A poorly written or poorly placed call-to-action (CTA) can be the kiss of death on an otherwise perfectly-planned marketing campaign. All the great copy you have written only goes so far if your CTA does not elicit a response. Not to mention a lot of users skim the page, looking specifically for the CTA to tell them what the page is about. Use the CTA to grab them!
We want you to be successful in your marketing efforts, so we are outlining the parts of a CTA you cannot overlook and how to use them strategically.
Be Clear About Your Offer
Think about a time you clicked on a misleading CTA. How did you feel when you did not get the item you were expecting? If you felt mislead, did you carry through and fill out the form or put in your credit card?
Probably not. And you probably never went back to the website and clicked around their other services or offerings. Switching things up like that feels a bit scammy and users will simply find a competitor who means what they say.
Use Action Verbs
We’ve said it before, but when you want a user to do something, tell them. Avoid using vague language. A lot of users skim emails and websites because we are psychologically trained to hunt out the CTA. It is the fastest way to see exactly what we are looking at, along with headlines and bullet points.
“Download whitepaper now” lets us know we are about to get a whitepaper. If you tease the whitepaper in the copy and then use “Here you go” as your CTA, you will miss grabbing the users who decide not to read your copy. The more users turn to the internet for information and commerce, the shorter their attention spans become.
Even if you could get away with the CTA as a simple, “Submit Form,” use that opportunity to say something memorable.
Length and Design
Keep your CTA short. The copy on the button should not exceed 4 words. If you feel like you need to do more to convince them, you should definitely revisit your body copy or headlines.
Also consider using the words as an opportunity to dispel myths about your product. Netflix is probably the most famous example. Their primary CTA is, “Join free for a month.” They know people are hesitant to join without trying it out, so they address this setback right then and there.
From a design perspective, consider keeping the page simple and match your CTA to your company’s logo color. If they are the only 2 color elements on the website, they will both pop off the page and catch your eye.
Test those CTA’s!
Changing out the color, copy or offering can boost content when it plateaus. Breathing new life into your marketing efforts is a successful tactic and especially useful for social media! If you have a blog that does well, link to it again!
Change the CTA a month from now and track its performance. It gives you valuable insight into what triggers your target audience. You can use those insights to create more personalized content and nurture them in the future.
