What is a Call-to-Action?
Call-to-Actions 101: What Are They and How Do They Work?
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What is a call-to-action?
A call-to-action (CTA) is a common term in the marketing world that encourages people to make some sort of action when shopping, browsing, or reading. This is a commonly used phrase that tells your consumers what exactly to do and how to do it when they’re reading a social media post, a blog, or looking through your website.
Your call-to-action doesn’t have to be anything fancy – it can be as simple as ‘add to cart’ or ‘buy now’. You want your CTA to be short, simple, and to the point so your consumer can easily be lead into a sale.
Your CTA is your last and final chance to bring in that sale, subscription, etc. – you’ve already grabbed their attention with your social media, your blog, or your website, so now it’s time to finalize that sale with a successful call-to-action!
How does a call-to-action work?
Since the main purpose of any call-to-action is to get a buyer to buy something, or a reader to subscribe to your blog or newsletter, it has to make sense and you have to word it right. Most people think that the only place to use a call-to-action is on your website at your checkout, but that is far from true. You should be using call-to-actions everywhere in your business!
Here are some common places you should be using a call-to-action:
Social media: social media is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to anywhere you want – your blog, your website, your YouTube channel – whatever it may be. You should be using a CTA in almost every single social media post, whether it be calling them to go to your website and buy your product, to get them to read your new blog post, or to check out your newest YouTube video.
Blog posts: If your business has a blog page (which they all should), you should be including CTAs in every blog post. It doesn’t have to be in the form of a sale, it can be anything like ‘make sure to follow us on our social media channels’, something simple like that will always do the trick.
Newsletters: If your business has an email newsletter, this is a great place to put CTAs – whether you’re promoting new products or services, giving your readers a promotion code, or you simply want more people to subscribe, you can always include a CTA.
YouTube channel: YouTube is a huge piece of businesses these days – there are so many people using YouTube to educate their followers. It’s also a great place to encourage your viewers to subscribe for more content, check out your website or social media, and most importantly, purchase from you. You can include multiple CTAs in your YouTube video by saying something along the lines of ‘make sure to check out the description box to check out all the products I mentioned in today’s video’.
When placing a CTA anywhere in your business, you want to ensure it’s relevant to what you’re asking buyers to do – if you want them to subscribe to your emails, you won’t want to put a CTA like ‘learn more here’, you’ll want to say ‘subscribe here’. CTAs only work when you are direct and straightforward with your buyer. CTA phrases use action words such as:
Sign up
Register
Subscribe
Read more
Call
Donate
Buy
Order
Share
Follow
Click
Download
You’ll want to ensure every page on your website, anything where you’re selling, and every piece of copy you use (blogs, social media posts, YouTube description boxes) has a CTA that is clear and precise.
Why you need a call-action
A call-to-action is the best and most direct way you’ll encourage a buyer to do something – whether it be to subscribe to your blog, follow you on social media, or buy something from you. If you just post a product photo without any CTA, people won’t do anything and the post was essentially useless.
These days, people are being shown so many different products and services, and they want to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. That’s the main reason why CTAs are so important in any business. If you don’t have CTAs, you don’t have sales.
Examples of successful calls-to-action for bloggers
If you’re a blogger and you aren’t currently using CTAs, you need to! If you currently run a blog, the best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to start using CTAs in every blog post – whether it be in the form of encouraging people to stay tuned in your blog, subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on Instagram, you need to be including a CTA in every blog you post!
When it comes to blogging, not every CTA is going to be successful for you. If you run a blog where all you do is post blogs currently and you aren’t selling anything, there are a couple of things you should include.
Here are some examples of ways you can include CTAs in your blog or newsletter:
Affiliate links
Affiliate links are a great way to include CTAs if you aren’t currently selling items and you’re just using your blog to gain momentum. You can include a link for anything you mention in your blog, and your CTA would look something like this: “if you’re interested in buying the products I’ve mentioned in today’s blog, you can shop them by clicking on each item!” This will tell people to shop that item by clicking on the name of it – creating a successful CTA.
Follow us
If your main purpose right now is to gain followers, that should be the CTA you use in every post, every blog, etc. For example, if you wrote a blog about your skincare routine and you want people to follow you on Instagram, your CTA could look like this: “If you want more skincare tips and tricks, make sure to follow me on Instagram!” and include your Instagram handle or link to it.
Check out our shop
If your website has a blog page and a shop page where you sell your products are services, and you wrote a blog about new merch you posted in your shop, your CTA could say something like “Interested in our newest merch collection? Shop it by clicking here” and hyperlink to your shop.
Check out our blog
If your focus on social media is to drive traffic to your new blog site, you should be using each blog post as a social media post promoting it. Your CTA could be: “have you read our newest blog yet? Read it by clicking the link in our bio!” and that will direct people to your bio where they will click the link and read your newest blog.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking to boost your business in any way, CTAs are the way to go! They encourage people to do exactly what you want them to, and it leads right into the sale you and your buyer are looking for. If you aren’t already using CTAs, start including them everywhere starting now!
Until next time,
—Casey
Very informative. Thank you!