Have you ever purchased clothes online? Did you attend a local wine festival? Perhaps you donated to a worthy cause. Chances are you were motivated to do these things through effective content marketing.
Content such as videos, blogs and social media posts contain call-to-actions (CTAs) to motivate target audiences. The perfectly designed landing page or crafted social media post can be wasted if you are making CTA mistakes. Review these tips to avoid hurting your click-through rates and conversions!
Be Clear and Concise – Tell your audience exactly what you want them to do. Content marketing pieces often fall flat because the CTA is unclear or buried in the copy. Remember – the average human attention span is eight seconds. You have less than eight seconds to grab their attention or risk losing them, possibly for good.
Cut the Clutter – Your audience should not have to dig through your content to see or understand your CTA. Businesses often make the mistake of dumping content in every area of a website, landing page, or marketing piece. This is very distracting and irritating to your audience. Focus on what your audience wants and needs and use the strongest messaging and content to capture their attention.
Stand Out and Be Bold – Every communications professional knows how important is it to adhere to brand standards, especially in design. However, your CTA should not blend in. Use design elements to make it stand out. Give the CTA its own space, use contrasting colors to make it pop and push it front and center to capture your audience’s attention.
Avoid Multiple CTAs – Don’t overload your target audience with too many requests. Sign up! Register here! Enter to win! Buy now! This is very annoying and can destroy any chance of building a relationship with prospective customers. Establish your primary goal and align your CTA to it. If your goal is to increase newsletter subscriptions, focus on that. If your goal is to increases purchases, focus on that. It’s important to recognize there are different stages in your sales funnel which require different types of CTAs.
Don’t Be Misleading – Far too often, you’ll come across a CTA that is misleading. The CTA will invite you to learn more, view a specific product or contact the business, but you end up on the homepage. If you are going to take the time to attract a customer for a specific goal, make sure you are leading them to the right place. If it takes them too long to find what they want, they will leave.
Don’t Ask for Everything Up Front – One of the biggest mistakes is asking for too much too soon. For example, don’t ask your target audience for their name, email, phone number and mailing address before allowing them to see the item your CTA is highlighting. This is a huge turn off! According to HubSpot, more than 90 percent of visitors are not ready to make a purchase yet. You can always grab this information later in the sales funnel or during the purchasing stage.