Your massive army is lined up along the hillside, nervous but ready to go to war. Then you majestically lift your sword and shout, the masses following behind you. In this scenario, your sword and shout is the call to action (CTA). CTAs are pretty important—on websites, in email, when you’re headed off to war. Imagine if instead of raising your sword and letting out a shout, you started to walk in circles and sing. Or imagine if you tried to get your troops to back off at this point, and start doing a synchronized dance instead.
A good website flow (link to website audit) should prime your customers for your CTA—they’re not there to sing or dance, your content should make that clear. And your CTA should make the next action they take seem easy and obvious. There are other tricks to consider, too.
Consider the following issues that arise when crafting your CTAs and flip your weak strategies into peak performing ones.
The Unclear Value Proposition
Your value prop is your promise to the customer. Take Avocadu, for example. Their headline reads: “We help women lose weight quickly, safely, and consistently. This promise is followed up by a subhead that explains how they will fulfill this promise and a CTA that reads “Start My 21-Day Challenge.” In this scenario, users are aware of exactly what they can expect to get from the brand. The CTA helps drive things home by offering exact language of what the next steps will be.
The point of this, though, is that no matter how well written your CTA is, users aren’t going to click it if your value proposition is unclear. Before you get to working on fixing your CTA make sure your value prop, or promise to customers, is clear and something you can follow up on.
The 100,0001 “Click Here” Button — It’s Time to Get Specific
Overused buttons are still common, even though they don’t provide the best user experience—and user experience has quickly become one of the most popular and tested things on websites. That’s because users in doubt are more likely to abandon a cart or leave a site, instead of clicking through dozens of links to learn what you’re all about. Consider this: In one study, 79% of users admitted to searching for another site if the one they landed on didn’t live up to their expectations.
Tip #1. Remove the Unknown
Most overused buttons offer vague prompts like “click here”, “buy now or “submit.” In the example above, “Start My 21-Day Challenge” could just have easily been “Learn More.” Which one do you find more compelling to click on? Spelling out what the next step in the user journey is going to be helps entice users to move forward and removes fear of the unknown.
Tip #2. Limit Effort
There are other words to avoid too, like “Order” and “Download.” These words could make it feel like users have to put in more time or work than they’re willing to commit. Changing the CTA from “Order Information and Prices” to “Get Information and Prices” in this case, helped increase CTRs by almost 15 percent.
Tip #3. Make it Personable
In one A/B test that ran for three weeks, Unbounce was able to increase the click-through-rate of a CTA by 90 percent. The only difference between the two buttons was the word “my” instead of “your”: “Start your free 30 day trial” vs. “Start my free 30 day trial.”
What CTA?
This one might seem obvious, but it happens. Once you’ve gone through all the work to craft the perfect CTA, make sure it’s in a place that your users can find it. Choosing the right color, positioning and overall feel can help. This also goes back to having a clear value proposition. Set a clear goal and determine the most important action you want users to take. Too many options can make it confusing. Make the next step obvious, accessible and enticing (on a side note—adding a limited time offer can be a useful way to drive action quickly).
When crafting CTAs, it’s important to remember to test them. Different tactics will work better for different companies and the best way to know what works for you is to conduct an A/B test. Spending timing doing this will improve your overall conversion rates and lead to more successful campaigns.