Designing the perfect call to action is a blend of art and science. You must know your audience, what they react to, and how to engage with them. At the core, there should be three primary elements:
1. A Great Offer
Give your visitors a reason to casually interact with you. A great piece of relevant content (an analyst report, infographic, thought leadership paper or technology review) is the perfect way to entice them to engage. Now you have the opportunity to continue the conversation, nurturing them over time with more great content.
2. Multiple Ways to Engage
It’s a mistake to have a registration form with 10 questions as your only contact option. Visitors should be able to simply enter an email address to access valuable offers, or be able to “Like” you on Facebook or “Tweet” about your content on Twitter.
Your sales team may believe “contacts without phone numbers are worthless,” but as marketers, we know better. Today’s qualified email address is potentially tomorrow’s customer — money in the bank if you stay in front of them until they’re ready to buy. On the flip side, let visitors easily self-select if they want to connect with a sales person; they are late-stage prospects and won’t mind a few extra questions. It should be obvious, on every page in your website, where to go if a prospect wants to buy.
3. Pervasive and Visually Consistent
Most likely, each prospect will visit a few pages on your website — exploring before deciding to engage. Studies show that people automatically ignore banners and other advertising elements. And to your skeptical web visitor, your CTA is just another banner. By being consistent with your call to action design, you are creating multiple impressions — giving yourself multiple opportunities to achieve the desired result of lead capture. When a prospect decides to engage, they know where to go.
This is an excerpt from The #1 Missed Opportunity for Corporate Websites.
By: Joshua Siler
Filed under: Marketing Technology.
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