How to Use Call to Actions (CTAs) to Drive More Conversions
When writing marketing or advertising copy, the goal is always the same. You want your audience to take action. You want to drive a conversion that brings your audience one step closer to working with you. To incite that activity, you need to use call to actions.
What’s a Call to Action?
A call to action (CTA) is a message that tells an audience what to do after consuming a piece of content. It encourages audiences to take the next step in a sales funnel and closer to working with you. Call to actions can invite audiences to do a variety of actions such as click, sign up, join, or create an account.
CTAs are an essential part of any marketing or advertising material. Without a CTA, an audience may view an ad or an article and simply move on after reading it, rather than taking the next step toward working with the brand.
Where Should You Use a Call to Action?
Call to actions should be used in any type of marketing or advertising material designed to move customers through a sales funnel. You should always use CTAs in:
- Social Media Posts
- Videos
- Email Marketing
- Text Marketing
- Blog Posts
- Landing Pages
- Ads
- Ebooks/Whitepapers
- Webinars
- Interviews/Podcasts
Before you create a marketing or advertising asset, start by thinking about what the call to action will be. Consider what you want the audience to do and then work backward to create content that naturally leads into the CTA.
Related: How to Create a Marketing Calendar to Manage Upcoming Content & Promotions
Examples of Call to Actions
A call to action is usually a verb that tells an audience what to do. There are common CTAs that are used more often in marketing and advertising materials. Consider which of these call to actions might be the most relevant for your brand goals.
- Read
- Sign up
- Call
- Contact
- Schedule
- Book
- Register
- Download
- Watch
- Try
- Buy
- Create account
- Comment
- Subscribe
- Donate
- Claim
- Vote
- Share
- Swipe Up
- Learn More
How to Write a Call to Action
The goal of a call to action is to get your audience to take a step closer to working with you. To create more effective CTAs, use these tips when you write your call to actions.
Plan the CTA around your funnel. To decide which call to action to use in your content, start by determining where the piece of content fits in your sales funnel. Outline the steps your audience takes to buy from you. Then, determine where the content fits in the customer's journey. Use a call to action that tells the audience how to move to the next step. For example, content in the brand awareness stage may encourage audiences to follow you on social media or join your email list. Content in the decision stage may encourage the audience to click to buy.
Related: 12 Tactics to Create a Restaurant Sales Funnel That’s Always Full
Consider adding a design element to your CTA. A call to action is made up of copy that tells an audience what to do. But, it can be more than that. Consider how you can use design, graphics, and buttons to make your CTA more engaging. Add a colorful button, create a clickable graphic, or style framed call-outs that draw in the eye.
Consider adding a form near your CTA. One way to make it easy for audiences to take action after seeing your call to action is by placing a form right next to your CTA. Keep it simple, and add a form requesting only an email or phone number to make it easy for audiences to take the next step without clicking through other pages or forms.
Related: The Best Lead Generation Ideas for Small Business
Create a CTA guide. Good marketing is consistent across all of your branded channels as repetition and clarity can help your message resonate more deeply with audiences. Make sure your team is using the same call to action messaging across all of your marketing and advertising channels and campaigns by creating a CTA guide. Use the CTA guide to define your primary call to actions and when to use them, as well as house the graphics, forms, and links that accompany your CTAs.
Write CTAs that drive conversions. The goal of a CTA is to drive conversions. Use these tips when writing your copy to persuade more readers to take action.
- Make the audience feel comfortable about moving forward. Address any concerns they might have about taking the next step. Tell them what to expect and address hesitations.
- Add a sense of urgency. Remind readers why they need to take action and what will happen if they wait to take the next step.
- Only offer one CTA. Don’t give readers too many CTA choices. Offer them one (or two) things to do next to prevent analysis paralysis (when readers don’t take any action because they are overwhelmed by choices).
- Use social proof. Add testimonials or results to show the audience what they stand to gain by taking action.
Related: How to Increase Click-Through Rate: 5 Ways to Drive More Conversions
A/B test your CTAs. In marketing, you never truly know what works until you test it. This fact is especially true when it comes to CTAs. Even if you have a CTA that is producing a good amount of conversions, it could possibly perform better with a few tweaks. Always measure the results of your CTAs, and then conduct A/B testing to see if you can improve your results by making changes to elements such as:
- Copy and messaging
- Button size and color
- Form style and size
- Number of required fields in a form
- Design of graphic
- What you are asking the audience to do
Related: 8 Steps to Start Strategic Marketing Planning for 2023
Drive More Conversions with Better Call to Actions
The goal of marketing and advertising is to drive your audience to take action. You want to convert audiences and move them to become followers, leads, and paying customers.
Use the tips in this post to improve your conversion rates and get better results from your advertising and marketing efforts. And if you need help executing on any of these tasks, MyArea Network is here to help.
We have a team of local marketing experts who know how to create funnels with powerful CTAs every step of the way. To see how we can boost your conversations and drive more engagement, leads, and sales, contact us today. Set up your consultation to see how we can support your business in reaching more local customers.
