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Writing an Effective Call to Action

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January 15, 2012

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Internet Marketing

Conversion: It’s the ideal end game of any marketing message, whether it’s the content of your website or your e-mail marketing campaign. Conversion is the process of turning prospects into paying customers of your business. The call to action is a necessary tool for achieving conversion anytime you speak to your audience.

What does the best call to action look like? It’s short, and it offers the reader something of value.

Let’s start with what doesn’t work. Calls to action that are too long, too used car salesman-like, USE ALL CAPS TO SHOUT AT THE READER, or too guilt-inducing (this is a biggie for charities and non-profits). For example:

  • HEY YOU! Come check out our used car lot! You know you want to COME TO OUR DEALERSHIP and test drive one of our cars, because they’re REALLY GOOD QUALITY and we want an opportunity to show you how awesome our customer service is. We’re going to get you into a GREAT CAR at a GREAT PRICE, no strings attached we promise! Please buy from us, we are totally DESPERATE, as you can tell from our long-winded sales pitch, we want to try to grasp your attention and not let it go! The more words we write on this page, the better our product sounds… OR DOES IT? You’re probably not even reading this anymore because I’ve completely lost your attention and you’ve missed the point.

Pretty ridiculous, right? Try not to be those guys. It sounds easy when you’re looking at such an obvious example, but if you write a call-to-action that resembles the above even in the slightest way, you’re only hurting your campaign.

Effective call to action messages evolve around one or two short sentences – no more. Your call to action should be clear, concise, and answer these two questions:
1) What do you have that the reader wants? 2) What do you want the reader to do?

  • Want a great car at a great price? Call us today at 888-123-1234
  • We invite you to learn more about our services with a free consultation. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.
  • We’d like the chance to demonstrate (product name) to you. Click here to receive a free trial!
  • To experience (product name) for yourself, take advantage of our latest promotional offer. Simply fill out our contact form, and a friendly representative will reply promptly.

You should separate your call-to-action from the main content of your page. Make it stand out so your user sees it right away and knows “Hey, this is what they want me to do.” A simple way to make your page easier to understand is by using bullet points for your features (instead of a long-winded paragraph) and adding your call to action in bold text.

Of course, not everything works all the time – but it’s certainly worth trying out these suggestions to improve your calls to action. Writing an effective call to action is an art, not a science. Try something different on each campaign and take note of which ones convert the most users into customers. Then, re-use the call to actions that perform the best.

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