Just Do It.
Nike’s brilliant tagline can be applied to players of all levels of sports, from beginners to pros. And just like pro basketballers make slam dunks look easy, the most effective calls to action have been crafted and prepared long before you witness the final flourish.
Successful calls to action acknowledge where your customers are on the buyer journey and guide them to their next destination with ease. So if you find yourself glossing over CTA’s as fast as you can say buy now, take a pause. Because as Hype & Dexter’s Marketing and Content Lead Chris Hannent explains, anything worth the win requires strategy. Let’s dive into 5 five tips for crafting an effective call to action.
Make Your Call to Action Relevant
An effective call to action is relevant to where your customers are on the buyer journey. “It's important to change CTA’s based on what you know about your users,” explains Chris. After all, what’s relevant to first-time website visitors will differ from your returning customers.
Try creating unique experiences based on what you know about your users. Then, craft your calls to action around that information. Removing the guesswork allows you to deliver a richer user experience. For example, HubSpot smart CTAs can be used to segment your customers by lifecycle stage and contact list memberships, visiting device types, country, referring source visit, preferred language and more.
Plus, after you’ve crafted your smart CTA, you can associate it with your current marketing campaign. Assigning campaign assets allows you to attribute performance and clarify which calls to action are providing the highest ROI. Such sound logic leads us straight into the next tip.
Your Call to Action Must Make Sense
Above all, your call to action must make sense to your target audience. You have a small amount of time to win your user over, so each call to action you present needs to work for them. That way, your CTA will be easy to follow.
As Kimberley Hughes, Content Manager at Hype and Dexter, explains, a well placed CTA after a lengthy blog post introduction can help to break up the text. Not only that, but it will also make sense for users who have read enough and are ready to act, too. For more precise consumers looking for further details, having a call to action at the end of the post is much more logical.
On that note, be sure your CTA makes sense internally too. Consider using a naming convention that explains where a CTA is used, as well as what it does. For example, your team will be able to tell with one glance that a CTA named blog | jotform sign up is used on the blog, for Jotform signups. Easy.
Create a Clear and Compelling Call to Action
Just Do It is not only clear and compelling, but it emphasises the doing. It doesn’t matter if the ‘it’ is winning your local tennis match or running a marathon, it’s clear that action is the factor. And Nike’s going to help you perform it.
Consider using words that are inspiring, motivating and create a sense of urgency. For instance, “Book a Test Drive Today” could become “Get Behind the Wheel Today.” Similarly, “Read Our Case Study” translates to “See How We Created Our Client’s Dream Home.” These suggestions work to inspire interest, enthusiasm and motivation by connecting to your audience’s desires.
And if you’re unsure of what speaks to your target audience, consider conducting multivariate testing. Even a simple switch from Contact Us to Contact the Team could produce positive results. Plus, multivariate testing will not only help you get to know the words your users prefer, but the images that peak their interest too.
Speaking of images, when it comes to optimising your page’s real estate, a well-placed image CTA will work to keep a blog post engaging. While buttons are best on landing pages that require quick action.
Make Your Call to Action Consistent
Well defined CTAs that employ consistent use of colours and fonts help to create a consistent user experience that transpires into action. Consistency is critical as you'll train your users to focus on, and click on, your CTAs.
Additionally, you can also consider embedding universal CTAs across different web pages when the same CTA is able to be used in multiple places. That way, if you need to revise the call to action design or the link, all the pages that contain the CTA can be updated with one action - ensuring consistency across your website.
Be Sure Your Call to Action Meets User Expectations
So far, you’ve taken the guesswork out of creating a rich user experience by creating CTA’s that are:
- Relevant
- Logical
- Clear
- Compelling
- Consistent
These words alone are motivation enough! Your last tip is to be sure you complete your audience's experience by giving them what they want. After all, your customers have clicked because they’re expecting a certain result. So be sure that the downloadable guide or ‘book a meeting’ page is accessible straight away.
Taking the time to strategise a compelling call to action will guide your users to progress in the buyer’s journey. Use the tips above to review what CTAs are working well for your business and adjust your strategy for those that aren’t top performers - yet.
And if you’d prefer a time out after all this action talk, allow us to perform a CTA audit for you. Simply fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch!
