Using Calls to Action in Your Marketing

One of the major motivations  behind implementing a marketing strategy is to inspire someone to do what you want them to do. However, that raises the question of how one can be sure that their audience reacts the way they want them to? The simple answer?: by using a call-to-action. A call to action (also known as a CTA) is an image or text which is aimed at getting the audience to take a specific action. It’s the next step, that you want that potential customer to take. 

There are several different types of CTAs you might leverage at different points of your marketing funnel. From your sales pages, landing pages, social media captions, abandoned cart emails, text blasts, email blasts, and lead generation forms. These are all great areas to add your CTA, however, there is a method to the madness that you will need to use. 

Keep It Simple

You’ll want to use the KISS method. Keep it short and simple. If your initiative requires too much work on the part of your audience or is more complex than filling out a few fields with their information, fewer potential contacts will be willing to complete the action that you called them to. Your call to action should encourage readers to engage with you further. You’ll want to break the activity into smaller steps that make sense to your audience. In many cases, it’s as simple as a click to “buy now” on that product to impulse buy. You can lose prospects at each step of the process, so you want to make it very easy for them. 

Urgency

Building urgency through incentives, benefits, and sales is also a great way to add your CTA. - When writing out your CTA, emphasize the benefits that completing the action will bring. It often helps to offer an incentive for doing so, such as a discount in exchange for a phone number or email, as this will motivate your audience to act. Setting a time constraint such as a “Holiday Special” or “Weekend discount” on these offers will also motivate your audience to act sooner rather than later when they risk forgetting all about your efforts. 

Social Media

Social media outreach is another great source to add your CTA by asking viewers to follow, share, like, comment, or smash that subscribe button, you can broaden your reach, increase your following, and build relationships with potential customers. A great way to add CTA through social media without the risk of coming across as “spammy or overly salesy” is by providing educational tips and knowledge through your social media outreach, as you will soon be seen as an expert or guru in that industry which also helps build trust. 

Calls-to-action can be an excellent method to guiding your prospects and leads through the steps of the sales cycle. Unfortunately, there is no single formula for calls to action that can magically convince most of your leads to convert, but if you want to know your audience and their preferences better, experiment with different CTAs, and test out variations.