"Call to Action" - what and why?

Everything associated with your marketing efforts should have an objective, a desired outcome, a preferred course of action, or multiples of these.

In the case of websites or emails it may, for example, be to make a purchase or complete a contact form, provide some other information or subscribe to a newsletter.

Your customers, or visitors, are directed towards your objectives by one of more “Calls To Action” or “CTA.” These may take different forms but are all intended to provide a focal point to your visitors and a way for you to measure the success of your efforts.

Encourage

To encourage your visitors or readers to follow these calls to action you must communicate to them the benefits of acting. Tell them what they will gain from following a particular CTA.

Incentivise

You can offer incentives such as discounts, free competition entry, a free gift or simply information, such as a downloadable pamphlet, in exchange for a small piece of data such as their email address.

Prioritise

For each section of your website, or your emails, prioritise your objectives and restrict the options you present to your user - too many CTAs and you’re unlikely to get the result you desire. By limiting the number of choices a visitor or reader has to make you guide them into following your chosen course of action.

Inspire

CTAs should inspire action - that’s their purpose after all, and any related text should drive the visitor to action. Verbs can be used to indicate decisive action, e.g. “Subscribe”, “Buy”, “Register”. Associated text can offer incentive and inducement for instant action - once a visitor moves on they may never come back - you may have one chance only to make your impression.

Position, Style

It is important to make sure that not only are your CTAs present but that they are positioned and styled such that attention is drawn to them. Make them contrast with the surrounding area, used whitespace or styling and colour to aid in this process. Be bold.

Placement

Calls to action should be present on every page of your website, or placed judiciously within every marketing email (potentially more than once so they are always in view). Remember that thanks to search engines any page of your website may be a landing page (the point of entry - and possibly the only section viewed - for a visitor into your website).

Measure

Track your CTAs. This can’t be stressed enough - if you don’t measure the effectiveness of your CTAs you can never improve. Use Google Analytics or your own internal mechanisms for determining which CTAs are most effective.

Follow these steps and make your calls to action prominent, and effective. 

Want to know more?

Deep Blue Sky provide a range of services from pure web design to bespoke development, incorporating hosting and support, business systems, digital consultancy and successful marketing automation.

If you would like to discuss any digital project or any of the other services we provide please contact us online or call 01225 444674.