MARKETING TIP VIDEO: Build Effective Calls to Action – 7 Tips
October 6, 2020
Here are 7 call to action tips, ideas, and examples that will help you convert more of your traffic into leads and sales.
Call to Action Tip #1: Determine What Visitors Want When They Visit Your Website
The crux of a conversion-based website or ad landing page is the call to action. It’s the point of decision where you either motivate the visitor to act – or you don’t. Along with your value proposition, the call to action is the most important content on your website. It’s worth tracking data on what works and refining your offer, word choice, and design to get the best results. This is where it starts – or ends, depending. The most effective calls to action work because the business understands why people are coming to their site, and they use that knowledge to motivate visitors. The real key here is not just knowing what people want, but giving them an irresistible offer. Here is a call to action example from Hulu. They know people want to try out their service, so the call to action is to start a free trial:
Call to Action Tip #2: Make Your CTA Stand Out
A call to action should be the most obvious content on your website. It should literally be impossible to miss. Use call to action colors so buttons and content stand out (usually a brighter color). For example, you can’t miss this roofer’s call to action:
Call to Action Tip #3: Use Short Terms in the Imperative Mood
In a call to action, you tell someone what to do – you don’t ask. It’s a short phrase in the imperative mood. For example, in a call to action you don’t ask:
Would you like to save on your insurance premiums today? Then we advise you call us for a free quote.
You tell people what to do:
Save up to 30% on your insurance premiums.
Call today for a free quote.
Make your call to action clear, specific, and short. This example is from a retargeting ad:
Call to Action Tip #4: Use Directional Cues
As we said, you want your call to action to be highly visible throughout your website. Eyes should be drawn to this content. One way to highlight CTAs is to use directional cues, such as the small arrows in the electric bill example above. Even better is to have the person in your image looking at the call to action:
Call to Action Tip #5: Place Social Proof and Trust Elements Near Your Call to Action
Imagine a lead on your website, about ready to convert. They’re pretty sure they want your offer, but they hesitate. In their mind is an unspoken question: Can I really trust these guys? People tend to hesitate online (it’s likely that more than 95% of your visitors won’t convert, which is why retargeting is so important). So, if you inject trust elements into your design close to your call to action, you can ease people’s concerns and raise conversion rates. One effective way to do this is to put a customer testimonial adjacent to your call to action:
Call to Action Tip #6: Message Match
This is an important step for any advertising campaigns that are driving traffic to a landing page. It’s vital that the word choice, offer, incentives and overall tone of the ad content match the content on the landing page. For example, this ad:
Call to Action Tip #7: Test & Modify
Of all the content on your website, your call to action is best suited for A/B split testing and modification based on data. The chances are you won’t stumble across the most effective call to action on your first try. If you test your wording, offers, form fields, images, and color schemes, you’re likely to discover variations that improve conversion rates. With the A/B split test, you run variations simultaneously so you can gather data during the same time frame with the same target audiences. Most ad platforms are set up to manage these tests. While images and colors may make minor differences, the main things you’ll want to test are your wording and the offer itself. Often you’ll discover condensing your text so you’re as concise as possible yields positive results. Changing a single word can have a major impact. In a famous case study, a business found that using the word “spam” in their call to action form had adverse effects on conversions. Taking it out and changing the word choice resulted in 19.47% increase in conversions.
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