How do you know if an ad or a letter or a blog or a new landing page is effective? By your audience’s response.
And how do you get people to respond? With a call-to-action (CTA).
Your call-to-action is the phrase or sentence or pair of sentences that tell your reader what action to take and how to take it.
But crafting an effective CTA isn’t as simple as it sounds. CTAs that are vague, bland, or out-of-sync with the rest of your campaign’s text won’t get the job done.
To make CTAs that motivate people to act, review your text for these three things:
1. Watch your length. Your advertising format will largely determine how long your call-to-action is. Social media ads, for example, typically have less text and less space than printed materials and website pages and therefore require shorter CTAs, especially if you plan on fitting them inside a clickable button. Letters and landing pages, on the other hand, give you more room to build up to your CTA and can accommodate longer instructions. Instead of simply saying, “Donate today,” you could say, “Help struggling families in your community by making a cash donation.”
2. Watch your language. Although you typically want to be as straightforward as you can—if you want your prospects to call, then say “call us today,” not “pick up the phone to connect with one of our representatives”—that doesn’t mean you have to use the same phrases over and over. As long as your words are relevant and clear, you can get a little creative with your directions. Action verbs such as “meet,” “build,” “switch,” “start,” and “discover” are also good ways to tell customers what to do next.
3. Watch your lead-up. Your audience needs a reason to take action. They need to know the “why” of your request. What good will come out of contacting your company? What’s in it for them? Your build-up to the CTA should make this clear. Motivate your readers to act. Then tell them to do it.
If you’ve been using the same CTAs with the same results, try changing them up. Check your length. Check your language. Check your lead-up. Then, put it to work and check the results.
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