Using a Call to Action (CTA) When Marketing your Business

What is the perfect call to action, and why should you use it? Let’s break it down for you.

CTA should be part of every digital marketer’s strategy that can help to get your target audience to take action. Telling people to take action and not sound pushy can be a challenge but by creating urgency and showing people this is what they need or this will help them with XYZ will create a sense of curiosity. It’s an effective way of converting people into buyers or clients, so for example, if you say – get your free e-book now, it’s available for a limited time only, people will think about it the way they need to get it now because it’s a great offer, it’s free, and it might be gone soon! Just look at big brands like Spotify or Netflix who offer free trials. But let’s be honest, how many of us will cancel it before we need to get the paid version? Not many. We like it, so we are automatically becoming a paying client. We are seeing this kind of marketing strategy every day and brands like Spotify do a great job of converting free trials into paid sales.

Neil Patel says in one of his blogs: ‘Curiosity makes you want to jump on an offer because you can envision the reward and how it can improve your own life. It’s an emotional quest to learn more, know more, have more and be more.’

Despite this, many businesses still don’t use any call to action or they use it ineffectively, which is most probably causing the lack of conversions and sales. Here are some helpful tips that you should use when creating a call to action.

 

Elements to include

First, identify a problem that people often encounter and offer a solution by producing something that can help them. Once you create this, you can share your special offer with a world and explain how it can be beneficial for your target audience. CTA comes into play when you want to direct people to your website or landing page but maybe you want them to take a certain action like save or share the post. Call to action should be clear and simple, so people know exactly what you want them to do. Don’t over-complicate it and use just one CTA, otherwise, it can be confusing. Make the process simple and smooth, so people get a good impression right from the start.

Grab your freebie or start a free trial today!

Sounds familiar? Start with the introduction by giving an additional value, which is hard to overlook!

If you offer products/services and your target audience, don’t know your brand yet, they are less likely to buy or use the thing you offer at that very moment. However, if you give them an opportunity to get a taste of it first with no immediate commitment, they are more likely to get the full version afterward if they like it. 

When you’re writing your content and using CTA, there are two things to keep in mind and that’s a placement and wording. The placement of the CTA is crucial to make sure, it’s visible and it stands out compares to other content around it. 

The wording and how you formulate your call to action is also important to make it understandable and clear! Use words such as sign up, download, share, subscribe, follow, order, or you can also use short phrases like ‘Get your free e-book now!’, ‘Join us today!’ or ‘Limited time only!’

Bring value

Let’s say you do a free trial and people sign up for it. The next step is about how you convert them to actually paid sign-ups. Whatever you offer, it needs to be beneficial for people and help them in some way. You need to show them the value they can get out of it. Talk about what’s in it for them, create curiosity, otherwise, they won’t have the reason to join or download what you offer. You don’t need to tell them all the details just say who you are and what you do to help them. If people can relate to your message and goal, they will sign up because if there is a free something, whether that’s a trial or a product, they have nothing to lose, they can only gain from it. And let’s be honest, how many of us already signed up for tens of freebies or free resources/trials? Probably most of us!

Social Media

Let’s take Instagram as an example. CTA can be very powerful when you’re using it on your social media and it can help you create engagement and conversations. You can ask questions for people to share their experience on the same topic, you can tell them to tag their friends in the comment, save the post, or direct them to the link in bio. Utilize it the way that gets you the results you want and include CTA at the end of each post. 

One last thing to do when using a call to action is to measure the results and to evaluate which CTA’s are working and which are not bringing any people on board. Be critical and experiment.

Conclusion

So are you still asking why to use a call to action for promoting your business? CTA is a great way of directing your target audience to the place where you want them to go or for telling them what step they should take next. CTA is either solving a problem, so people can benefit from it in some way, or they are helping with engagement and creating conversations on social media. A few things to keep in mind are the visual side of it, the placement of CTA, and the wording that you choose to use. Be clear and make it easy to understand, so people know exactly what you want them to do. However, whether it’s a freebie, free trial, or something else, make sure it’s valuable for others and that it generates leads for your sales.