The first and foremost motive of any content marketing strategy is to captivate the target audience, educate them and convert them into customers.
And, no wonder, all the content creators give their heart and soul to create such kind of unique and valuable content that definitely helps businesses to achieve their end goals.
Kudos to all the content creators!
Although, for those who have less idea what is content marketing all about, we are here to help.
How?
In our free beginner’s guide to content marketing, we have been sharing basic elements related to content marketing, especially for beginners.
So far, we have shared:
- How content marketing plays an important role in business success?
- What are the various ways to create a content marketing strategy?
- How is content marketing related to the marketing funnel?
- How to identify your audience for content marketing strategy?
- What are the various tools that can help you generate effective content for the same?
However, all these efforts won’t give desired results if none of these have appropriate Call-to-Action (CTA) triggers. Yes, you have read right!
Like, if your motive to share the content is to bring visitors to the website, then you will use a trigger (CTA) to land your audience on your website.
Same way, whenever you receive an email stating any shopping sale, you might have noticed Call-to-Action directing to the website or app.
These action buttons help the target audience to land upon the right designated path and give you a successful campaign.
In this chapter of the beginner’s guide to content marketing, we will be sharing how Call-to-Actions play an important role in any content marketing success. What are the basic steps you need to keep in mind while creating the content? How to create a compelling call to action for your content marketing strategy?
Here we go
As we have stated earlier, Call-to-action helps to captivate the target audience as well as increase the conversions.
However, not all the call-to-action can give you the success rate. Most of the content marketers aren’t using effective CTAs to target the ideal audience and convert them as happy customers.
If you look into business website stats, only 30% of businesses are using appropriate CTAs to engage their ideal customers. Rest, 70% of business sites lack call-to-action. This is devastating.
Our content creators aka marketers need to understand the importance of CTAs in their marketing strategy and how they (CTAs) help them to increase their open as well as success rate.
Encouraging a prospect to take desired actions as per your marketing strategy may seem the hardest task for marketers, but is not unachievable.
All you need to create informative content for your readers that can solve their problems and serve your purpose. You need to focus on creating a beautiful attractive content design and more & more powerful as well as compelling Call-to-Action.
Readers look for easy and understandable Clickable Button rather than a confusing action.
What are CTAs?
CTA stands for Call-to-Action which are the clickable buttons basically used on your website, landing pages, emails, blogs, etc to guide your readers or visitors towards your goal conversion.
It’s part of your content that the user needs to click in order to take the action you want them to take.
Now the question comes, why do marketers fail to convert readers to customers?
- What does wrong with creating a compelling call to action?
- What goes into a strong CTA?
- What are the basic things you need to keep in mind while creating an effective CTA for your marketing strategy?
Let’s read further:
Choose a Goal:
First, decide why you need to CTA and what are your purpose to use the following CTA.
Should your call to action button is to generate webinar sign-ups or do you want your readers to download the ebook?
Do you want your audience to share your content or want to land on your website?
Reason can be any…..
Therefore, decide your goal and write your appropriate CTA based on your content strategy.
And, of course, use the desired actionable link so that the reader can the desired action with minimal hassle.
Consider the Context:
Understand the place of your reader or prospect in the current marketing cycle. Does your reader knows about your product already or it’s the first time that you have introduced your services to them?
Because it won’t make sense if your reader is landing for the first time on your homepage to get a CTA about buying an expensive product.
Therefore, understand the level and accordingly set your CTA. For example, if you are selling some audio product, in such case, use CTA as “Request a Demo” or “Learn More” instead of using “Buy Now”.
Make to Short & Precise:
Remember the golden rule of using CTAs. Using multiple calls to action buttons in one piece of content can ruin the whole information, lower your conversion rate and confuse your readers as well. Also, wordy CTAs can get easily ignored.
Use short and precise CTAs to make your content more effective.
These days our readers are more knowledgeable and understand that a hyperlink or button is intended to click.
Therefore, Instead of guiding them by saying “Click here to register for our free webinar”; use or state “Register for our free webinar” which is likely to have a stronger impact.
Place CTA Strategically:
While creating valuable content, the marketer should know where to place the CTA in the content.
It’s always recommended not to use CTA in the middle of your content, that probably will confuse your readers and distract them from your valuable content.
Always place a call to action at the end of the content body when the message of your content is delivered.
How to create a compelling call to action?
Content creators invest a lot of time in generating problem-solving content for their readers or give ultimate efforts into your online marketing strategy, but they forget to give focus on research of appropriate Call-to-Actions which led to less conversion.
If you are getting traffic on your content but no conversions, then this is high time to look into your “How to club perfect CTA in the content” strategy.
Here are a few tips to create a compelling call to action for your content.
Be Direct
Stop looking for indirect ways to convert your audience. State clearly what is the purpose of sharing the content. Stop beating around the bush.
Your content / your website / your business is valuable that should be direct in approach.
Be precise and tell your visitors what you do and what exactly you would like them to do. The Call to Action must be simple, short, and strong.
Make sure there is no room to play guessing games for your visitors or readers to get confused or clueless. Use straightforward examples in a positive way like ‘get started,’ ‘sign up,’ ‘submit,’ or ‘download’.
Be Unique
As a marketer, you are already aware of how it is crucial to be unique and stand different in the crowd if you want to beat the competition.
Find something that makes your call to action special; it could be ridiculously simple or something that aggravates a problem.
Use Actionable Language
Use action words that compel or motivate your visitors to do what you want them to.
For example, “Call us today for a free sample” will make them curious to have or try at least a Free sample which seems a good call to take an action. You are giving clear direction to the reader using the action- “Call”.
In other ways, you can say like “Give us a call for a free demo” but it seems less actionable then previous one.
Be Urgent
The CTAs you use in your content must create urgency so that visitors take the action.
The agenda is to convey the message that your readers are missing out on the great opportunity that should be theirs.
Like one example we have used earlier. “Call us today for a free sample” denoted more urgency instead of “Give us a call for a free demo”.
Call us today to create the urgency that they can miss out on a great deal to use the free sample or demo than a later one stating or requesting to give a call for the free demo.
Both have a slight difference but the way you approach matters a lot in your CTAs.
While “today” is a good word to add to your call to action, using “now” or “immediately” is even better. These words imply a greater urgency and also make it clear that the offer may not last forever.
Call-to-Action Example
Netflix
CTA Button: Join Free for a Month
Whenever a new user feels to sign up for any new program, he/she fears committing as it will be a pain to cancel their subscription if they end up not liking it.
Netflix has been running various campaigns stating not to fear to cancel the subscription by saying “Cancel Anytime” along with “Join Free for a Month” CTA with full assurance.
This assurance alone has boosted unlimited sign-ups where you notice that the red color of the primary and secondary CTAs here match Netflix’s logo color.
Bravo!
Conclusion:
Creating an effective call-to-action takes creativity, time, practice and lots of research.
Keep in mind that it needs to be simple enough so that users can easily understand your message.
At the same time, the content and CTA should be compelling enough to persuade them to do what you want them to do.
Although, don’t feel afraid to be experimental and see what works best for your audience.
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