“Join now.” “Buy one today.” Or perhaps one that’s more relevant here, “read on to know more” as we delve into CTAs.
In the world of digital marketing, you’ll see plenty of lines like these around. They’re the essential messages that help turn people into leads, which you can then pick up on to close sales.
If people are looking at your social media posts and visitors are coming to your website, but your number of inquiries or sales are stagnant, this means there’s no significant action being taken. In cases like that, it’s time to relook your current CTA or check if you even have one!
Should that be what you’re here for, you’re in luck! Read on to see just how you can start closing sales in digital marketing with some persuasive CTAs!
What is a call to action (CTA)?
A CTA is the line that prompts a visitor to take a desired action. They’re a vital piece in marketing for converting visitors into leads as they let people know what’s the next step they should take for taking up an offer.
Used in social media posts, websites, newsletter, and banner ads alike, CTAs can take many forms depending on the goal at hand. For example, “Sign up now!” or “Purchase now!” are pretty standard CTAs for encouraging visitors to complete a sale. They may appear as a line at the end of your content, a button, or an external link along with various other forms.
Creating your CTA
Nowadays, closing sales in digital marketing can be a tricky task considering the amount of competition from numerous brands out there. People scroll through dozens of ads every day, so you’ll want to have a CTA that can really get people to take the actions you want. Here’s how:
1. Use strong & direct action words
CTAs shouldn’t be lengthy, which means you should use powerful and direct words. As such, you should start with a verb that tells your visitors clearly what to do.
If you’re running an ecommerce store, for example, your CTA can go like “Buy One Now” or “Order Yours Today.” Or, if you’re offering a software or subscription-based service, a CTA like “Sign up now” or “Subscribe today” will do nicely. Do pay attention to using the most suitable ones while you’re at it.
Here’s two pretty standard CTA examples by Maxis and Adobe used in their web banner ads:
Direct and easy to understand, that’s what good CTAs should be – they let readers know clearly what the offer is while still being engaging enough to draw people in.
For the most part, there are a ton of different verbs you can use for your CTA, but it pays to use the ones that are the clearest and most direct. Closing the deal starts with people wanting to take action, and being vague or meek won’t be inspiring anyone to do so.
2. Use words that stimulate emotion or excitement
If you want people to feel excited about your offer, your CTA has to sound the same way to get that emotion out of them.
One solid way to do this is by showing your audiences how great the deal you’re offering is; that it is a cause for excitement. Here are a few ways on how you can do so:
- Number-based benefits – “Buy 2, Free 1!”, “Enjoy 40% Off!”, “Get 15% cashback!”
- Engaging promises – “Grab our limited new releases today!”, “Book a test-drive for free!”
- Personalized appeal – “Find your dream car with us!”
- Promote your USP – “Shop for genuine leather wallets!”, “Try before you buy. Get samples now!”
As can be seen in Porsche’s banner ad below, their CTA is crafted to provoke that emotion of finding one’s dream car with Porsche.
Conveying excitement doesn’t need to be loud and in-your-face either – subtlety works too. As long as it gives a visitor something to be excited about, you’re on your way to a persuasive CTA that’ll help you in closing the deal.
3. Give people a reason to click
Before audiences will follow through with a CTA, they’ll always think, “What’s in it for me?”
Fortunately, giving people incentives is a method that works wonders. You can highlight a feature that you know your audiences will appreciate or even include a free eBook, consultation services, product/service trial. These enticing offers can really tip the scales in helping you with closing the deal.
Take this example by Maybank below, which promises cashback potential for users who pay with their MAE app.
By highlighting a benefit that people can stand to get from using the app, this helps Maybank in further persuading people to follow their CTA.
If anything, it should come as no surprise that everybody loves freebies and incentives, and you can likely drive more people to take the action you want by providing some.
4. Create a sense of urgency
Non-urgent CTAs are like homework without a deadline. People know that they can come around to it later, and they will usually have forgotten about your offer.
That will just lead to lost business – you’ll want your audiences to take up your offer immediately if you’re looking forward to closing the deal. Instilling a sense of urgency in your CTA is the best way to achieve that, and you can do so by implementing a catch like “limited time only” or “while stocks last” into your offers.
For instance, these CTAs by Texas Chicken Malaysia and Carsome are worded in a way to let people know that they shouldn’t idly stand by to take action.
The reason urgency works is that it leverages on your audiences’ FOMO, a.k.a. fear of missing out. No one wants to miss out on the good stuff, and limited time offers can make for a persuasive CTA that’s difficult for people to ignore as they face a risk of missing out on your offer. In the end, this helps net you more followed CTAs!
5. Break from the norm
“Sign up today.” “Get started.” “Know more.”
These are the same old, same old CTAs that you see used by almost any and every brand.
While sticking with what works isn’t a bad thing, getting creative with a CTA that’s new or unusual can net you more clicks from your visitors and help you in closing sales.
You can start by taking a look at what you’re offering and giving your CTA a creative twist from there. If you’re running a shoe store, for instance, try a CTA that says “Get your comfort pair today!” instead of just “Buy now.”
Each business has its own unique selling point so you can come up with all sorts of CTAs for your specific offer, such as the ones here by Vonage and PropSocial:
Not a “Learn More” in sight here. Yet it works as their CTAs still get their point across in a relevant and not overly-done way.
Bottom line is, it doesn’t hurt to spice up your CTA. People appreciate creativity and having a bold and unusual CTA can sometimes stand out much better than a plain old one. Just be sure to test the waters as it takes some experimenting to get the best CTA that helps in closing the deal.
Extra tips that help your CTA really persuade:
Once you have your CTA, you’ll want to make sure it’s good enough in its persuasive ability to help you in closing the deal. Here are a couple of extra tips to help you polish them up.
- Stand out with colour
If people have to find your CTA, chances are they likely won’t be following it, so make your CTA stand out by using colours that grab attention. Vibrant colours that contrast well with your page’s colour palette are a good place to start, such as blue against white.
- Less text, more visual
Our eyes are just more naturally drawn to images than plain text, which means your CTA should ideally be backed up with good visuals. Stock images and graphics can all be used to great effect in enhancing your CTA, and your audiences would be much less inclined to skip over an offer that’s visually appealing compared to a mostly-textual CTA.
- Personalize
Audiences will always be drawn to a CTA that appeals to them on a personal level over a generic one meant for everybody. So, skip the cookie-cutter messages and craft a CTA that speaks to your audiences as a person, such as “Embrace yoga. Sign-up for your new lifestyle” for a yoga center. If you want to go the extra mile, using smart CTAs can really help boost your CTA’s performance too for closing sales.
- Run some tests
Finding yourself stuck on two CTAs that seem just as good but not sure of which to use? Then doing some A/B testing is just what you need! In the end, what matters is a CTA that can persuade people to carry out the actions you want, and testing can let you see which one actually works to close sales.
Final thoughts
The CTA can be a big factor in helping decide whether your brand is closing the deal or none at all. For the most part, getting it right is all dependent on whether or not it persuades your visitors to take action.
A good CTA should sound assertive, give people plenty of reason to follow it, and motivate your audiences to do so all at once. If closing sales is in your mind, that’s where your creativity should come in!
At the end of the day, the CTA is just one of many parts of digital marketing, but it’s no less important. No matter if it’s on social media, Google ads, or on your website, quality content with a good CTA that leads your potential customers to take action is your key to seeing success.
If coming up with a good content strategy with CTA has you stumped, give us a holler at Artisense! Digital marketing is one of our fortes and with our team of qualified professionals, we’re sure we can lend you a hand in helping you close those deals so reach out to us today!
