You’re getting loads of traffic to your landing page, but your conversion rate is surprisingly low. There could be a few things going on. However, we’re going to focus on what can affect your conversion the most, Calls to Action (CTAs).
Your CTA's the first and most important part of leading your customers down the conversion funnel. These buttons are directly telling your customers the action they should take, so it's important to get it right!
What is a CTA, and why do you need it?
“CTA stands for call to action, and it's the part of a story, webpage, advertisement, or piece of content that encourages the audience to do something. In marketing, CTAs help a business convert a viewer, visitor, or reader into a lead for the sales team. CTAs can drive a variety of different actions depending on the content's goal.”
- HubSpot
If your call to action is not clear or visible, your conversions are going to suffer, simply because customers are not told about or directed to the action they should take.
5 tips for improving your CTAs
It doesn’t take magic to make people convert. By applying these basic principles to improve your calls to action, you can successfully direct your customers to act and increase the chance of conversions.
1. Simplify
Clear and simple calls to action are the most effective way to get your customer to act. Choices add distractions - when consumers are faced with too many options and distractions, the message can get lost.
Consider the design of your landing page at this point as well. Well placed negative space and simple designs can help a bright call to action stick out.
Top tips: Remove the navigation menu on the landing page and use one clear call to action.
2. Stay on message
Make sure your CTA makes sense with your website’s overall story and the product you are trying to sell. Don’t confuse customers with catchy calls to action that have nothing to do with your product. For example, a coffee company that sells all kinds of coffee, including one that is designed for use when camping, hiking, etc., used the call to action ‘join the adventure’ – which just confused the customer. The product is coffee, and the CTA should be kept as simple and on message as possible.
Top tips: Give visitors a reason to take action, be clear on what action to take, start your CTA with a command like subscribe, buy, or order.
3. Personalise
While you need to stay on message and keep it as simple as possible, it’s okay to personalise your call to action as long as you stick to the first two rules. Personalised calls to action allow you to get your point across about the value of the product in a way that the customer will relate to. For instance: changing a standard ‘Free Download’ CTA to ‘show me how to attract and convert customers’ personalises the button AND tells the customer what they will get and why they should download.
Top tips: Focus on the value for your customers – what’s in it for them? Tie your unique selling point to that value, Tell visitors why they should want to take the action you want them to take.
4. Visually powerful
This goes along with the design of your landing page – make sure your CTA stands from the rest of the page design. You might make it a bright colour (that makes sense with your brand colours), and position it so that the consumer can’t miss it. A CTA should catch the eye of the consumer so they can immediately know what action they should take.
Top tips: Use bright colours, make it stand out from the background, and grab attention immediately.
5. Test
The most important part, just like all other tasks when it comes to marketing, is testing your CTAs. You may follow these other four tips to a T, but without testing them against different versions, you won’t improve them even further. When you test different ones, you can be sure what your customers respond to best, and adjust for this in the future.
Top tips: Allow for sufficient time to test CTAs against each other (2 weeks), Only make one change per test, track all changes, listen to the analytics.
7 times businesses got CTAs right
Your CTA is a key part of your inbound marketing strategy, so making sure you have it right for your customers could change things completely for your business! By using these tips, we're sure you will get it right.
Inbound Marketing with ExtraDigital
Our inbound marketing expertise doesn’t stop at CTAs. Call today and find out how ExtraDigital can create a tailored strategy to attract new clients, build your brand and transform your business.
