Capture Leads With Effective Call To Action Buttons

Transcription

1 1 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS Capture Leads With Effective Call To Action Buttons EFFICIENT MARKETING

2 2 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS Who Are We? Blue Frog offers a wide range of services, from assistance with the creative process and production of marketing materials to development of a strategic marketing plan for your business. Whether you have your own marketing department and simply need production services or are a small business just starting out, we can provide you with streamlined, cost-effective, and powerful marketing solutions. Blue Frog efficiently delivers the services you need and maximizes the value you receive from your marketing investment. While fullservice agencies have their place, many charge rates that are cost prohibitive for some of the more basic services such as graphic design, printing, mail services, social media, and web design. Because we manage both creation and production, we provide more efficient service with greater responsiveness to the individual needs of your business. The result is high quality work, efficient processes, and personalized service.

3 3 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS AN INTRODUCTION TO CALLS TO ACTION (CTAS) This is what a CTA looks like: In today s Internet world, there are trillions of website pages that are full of content. With so much to look up online, we could spend countless days surfing the web. Our attention spans, however, are relatively short. In the midst of reading an article on how to market your business, you might switch gears and decide to search for a dinner recipe. We have all had similar experiences. In today s world of online content, it only takes one click for us to jump from one topic to another, and we easily get bored with what we re reading online. Businesses are all competing for clicks on their sites. Online marketers understand that if people don t find what they are looking for, they will quickly be gone and off to a competitor s website. As a business owner or marketer, you need to be savvy about keeping the attention of website visitors. You begin with great content and an attractive website, but calls to action are the tools to really grab your visitors attention. Call to action buttons have the power to capture a visitor s attention and to turn the visitor into a marketing qualified lead.

4 4 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS CTAS ARE EVERYWHERE If you go to The New York Times website, there is a CTA that invites you to become a digital subscriber. If you go to and you do not yet have an account set up, the social network will prompt you to join today. You may be searching for a specific product or service on a website. If you come across potential valuable information, the webpage may have a CTA that says, click here for more information, request a demo, or start your free trial. The rest of this e-book will highlight the fundamentals of creating and optimizing Calls To Action to help you meet your marketing goals. After reading this e-book, you will be much more knowledgable about how to capture and keep your website visitors attention. Twitter also has Call To Actions promoting their mobile apps, right on their homepage.

5 5 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS WHY DO I NEED CTAS ON MY WEBSITE? A call to action (CTA) is a clickable image that looks like a button and contains that will prompt website visitors to take action. The CTA should direct the website visitor to a landing page, where you will be able to collect contact information in exchange for a valuable marketing offer. That offer can be an e-book (like this one!), a product demo, or a simple subscribe option. An effective CTA with a compelling offer will result in more leads for your business. The goal of a call to action is to drive traffic to a landing page, or to attract visitors and convert them into a leads. Will one CTA button work for all of my pages? Most likely not. Your various webpages have different topics, products or services. Each individual webpage should have a CTA that is relevant to the content of that page. These Call To Actions are all from the same website, however each one offers something related to the content on the page in which it resides

6 6 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS WHERE TO PLACE CALLS TO ACTION Your website: Calls to action should be spread across your web pages and above the fold. Your homepage, which people usually perceive as a very neutral space, should also have a call to action. As your most frequently visited page, your homepage presents a huge opportunity to drive traffic to a specific campaign. In fact, some say your homepage should have at least three or more calls to action that will target different personas, or types of visitors. Your blog: Make sure to include CTAs in the sidebar of your blog as well as on every individual blog you publish. Because individual blogs are about different topics, this is a great opportunity to provide CTAs that are specific to each blog, thereby targeting the particular interests of various readers to move them to the next step in your sales cycle. marketing: Every you send should include a text call to action, but s do not always need a CTA button. Once recipients open your , they should see a link in the first couple of sentences, at least one link in the middle of the message, and one link at the end. These links can go to the exact same page, which will reinforce the consistency of your language. If recipients take action on any link, they have essentially clicked on the call to action. Social media: Even though photos on which your followers click via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google Plus won t take them to a landing page, you can still design a photo that is attention-grabbing. In the caption, tell followers that they can learn more by clicking on link that will take them to your landing page. NOT landing pages: On a landing page, people should be able to find out more about your specific offer and convert. In fact, it is a best practice to remove any distracting elements from your landing page. Examples include top and side navigation, information about other resources, and calls to action. They will confuse and distract visitors from completing the form.

7 7 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS OPTIMIZING YOUR CALLS-TO-ACTION How do I make my CTAs effective? Make The Offer Clear. Make it stand out. Make it action-oriented. Keep it above the fold. Make it relevant to itʼs context. Include CTAs for different stages of the buying cycle. Keep testing!

8 8 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS CRAFTING YOUR CALLS TO ACTION Convey value. Your CTA should answer the question, What s in it for me? Think about the top two or three benefits of your offer, and list them in order of priority. Then pick the most critical one and shorten it to just a few words. This allows you to highlight the key point of engagement and ensure there is alignment between your ad and the offer. Create urgency. In order to effectively create urgency, you need to answer the question, Why should I do this today? You can create urgency by emphasizing seasonality, by offering time-sensitive discounts, or simply by using adverbs such as now and today. Ask questions. Ask a compelling question, and follow it with a short response. This is an effective copywriting tactic across different marketing aspects, including s, blog posts, and landing pages. Questions serve to predict visitors interests and pique their curiosity. Looking to capture more leads? CLICK HERE! This Example Call To Action Conveys great value by showing specific dollar savings

9 9 CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS HOW TO MEASURE CALLS TO ACTION In order to optimize your calls to action, you must monitor their performance and analyze where improvement is needed. To do this, you will want to track a few key metrics: Click-Through Rate: This metric is most important! Of people who see the CTA, what percentage click on it? This is a great way to see where the CTA is working best, whether it is on your website, blog, or social media pages. Click to Submission Rate: This rate reflects the number of visitors who actually filled out your lead capture form. This insight is especially useful if you want to test the same CTA button on two different pages. View to Submission Rate: This tells you how many of the people who saw your CTA actually filled out the form on your landing page. In the example below, it is only one percent. In order to improve that number, it may be necessary to drive more targeted traffic to the page that features the call to action.

10 10CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS CALLS TO ACTIONS THAT DON T WORK Contact Us: This call to action has been out there forever, and everyone knows to avoid it. Why would someone want to contact you? The point of inbound marketing is for leads to come to you, so you don t need to reach out to them. Click Here: This is another ubiquitous CTA. It is also another example of a CTA that doesn t convey any value. In fact, some search engines will flag this type of wording as indicating spam. Animated: Have you seen the CTA that changes every few seconds, flashing and jumping up and down your page? They are annoying! Animated CTAs are busy and can look like spam. Often, they don t provide enough context for the offer because the words are moving. They can actually be so distracting that people would rather click away than clicking on them. Call To Actions are only succesful when they express value. A CTA only containing Click Here doesn t do much in terms of motivating users.

11 11CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS CONCLUSION At its core, a call to action should convey value and prompt visitors to take action. Interestingly enough, a truly effective call to action carries much more meaning than its name implies. When placed in the right context and shared with a targeted audience, it becomes more than hyperlinked text, a button, or an overlay image. It transforms itself into a valuable piece of information that people can t afford to ignore. Visitors are tempted to click on it not because it looks cool, but because it gives them a glimpse into something that can benefit them. An effective Call-To-Action should provide you with an opportunity to go beyond the transactional act of clicking on an offer, and create a relationship with a prospect. It s just the beginning of someone s journey with your brand. This Call To Action Creates a sense of value by providing information people would be interested in while visiting this specific site.

12 12CAPTURE LEADS WITH EFFECTIVE CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS WHAT CAN BLUE FROG DO FOR YOU? Blue Frog has adopted the Inbound Marketing Philosophy into our website and our customer s websites. With our marketing, graphic design, and website experience we are able to create the best Calls-To-Action for your business. Start attracting website visitors and capturing leads with professionally designed Call- To-Action buttons from Blue Frog. Click on the button below to get started today!