What Is The Best Call-To-Action For My Site?

A call to action (CTA) is a marketing term for any design/text element that prompts a response or action. On a website, a CTA tells your site visitor what you want them to do next. Now that your smart marketing has brought them to your site, and they have found the info they are looking for, what do they do now? Your call-to-action will direct them. What the CTA is and what it says will vary from industry to industry.

Example call-to-action:
Buy Now.
Try it for Free.
Download Now.
Schedule an Appointment.

Lead Generation vs. Ecommerce

Your call to action should relate directly to the goal of your website. If the goal of your site is to generate leads, your call-to-action should assist you in capturing contact information or adding people to your email marketing audience. Things like downloading a helpful white paper or access to a set of videos are great lead generation CTAs. 

If you run an ecommerce website, your goal is likely to have visitors convert into sales. Your CTA would be anything that would help a customer through the cart process; things like “add to cart” or “buy now”. 

Regardless of the goal of your site, you'll want to create a strong CTA that appeals to your audience.  Since you usually don't have a lot of time or space to communicate your CTA, we suggest leading with a verb (an action item).

What should I offer?

I would love to be able to tell you exactly what to use for your CTA, but it does take a little thought and planning. Ask yourself - What matters to my audience? What would be helpful in reducing the number of steps or time to purchase? What could you create or offer your client/customer that would help move the needle in terms of making a purchase?

Whatever your offer is, make sure it has passed the "What's in it for me?" test. Your offer should be valuable to the customer and paint a clear path towards working together. 

Doing it well...

We recently put in place a marketing solution for Two Twelve Advisors. Read on to see how they are generating new leads from their call-to-action.