Effective Calls-to-Action Fundamentals for Your Internet Marketing Copy

Calls-to-action are essential in marketing copy. The ultimate goal of a call-to-action is to prompt a site visitor to perform a specific action. You’ve seen them everywhere in website copy. From banner ads to homepages, to embedded in social media platforms like Facebook posts, YouTube videos and Tweets. Now for the tough question:

What are pointers to writing an effective call-to-action?

Let’s discuss the fundamentals.

Action Verbs and a Call-to-Action

Action verbs convey emotion and appeal to the reader’s senses. Think of the two as a perfect pair-they go together like peanut butter and jelly! Since they are most effective in calls-to-action, excluding these powerful words from your copy will leave your reader with little/no direction. This could potentially hurt your click-thru rate, thus ultimately affecting your conversion rate. Action Verbs That Make Powerful Calls-to-Action:

• Discover
• Explore
• Click
• Learn
• Examine
• Download
• Find
• Uncover

In Copy, Less is More.

Fewer words with an (audience-friendly) robust meaning is the goal when writing copy. Too wordy, and your message gets lost in the context. Like all things in marketing, there’s not a lot of time to engage and grab your audience’s attention. Short and sweet is key.

Offer Something Worthwhile

Give your viewer a reason to follow through with your call-to-action. Offer something for their trouble! Just make sure it’s something they would actually want. “Subscribe for a chance to win xxx” isn’t nearly effective as “Subscribe now for your FREE xxx.” As well, offering a solution to a problem they have is always a great strategy. If it saves them some time or a few bucks, you’re on the right track! “Save 20% and get xxx by becoming a member” is a great example.

Hurry! Time is of the Essence!

If your viewer thinks the benefit of your offerings will last until the end of time, they’ll also probably tell themselves they can just come back later; and the odds of them actually coming back? Slim to none. If you have an offer, set an expiration date-a true one. After all, nobody falls for the “call within the next 30 minutes” spiel anymore. Something such as “Offer ends December 31, 2013” inspires a true sense of urgency! In other matters of time, within seconds your visitor should be able to understand exactly what your call-to-action means, why they should take action, and what they’ll receive in return. These fundamental tips should help you get the ball rolling to create an effective call-to-action.

One Last Bit of Advice

Always A/B test to find which call-to-action generates the most leads/sales. Don’t be afraid to try things out and see which works best for your type of business!

Tags: Digital Marketing