Calls To Action: What are they, examples & how to use in marketing

Including a call to action often determines the success of a marketing campaign. But what is a call to action and what is special about it?

What is a Call To Action (CTA)

In simple terms, a call to action (CTA) is a statement or short phrase on your email, advertisement, website, or any piece of content that influences potential customers to take a specific action. 

An effective call to action may tell your reader or viewer to enquire more about your product or make a purchase decision instantly.

Usually, before a call to action in a marketing campaign, you must have provided your audience with some information and the main goal of the call to action is to make them act based on the information they’ve received. 

A call to action can be a text, button, or image. Some common examples of CTA include: Buy now, subscribe, Learn more, Click the link below, Add to cart, Download now, Read more, Try for free, etc. 

You need to know that your marketing campaign is not complete without a definite CTA. To help you, you’ll find more information about CTAs in the following, so you can use them more effectively in your marketing campaigns.

Elements of Call to action (CTA)

There are three major elements a call to action must have to effectively influence its target audience for the intended purpose. They include:

1. Risk-free/No obligation

Customers must not be forced to make a decision. Their decision-making must come from their free will. You should let your audience(especially prospects) know that they can undo their action in case they change their minds after taking the action you want them to take.

2. Clear instruction

Customers must not be misled, they must be clearly instructed on the next course of action, therefore a call to action must not be ambiguous e.g “Click the link below” “Buy Now” etc. This is what every marketer must take note of when using CTA.

Its intention must be known to the audience. Also, a directive text makes a CTA more effective e.g “Call this number now.”

3. Sense of Urgency

Customers are naturally wired to be lazy, they tend to procrastinate a lot. So a typical call-to-action must include a sense of urgency to tell the customers that they have limited time to take action. Examples: Order now, Enroll today, etc.

Why you should use a call to action

There are several reasons why a call to action should be used by every marketer, these include:

1. To guide the audience along the buying process

If you don’t want your customers to feel frustrated along the buying process, it’s important to use CTA as a pointer to alert the audience of what to do next. 

Without CTAs, customers can get confused in the process and they might end up abandoning your page or due to lack of direction, end up on your competitor’s page, I know you won’t want that to happen.

2. It helps to convert visitors into qualified leads 

With a CTA, you can be sure to convert some more percentage of your website visitors, blog viewers, or social media followers into quality leads who will patronize your products and services.

A good call to action can impact lead generation and improve conversion.

3. It boosts sales

The influx of sales is the joy of every business owner. I already stated that without a CTA, your clients will be unsure of what to do.

Hence, a good CTA tells and influences a customer to make a buying decision. It helps to provoke customers to take immediate action.

How to write a good call to action

Below is how to write a compelling call to action:

1. Keep it short

Always keep it short and captivating. There is no need for an epistle. All you need is 2-5 words that will grab your customers’ attention and make them take action.

However, in some cases, it might be 5-7 words e.g “Enroll now and get 50% off.”

2. Use action words and phrases

Your CTA must possess action that will trigger customers’ reactions and not just any phrase. E.g “Claim Now.”

3. Use first person

Using the first person is the simplest way of writing CTA. You make it more conversational as if you’re chatting with a friend. This will make customers take action faster.

4. Add a sense of urgency

With so much noise online and in everyday life, customers get easily distracted. Therefore, it’s necessary to include a sense of urgency when writing CTA. Let them know it’s now or never.

5. Eliminate any roadblock

Try to remove any hindrance and make the task as easy as possible to perform. For instance, if you want your content to be shared with many people, immediately after the call to action be sure to include a social share button to ensure easy sharing.

6. Make it unique and easy to find

This is talking about the design of the call to action. If it’s a button, ensure the color is bright and able to capture the attention of the audience. Also, make sure it is strategically placed where it would be easily seen.

Examples of call to actions

1. Facebook Ad for Babbel language learning app

CTA: Get Offer

CTA location: on the home page.

URL: Babbel.com

Why it works: Looking at their homepage, it has a call to action tag “Get up to 60% off” so the CTA button on the ad simply instills a sense of gratification in the audience. 

2. Hootsuite 

CTA: Learn more

CTA location: Homepage

URL: hootsuite.com

Why it works: looking at their homepage, it talks majorly about the benefits of the brands. It needs a CTA that will influence the customers to know more about the benefits of patronizing them.

3. Instagram ad for Headspace

CTA: Subscribe

CTA location: Homepage

URL: headspace.com

Why it works: On their homepage is “Snuggle up to headspace”, therefore to know more about how to snuggle up, you have to subscribe. This CTA suits the information on the page.

Conclusion

A call to action Is a short phrase that can be used to entice or captivate the audience and move them down the sales funnel. A good call to action enables the target audience to take informed actions. As a marketer, making use of a good CTA is very important for brand progress and often leads to an increase in sales, it should not be trivialized.