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Some common calls to action sound like: “Click here,” “free download,” “subscribe,” “buy now,” and so on.
I could go on almost infinitely with other examples of CTAs that are still overused daily and that, in many cases, are far from achieving their purpose of attraction.
Along the same lines, using copy that the reader is begged to click often has the opposite effect to what is intended.
On the contrary, the most effective call to action is those that clearly show through content marketing their intention to improve the user experience and lead the reader to the right place.
Readers seek to be informed, entertained, or learn, and they do not need someone to tell them “click” somewhere arbitrarily.
This article will show you a checklist to ensure that your CTA’s make sense and create an inviting user experience.
What is a call to action?
The call to action, also known as CTA or call to action, is a phrase or set of words that seek to provoke a reaction from our potential customers to a specific proposal of the brand or company.
Being clear about the CTA is is important to later design it in the most appropriate way for our clients and our business.
What an online CTA normally proposes to us is to induce our readers or web visitors to perform certain acts, such as:
- To buy
This case is about including a CTA on a product page (e-commerce) that encourages the potential customer to complete the purchase process in which they are immersed.
- to subscribe
Here we seek to increase the number of subscribers to our blog or our business newsletter to get more prospects to transform into leads.
- Contact
We are interested in people accessing us through the contact form, expressing their needs, and leaving us their data for further action.
- Download
We want our audience to download the info-product, online application, or mobile app (free or paid) that we are offering with one click.
These are some examples of the actions that we seek to motivate and fully align with the corporate objectives that we have set in advance in our strategy.
But as we have already said, the most important thing in this whole process is how to carry it out.
Checklist of keys to designing a marketing CTA
In this checklist, we are going to see 5 key points in the design of a digital marketing CTA :
- The situation on the page.
- Value proposal.
- Relevance in context.
- Keyword matching.
- A / B test results.
Let’s see them more in-depth.
1.- Situation on the page
I am going to be very emphatic. We place a CTA on a page is a strategic decision that we should not leave to chance.
The question is not whether we put it in the body of an article, in the footer, or the sidebar.
The issue is that the call to action is as close as possible to what we want to reinforce to convert.
A poorly placed CTA can interrupt the reading process, and this is a very high price that content marketers are very clear about not wanting to pay.
Writing content using digital writing techniques that allow the reader to breathe is one thing, and quite another thing to cut the reading rhythm dry.
The CTA must be mimicked and adapted to the text in which it is incorporated.
At this point, it is important to note that the same text can include several calls to action, and each of them should naturally lead to conversion from their different positions.
2.- Value proposition
The copy of our call to action should convey to the reader the value of the conversion.
To achieve this, it is advisable to avoid generic messages such as: “click here for more information.”
We must keep the copy short, concise, and as descriptive as possible, for example: “Download the latest SoMeChatES study on content marketing trends.”
In this way, we will transmit to the reader with total transparency the final benefit that you will receive in exchange for taking the action that we ask you to do.
It goes without saying that the call to action we promise to our readers will be faithfully delivered, and we will not use hook CTAs to lead to landing pages that do not deliver the value we have promised.
3.- Relevance in the context
I have already told you that the CTA should be one more element within the text in which we include it. Let’s say it will be like a chameleon that we know is present but does not clash with the brand or with the rest of the text.
Finally, both calls to action and other actions focused on conversion are integral elements when developing the content strategy and, therefore, must be perfectly aligned.
The design and writing of a call to action are built with the idea of generating leads
4.- Adequacy of keywords
In addition to being context-aligned, the CTA copy should include the target keywords of the piece of content in which it is featured.
In this way, both the editorial message and the conversion opportunities will be integrated and in perfect harmony.
Optimizing the keywords of our call to action can help reinforce the conversion message by being closely linked to the SEO strategy of the content.
When a reader performs a search and discovers a text, he expects that the overall message of the content and the links on the page are consistent with each other.
5.- A / B test
Testing is essential to optimize a call to action and its relevance. As we have seen in this article, it ranges from the location on the page to the choice of keywords.
With the different A / B tests, we will seek to identify the copy version that gives us the best performance.
The professionals in charge of the content marketing of a company can help each other and take as a reference the conversion rates of the texts written in paid ads.
Viewing the results obtained by these payment methods texts can give us relevant information about the copy options of our editorial content.
Anatomy of a good call to action
A CTA must be:
- A non-pushy or overly promotional sales invitation: It should be designed to provide more value through more content or premium services.
- Respectful of the user experience: it will be integrated naturally as another part of the text but with wording and design that does not go unnoticed. It shouldn’t be out of tune, but it shouldn’t be invisible either.
- Relevant to the accompanying text.
- Simple and concise: it will guide the user to perform the action desired by the brand easily.
- Well written: images can be of great help, but they are not always essential.
- With grip: it must have a hook to encourage the reader to decide to take action.
- Designed with the mind reader: for this, we will try different formats until we find the optimal one.
6 examples of call to action on web pages that ensure conversion
Here are 6 typical examples of CTAs that we find on many (many) websites and that we can adapt as seen so far:
- Contact forms.
- Download resources.
- Chats
- Free trials, surveys, or questionnaires.
- Subscriptions.
- Contests.
We are going to reel off its essence a little more.
1.- Contact forms
For a potential client to contact us, we have to make it as easy as possible.
Can you think of something more frustrating than not finding a way to contact a company in which you are interested?
Some simple tricks to make it easier for them to contact us are:
- Include our phone number in the header of our website.
- Incorporate a contact form in every one of our product pages.
- Show a contact button linked to a landing page on all our pages.
- A series of questions can be included in the contact form: name and surname, emails, telephone numbers, company name, number of employees in the company, etc.
- It is also recommended to enable a field for comments or questions.
2.- Download resources
A great way to attract potential customers to our sites is by offering them to download content resources.
Offering interesting resources for visitors to our website will allow us to ask them for information in return.
The intensity in the control of our resources is the decision of each company.
There is no correct or perfect way to do it. We can decide to control all the resources we offer or only exercise this control with Premium resources.
3.- Chats
Through a chat service, we can establish a first contact to attract potential clients.
People like to talk and ask questions but increasingly flee from cold phone contact.
Instead, chat services allow the potential customer to chat with a company representative assigned to serve them in exchange for some of their data.
Using this chat feature on product and service pages can be of great help to us.
But be careful, we have already commented that we should not be intrusive, so it is recommended that the pop-up window with the chat option appears within a few minutes of the user being on the page.
In this window, the visitor is asked if they have any questions that we can help them with and, once they have clicked on the CTA that they want to chat with us, at that moment, we can direct them to a form for capturing potential customers in the that we ask for your first name, last name, and email address.
4.- Free tests, surveys, or questionnaires
Depending on the product or service we offer, we may try to give visitors to our website an extra value by testing or evaluating what we produce.
In the case of questionnaires, surveys, and ratings, we can include a CTA that invites you to learn more.
Obviously, this call to action will be linked to a landing page where respondents leave their contact information.
Offering a plus of value that helps visitors evaluate their own effectiveness is usually an excellent way to gather information on a priori qualified leads.
5.- Subscriptions
The subject of subscriptions to the blog, the newsletter, or other resources (webinars, ebooks, etc.) is a widely used.
In exchange for your email, the potential customer will receive a summary of what has been published on our blog, information about new products or services, or even exclusive offers for subscribers.
It is important to inform visitors that we respect their privacy, and we must also make it clear that if they fill out the form, we will send them the updates.
6.- Contests
A contest is another good way to generate information about potential customers.
Whenever you can, run a contest on your home page to entice visitors to share your information.
Everyone is deprived of a chance to win something!
With contests you can also promote social interactions, we just have to make sure to include social buttons.
It is important to cover ourselves legally, so before conducting a contest, it is advisable to consult a lawyer to make sure that we comply with the legal guidelines to the letter and thus gain peace of mind, knowing that we will not have any legal problem.
How many of these calls to action did you know about? And how many are you going to dare to put into practice now?
Co-founder Custom Design Partners
Alexander Hatala is the co-Founder at Custom Design Partners. He specializes in e-Commerce operations, performance marketing strategies, and behavioral analytics.