You have probably heard the term ‘call to action’ before when researching effective messaging. But what, exactly, is considered a call to action and why is it effective?
A call to action is not a literal noise, though what always springs into my head is the image above. What it really means is a compelling message that asks your audience to take a further action outside of reading content.
The goal of your call to action is getting your customers from one stage of the buyer’s journey to the next. From awareness, to consideration, to an actual product experience. Your call to action will most likely be a link or button that audiences can use to get to the next stage.
Some best practices for designing you call to action include using verbs and keywords. You need to tell customers exactly what you want them to do, then make it easy for them to do so. Any keywords that are in your title should also show up in you call to action. For example, if your content is about strategic planning, your call to action should say something along the lines of ‘click here to start creating your strategic plan.’
One thing to note about a call to action is, while it should be highly visible and prominent on the page, there is no one specific place where it should go. Place your call to action on the page wherever it makes sense. Following these directions will help you decide on your placement.
Tracking the effectiveness of a call to action is also fairly simple, as long as you set it up correctly. You can measure the number of clicks and conversions on the landing page where your call to action is located, and you can track the customers that are already in your database through lead scoring (which I'll talk about in my next post).
With effective calls to action, more customers will know what to do next, leading them directly into the hands of your sales team.
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