Calls to action or CTAs are a deceptively powerful tool that many often overlook. To capitalize on your blogging efforts, your CTA should be the first thing to take into account. A solid call to action on any post or page will help you convert your readers from mere prospects into quantifiable leads.
As you probably already know, CTA is the part of a copy that prompts a user to take an immediate action or lead a reader to the next step. Hence, the more details you can provide in the CTA, the better you would engage your target audience.
To help you leverage your financial marketing efforts, here are five valuable tactics on how to craft an engaging and clear call to action for your campaign.
1 – Avoid being overly promotional.
Too often, you will see a call to action button at the end of an article or web page which has very little appeal, and in most cases, these buttons or graphics even appear overly promotional. These kinds of calls to action are fairly common in financial websites and blogs, however, they can sometimes come across as off-putting.
The goal of your call to action should not be to promote your service, but rather to provide something that is relevant to the post or topic with a promise of offering more useful information. What the readers want to know is how the CTA will improve their finances and make life easier.
The best performing calls to action are those that add value and continue to educate the readers. After all, they are most likely visiting your blog to read about their financial concerns, learn how to solve them or find insight on a topic of interest; not to purchase your services.
GoToMeeting has done a seamless job with highlighting their new product in the CTA without appearing too promotional as seen in the image below.
2 – Experiment with different kinds of CTAs.
One kind of CTA won’t appeal to everyone so do not give your audience the same content. Because all sorts of people visit your website or blog, you have to create variety in your calls to actions.
While certain CTAs work for some readers, other users may respond better to a CTA with different graphics and wording. Thus, it is important to vary the CTAs throughout your websites and experiment with different kinds so the users won’t block them out. There are several kinds of CTAs, from sidebar calls to action and blog subscriptions to comment, in-line, and slide-in CTAs.
If the standard bottom-of-the-post CTA is not driving enough leads, experiment with an in-line call to action that may involve a link to a previous blog post or the social media. Calls to action do not have to be grand, neither does it have to stand out at the end of a post. It could be as simple as linking the copy to a previous blog post or adding a tweet button at the end of a sentence or paragraph.
Image from HubSpot.com
You could also deliver your calls to action in a manner of question. Ask your readers about their thoughts on the topic to encourage comments and feedback.
3 – Address your personas’ challenges and needs in your CTAs
Who are your client personas and what are their challenges or pain points?
Calls to action direct traffic to landing pages. If the CTA you created does not attract your target audience, you won’t gain increased conversions, let alone improved traffic. To be able to engage your readers and encourage them to take the next step (subscribe to your mailing list, comment on your post, or download your eBook), your CTA should be able to introduce their needs and challenges and include a promise to offer solutions to their problems upon clicking it.
Create a smart CTA that talks about the benefits of your offer rather than its features. “GIVE before you ASK them to take action,” as Joe Simonds of Advisor Internet Marketing noted in an article.
4 – Use Strong Command Verbs to Convey Urgency
An effective call to action should accomplish two things—one, it should clearly tell a reader exactly what they are getting once they click on it; and two, it should give a sense of immediacy and urgency.
“It’s all about being clear and concise with your CTA. You don’t have a ton of space in your ad to get your point across, with the character limit set at 35 characters per description line, so it is important to get straight to the point,” wrote Billy McCaffrey of Word Stream.
Steer clear from vague languages and make certain to use active vocabulary like download, subscribe, talk, get started, see, join, or visit and then combine it with words such as today, now, and the like to convey action and urgency. This entices your audience to act quickly.
Similarly, you can create a less urgent call to action (“Talk to an Expert,” “See How It Works,” “Learn More,” etc.) if it would work better on the newsletter or overall design of your website. Ultimately, it is ideal that you start with a verb.
5 – Align your messaging.
Not aligning the CTA with its landing page is one of the most frequent mistakes people make. Beyond creating alignment between the call to action and the reader’s behavior, it is important to write CTAs based on your messaging. Bear the different stages of the sales cycle in mind and create multiple calls to action around them. Keep in mind, the messaging in the awareness stage should be different from the messaging in the education stage.
Tailor it in a way that it speaks to the reader based on their buying cycle stage, such as the below CTAs from HubSpot.
For the visitor:
For the lead:
For the customer:
Many factors influence the rate of conversion of a call to action button, so make certain to pay close attention to the above-mentioned factors in order to prompt your audience to take action and make your financial marketing campaign more effective.