The Anatomy of Calls-to-Action

“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” – Jim Rohn

Every piece of marketing content is useless without a call-to-action (CTA). Having an effective CTA is as important as the content piece itself, otherwise, your audience would think, “So, okay! I’ve got some relevant knowledge about this product/service, but what do I do with it?” Well, you wouldn’t want that, now would you? Read on to know everything there is to crafting killer CTAs.

The Concept of CTAs

A tiny, little button that makes your audience take the desired action is what a CTA is. Just like there are different strokes for different folks, your CTAs must be different for different kinds of content pieces. You, as a marketer, must have clarity about what you want your prospect to do – read a blog post, view an infographic, register for a webinar, download an eBook, you get the drift, right? A CTA needs to be in sync with the context of your content piece so that your audience would have a clear and explicit understanding of what’s being asked of them. A CTA could be a part of a sentence in an email, a statement in a blog post, or just a button on a webpage. You have the liberty to decide that.

The Value Proposition in CTAs

The absence of a CTA will make users leave without performing any task. Without CTAs, your educative content is just social service. Tell users why you’re giving them this specific information, what you want them to do with it. Add CTAs that encourage your target audience to take a step ahead in becoming a customer and eventually an advocate for your brand. A “what’s in it for me?” approach works best. Tell them how your content is adding value and meaning to what they’re looking for.

The Anatomy of Functional CTAs

CTAs take users down the conversion funnel. CTAs should be:

• Easy to spot

• Visually attractive

• Action-oriented

• Clear and concise

Steer clear of the boring, mundane words everyone uses on their CTA buttons like “Download, Subscribe, Sign Up” etc. Get creative with them.

The Do’s and Don’ts of CTAs

Examples of CTAs that Work

Let’s learn from the big guns and check out what their CTA buttons say because we all know for sure that they work. Here are a few examples:

And of course, we’re sure that you know better than to use the same CTAs and would create your own version of them.

The Measurement of the Impact of CTAs

The most essential element of measuring the impact of CTAs is to A/B test them. Each demographic responds differently to different CTAs. There’s not a sure-fire formula which CTA would work for which audience and which content piece, but if you divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions, or the times the CTA was viewed, you’d get a better understanding of the CTA conversion rate.

CTAs are all about the value that you bring to the table. Take your time with CTAs, use these best practices, and voila! You’d have your CTA A-Game!

Want to get more creative with your CTAs? Let’s talk!