How to Create a Successful Call to Action
In this age of technological advancement, many businesses are becoming more unique; when compared to the past, most businesses tend to have a virtual or online presence for prospective clients to have an idea of what the business is about. Hence, the reason for the existence of business websites.
However, as the primary reason for creating a business website is to advertise the company’s goods and services that will yield increased sales, this is the reason a Call To Action (CTA) is required for the success of websites and business websites alike.
So what exactly is a call to action? In this piece, a call to action will be defined, along with the types of call to actions, and some important points that will help facilitate a good call to action for your business website will be examined.
What is a Call to Action?
Call to actions are usually precise, short and direct phrases that are designed to catch the attention of site visitors on a particular action that a website owner expects them to act upon. As important as a good Call to Action is on every business website, the effect it produces, that’s in terms of lead conversion, or the increase in sales, the growth of the business is reduced if other important aspects of a website are not well carved. The website layout, content and graphic designs are as important as the call to action message on every business website. If any of this part of a business website isn’t strong enough, not even the strongest of Call to Actions can do the magic.
Call to actions are designed on business websites for site visitors to sign up as members, download files, engage with your content, begin a trial or purchase a product. It’s important that Call to Actions begin with strong and persuasive words capable of increasing the followership of your website, yielding more sales and converting more leads.
There are many ways to create a good call to action, one of them involves working with an SEO content agency who are specialists in this field. However, if you would rather do it yourself two critical steps need to be noted before creating a business website; the first is a ‘clearly defined purpose’ and the second is ‘audience knowledge’.
Defined purpose for a business website
Like the popular saying goes “When the purpose of a thing is unknown, abuse becomes inevitable”. In the same vein, it’s important for a business to ask & answer questions such as why do we need an online presence? And what is the need for a business website? Having understood this, the next question is, what success or difference will the website generate for our business?
When the right answers are derived for the above questions, you can think of a good call to action. If, example, you were running a confectionery business, of a good call to action would be; “Get a box of cheeseburger for every box of pizza and coke you buy”, or “Take advantage of our 15% discount promotion offer on all our products this week” Based on the aforementioned, it’s easy to carefully carve an impacting call to action for a business.
Audience knowledge
Central to a productive call to action is audience knowledge. While knowing or having a statistic and demography of your site visitors and followers is important, more important is the need to understand the business language spoken by your audience, what type of vocabulary mostly catches their interest, their reason for visiting the website, and what they desire to achieve via the visit.
One of the ways to know your audience is by conducting research or creating a profile that affords them the opportunity to bear their mind out entirely; this will in turn help shape the call to action you create.
How to design a successful call to action
While there are so many ways call to actions can be created on your website, some of the most effective ways include; being precise, adding a sense of urgency & time, giving back, using persuasive words and evaluating performance.
Precision
In order to achieve the desired result from a call to action, ensure they are always brief and direct to the point without an unnecessary explanation whatsoever. Some example sentences for a call to action include downloads, sign up forms, Free trial registration boxes, product discount codes, limited offer codes.
Urgency and time
In every way possible, it’s important to emphasize timing and urgency when revealing the call to action. When a period of time, usually brief is attached alongside a call to action, it becomes imperative for the site visitor or potential client to make an informed decision in a twinkle of an eye. Hence, a call to action or words that depict urgency should be used. These include words such as “Now Today and Here”. Others words include ‘Get instant discount’, ‘Maximise the chance to win’ and ‘Get a winning code when you buy’.
Give back
These days, it’s important to emphasize the fact that you require your audience to click through images, links, videos, and buttons to access various call to actions. This makes it strategic in a way to compensate the loyal site visitors and clients who have stood by your business through thick and thin. Some of the ways they can be rewarded include giving them an opportunity to download materials directly into your device, commence a free trial & create your own website or blog.
Persuasive words
A good Call to Action requires persuasive words that are capable of captivating the attention of your audience and consequently ensuring they follow through with the process. It enhances the confidence of the audience in your request.
Evaluate performance
There’s no gainsaying that every business website requires Call to Actions as a strong and persuasive one helps to produce the desired business growth for an entrepreneur. However, an appraisal or performance evaluation of a call to action is important to decipher if effects, in terms of its contribution towards the business expansion, growth and Returns On Investment(ROI). The efficacy of a call to action is known by the number of leads it converts.