t want customers to be confused by what you’re asking them to do.
4. Include a landing and thank-you page –Remember, your CTA should lead to a landing page, and then a thank-you page. The landing page should include a form, so that you can gather information from interested customers. Only ask for pivotal information; customers won’t want to fill out a mile-long form. On your landing page, don’t include your typical navigation menu and links, as this will distract from what you’re trying to promote. If you’d really like to create a strong landing page, include a relevant image or video.
Next, your thank-you page should obviously thank users to taking the time to interact with your CTA, but should also provide them with some additional information. Include links to your business’s social profiles or blog posts; this is a great opportunity to give visitors more insight into what your business does.
5. Consider incorporating pop-ups – Grab visitors’ attention by integrating a pop-up into your landing page. Featuring a pop-up can create a sense of urgency that might make a visitor more likely to fill out a form. A successful pop-up could ask a question, or provide additional value propositions. There are many ways to personalize your pop-ups to reflect your business’s brand and intended CTA, so get creative!
6. Test and optimize for best results – One of the most important steps is to keep improving your call-to-action marketing efforts by testing different components. Try changing the language, switching the color of a button or link, or making other stylistic changes. Remember, only make one adjustment at a time! If you implement multiple modifications and see an increase or decrease in conversions, you won’t know what exactly caused these results.
Now that you’ve reviewed these call-to-action marketing tips, it’s time to try them out. Utilizing calls-to-action effectively will allow you to provide your customers with offers that will likely educate them and increase their interest in your small business. By doing this, you may even convert them into a loyal customer! Have additional call-to-action suggestions to share? Leave them in the comment section below.