Sign up. Learn more. Join us. Not all call to action messages are created equal, and not all call to action messages are right for every business. Sad to say that most B2B digital marketers are not using effective call to action (CTA) messages to engage their ideal customers.
Finding the Right Call to Action for Your Business
In fact, some B2Bs still aren’t using CTAs at all. CTAs are an essential part of a conversion path and the lead generation process, providing direction, and helping your visitor take the next steps with your business. CTAs can drive a variety of different actions, depending on your business goals, but they need to be bold, clear, and relevant. Businesses need to find the right CTA in order to reach their 2020 goals.
You Need a Call to Action
Without a CTA, your visitor is much less likely to engage with your content, if they even know what step to take next, and are more likely to leave your website without a second thought. Writing a CTA that will compel your visitors to take the right action is a practice that will require some testing to get right, but you can find the right CTA for your company with a little help.
While CTA stands for call to action, it’s really just part of a story. It’s just the part of a story that encourages the audience to do something. It’s important to guide your visitors through the buying journey by using strategic CTAs. Start by thinking about all the times you’ve signed up for things. Each of these sign-ups is the direct result of an effective CTA.
How Do I Choose the Right CTA?
You want to write a CTA that will compel your visitors to take action right now. It’s up to you to decide what action you want them to take. Here are a few CTA ideas to get you started:
Get Started
“Get started” is a popular CTA, probably because it can be used to drive a variety of behaviors. Your CTA might be for a free trial or a PDF whitepaper download. In either case, it’s a highly actionable phrase that suggests to your visitors that they will be able to move their business forward by clicking on your CTA.
Join Us
Visitors like feeling like they are part of the club. They like doing what others like them are doing. They particularly like becoming part of something exclusive, and the CTA “join us” makes them feel like they’re missing out on something if they don’t click through. This CTA is particularly useful for those managing an online community or offering products built on collaboration between users.
Learn More
Sometimes your product might need a little more explaining, or you need to provide potential customers with more information before they are ready to convert. The “learn more” CTA is an invitation to visitors to get more information about your product or service and how it works. This is a low-commitment CTA that is ideal for product pages or product tours. “Learn more” also works well on popups, where it’s hard to include all the relevant information a visitor might need. The “learn more” CTA pushes them to a page where they can get more details, and then you make a stronger CTA.
Sign Up
“Sign up” is another CTA that can be used to drive a variety of behaviors, depending on the CTAs context. You might be inviting visitors to sign up for an online course, an event, or even a free trial. If you’re offering a free trial as part of the sign-up, you may want to consider having your CTA be “Sign Up Free.” Adding the free at the end of the CTA lets visitors know they won’t need to pay anything at this point, which can increase your conversion rate.
If you have more than one thing that visitors can sign up for, make sure to differentiate the offerings. For example, if you offer both a premium service and an entry-level offering, make it clear what visitors are getting when they click sign up.
One big fear users have in signing up for something is wondering how difficult it will be to cancel later if they decide they don’t like what they have signed up for. You may consider providing reassurance to visitors by adding in additional copy with information on canceling around the sign-up CTA.
Subscribe
Unlike “sign up” or “join us,” this CTA doesn-’t indicate a purchase choice is coming. Instead, “subscribe” invites visitors to receive updates from your business. This CTA is common for a website where a business wants to develop a readership or build their email list. Further communication can include CTAs that will drive a purchase.
Making Your CTA Your Own
The CTAs we just listed, get started, join us, learn more, sign up, and subscribe, are not intended to be an all-encompassing list. Marketers can put their own creative spin on a CTA, as well. We already mentioned how ‘sign up” could be “sign up for free”’ See how adding now, save, try, or start changes a phrase. “Learn more” could become “learn more now.” “Join us” could simply be “join” or “join free for two weeks.”
There is no single CTA that is best for every business. You have to find the right CTA for your company. In order to see the best results and generate the most leads from your CTAs, you need to test them and see how they work for your audience
Key Takeaways
- CTAs are needed to drive engagement.
- CTAs will help guide your website visitors to the proper action.
- No CTA is a end all be all for every type of business.
How Can We Help?
At Vende Digital, we want to help you get better results with our full-service B2B digital agency. Could your company benefit from a complimentary web analysis? We’ll take a look at your website, social presence, and competitive landscape and see where we can help you grow. At Vende Digital, we help B2Bs develop winning online solutions.
