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Video Summary
A call-to-action is a way to tell your audience what to do next. It makes the next step clear. And having calls-to-action are important because a call-to-action helps your prospects or clients continue on their customer journey with your business. So what do you want your prospects or clients to do next?
If you have a goal for your prospects, make sure they know the next step they need to take to meet that goal. A common problem is to assume your audience knows what to do when they arrive at your website. Watch this video for tips on how to write great calls to action.
Video Transcript
Hello, my name is Jeffrey Kirk.
If you haven’t already done so, please click the subscribe button.
Did you catch that? What did I just do? That was a simple call-to-action. Coming up, I’ve got 5 tips to help you create great calls-to-action.
What Are Calls-to-Action?
In marketing, a call-to-action is, “a piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to perform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive such as buy now or click here. That’s what I did a moment ago. I asked you to take one specific act. In this case I said, “please click the subscribe button.”
And I added a qualifier to it saying, “if you haven’t done so already”. There’s no point in inducing you to take the action if you’ve already taken it.
A call-to-action is a way to tell your audience what to do next. It makes the next step clear. And having calls-to-action are important because a call-to-action helps your prospects or clients continue on their customer journey with your business.
Or, using the example I gave at the beginning, if you click the subscribe button, it will help you continue on your journey with my YouTube channel. And that’s a win for both of us!
When you have a call-to-action it should support you to help you win, but also support your prospects to help them win. You’re being their guide through your process.
So What Do You Want Your Prospects Or Clients To Do Next?
Do you want them to subscribe? To sign-up? To download? Purchase? Read something? Provide some details? Or even do something as simple as click a link? A call-to-action can be the final action you want them to take, or it can be a step in the process. Sometimes these steps are called micro-conversions.
For your calls-to-action to be most effective, you should start by determining your goals. Then you can decide what type of call-to-action to use and where you can put them to be most effective.
Why is this important? It’s important to tell your audience what to do next because there may be a disconnect between what your prospects are thinking and the action you want them to take.
You already know the intended buyer’s journey, but your prospect may not. This could be their first interaction with your business. Do you want to leave the results to chance, or would you rather guide your prospects onto the most effective path?
Should someone who arrives at your website sign up for your newsletter? Or should they purchase something on your page? Do they need to create an account first? What do you want them to do?
If your prospect is confused, it’s most likely they do nothing other than potentially leave your site. And that is not what you want. That doesn’t help them, and it certainly doesn’t help you!
If you have a goal for your prospects, make sure they know the next step they need to take to meet that goal. A common problem is to assume your audience knows what to do when they arrive at your website.
Does Your Audience Know What To Do When They Arrive At Your Website?
Are you willing to assume that’s true? Just because you are intimately familiar with your business and your website, it doesn’t mean the steps are obvious to others. In more than 25 years of helping businesses online, I have never heard anyone complain that a website was too easy to use, too easy to understand.
In fact, there’s a book by Steve Krug called “Don’t Make Me Think”. It’s about website usability. And a key point in the book is that visitors to your website, they don’t want to think. They want to find what they’re looking for and have an easy experience. By guiding your visitors with your calls-to-action, you make it easier for them.
On the other hand, if you assume your audience knows what to do upon arriving at your website, or while reading your content, you’re making a costly mistake. This results in lost prospects and lost sales. I already mentioned that some calls-to-action can be very direct like “Buy Now”. But others can be a road map that takes your prospects step-by-step until they arrive at your goal.
This is especially true when your products or services are expensive or require detailed explanations. People will often need to be guided down a longer path. Also, to be clear, your calls-to-action are not limited to making a purchase. Just like the way I started this video, I asked you to subscribe. There is no purchase in that call-to-action, at least not now.
Of course, I actually do want you to subscribe. That way you will see more of my videos in the future. And you may decide that my content is valuable and that I could help your business. But before any of that happens, by hitting the subscribe button, you’re helping me increase my number of subscribers. And that’s a useful YouTube metric that I’m watching. Seeing that number get bigger is one of my goals. That’s complete transparency here!
Anyway, you can use calls-to-action to ask your followers to share on social media, build your email list, advertise your offers, donate, subscribe, like, or comment. Some common action words are: Register, Sign Up, Buy, Call, Subscribe, Like, Comment, Read More, Download, Click Here, Share, Follow, Donate, Order, Checkout, Get Started, and there are many many more.
A call-to-action could also be a complete sentence like “Subscribe now so you’ll be notified of my videos”. You can be creative. The possibilities are endless! Calls-to-Action are often found near the end content, but if you have several calls-to-action, then put them anywhere that makes sense.
The words can be in plain text, put on a button, or formed into separate action boxes that pique the interest of your audience. The ultimate goal is to guide your customers and prospects to take the next step.
Here Are Some Tips On How To Write Great Calls-to-Action
Are you ready? Here’s…
Tip Number 1 — Use strong command or action words and create urgency
Be clear and concise and get straight to the point. Let your audience know what you want them to do. Period.
Start with the action word followed by an adverb or the product you are offering. Something like “Buy Now” or “Download Your eBook Now”. With the problems that your audience wants to solve, you want to offer a fast solution to entice them to click, so take the next step.
Tip Number 2 — Write from your prospect’s perspective
Doing this creates an emotional connection with your prospects making them feel comfortable with your offer. Instead of saying, “Download THIS eBook now!”, you could say “Download YOUR eBook now!”. And, depending on your audience, you might want to test, “Get MY eBook now!” giving them first-person wording instead.
Tip Number 3 — Get your audience excited!
Add promotions or entice them with results. Examples of this could be something like, “Buy now and get 10% off” or “Get your dream car now!”.
You might also consider making your call-to-action conversational. An example could be, “The new books have arrived. When are you stopping by to get your copy?” You can also have a limited offer such as, “Get yours while supplies last!” or “Download today! The sale ends on Sunday!”. This can generate some fear of missing out on the promotion.
Tip Number 4 — Get creative!
Whether that’s creativity with words, or with design, or both, you should make your call-to-action catchy to grab the attention of your audience. Unless the call-to-action is built into the conversational flow, make it easy to see on the page. The font size and color should be large enough to be obvious. And…
Tip Number 5 — Test the effectiveness of your calls-to-action with split testing.
Doing this will help you measure the performance of each of your calls-to-action. And you’ll learn which type works best so you can use them again in the future. Not sure how to go about split testing or figure out which is the winner? I have a video that shows you a free split test tool that is very easy to use. Here is the link to that video.
Hey, did you catch that? Another call-to-action!
So, I have given you two examples, one at the beginning and one at the end. First, I asked you to subscribe, and now I asked you to look for a link. If you waited until the end of the video to take action, now is the time!
Your business deserves to be seen online, and I will help you get there.
Thanks for watching and have a great day!
