AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND: A powerful CTA or “Call to Action” – essential to Content Marketing and Inbound – is a button on your website that promotes an offer, and links to a landing page where your visitor enters their contact details in exchange for the value you are offering.
The beginning of a relationship
Some would say this turns your visitors into leads, and for certain products and services this may be true. A better view is that this is the start of a relationship building process. It may lead to business now or later, it may simply be the opportunity to contribute to the success of another person or it could see your visitor turning into somebody who is an advocate or a referral source for your business.
It is a relationship that if treated with respect and value, can be rewarding in any number of ways.
Thank You pages
Once your visitor has entered their contact details, they are then directed to a “Thank You” page where they receive your promised content. A “Thank You” page is the third and final step in the conversion process, so it’s just as important to thank your leads, as it is to have a successful CTA button on your website and an attractive landing page.
Location of CTAs
The best places to feature “Call to Action” buttons are on:
- Your blog sidebar; and
- At the bottom of each page of website; and
- After the first few paragraphs and at the end of each blog post your make.
Relevant and helpful
Ideally, to create a powerful “Call to Action” the content offer should be relevant and helpful to the content your visitor has just read.
Creating a successful CTA isn’t always straight forward. You’ll want to consider a number of best practices.
- Make your CTA action-orientated. Tell your visitors exactly what to do with consistent keywords like, “download” or “contact us!”
- Make sure your CTA grabs the attention of your visitors. Create a CTA with a strong page presence, ideally general offers belong in the sidebar and more content specific CTA’s should be found at the bottom of each individual blog post, paragraph, email or sentence.
To put it simply, there are five steps to creating a powerful “Call to Action”:
- A “Contact Us!” button on every page of your website. This simply links your visitors to a landing page where they enter their contact information, their question or inquiry and have the opportunity to leave any comments or questions they may have.
- Content Asset Downloads. If the content you’re offering is aligned with your marketing strategy this means you already have the means to generate leads with content your visitors would be interested in. It’s up to you what sort of assets you’re going to offer your visitors.
- A “Chat Service” is a great idea to convert visitors into leads that might not have the means or time to phone you. The initial pop-up chat should ask the visitor if they have any questions. As soon as they click on the chat “Call to Action” button, they’re redirected to what’s called a lead capture form. A lead capture form asks visitors to enter their first name, last name and email address before they have the opportunity to talk to someone.
- Offer a subscription to your blog, email programme or resource centre. In exchange for your visitors’ email address, you will send through any blog content, assets or any other content that is relevant.Marketo for example, has placed a subscription request form at the top of their resources section. HubSpot offers an opportunity to subscribe to the company’s sales or marketing blog, presents an opportunity to download a content asset and a place to leave comments.
- Host a competition on your blogs homepage to encourage visitors to exchange their information for the chance to win something valuable – provided the prize is something that will only interest potential customers, rather than being generic and attractive to everybody.
- Lastly, include any social sharing buttons so that your visitors can share your content with their friends and family on social media.
Test and measure the effectiveness of your “Call to Action” by changing the colour, words and sometimes the location, but only ever change one thing to avoid confusion about which tweak did what.
If you want to learn about some definitive bottom line financial metrics – to prove the return on investment of your marketing – I’d recommend the download “The Six Marketing Metrics Your Boss Actually Cares About” below.