Wouldn't you like a simple but extremely powerful way to pump up sales, get better quality leads, and practically eliminate advertising waste?
Here's an insider tip.
Hey, you and me... we're in the marketing trenches together. Every day. And we've lived to tell about it.
But what may surprise you is that very few business owners employ this simple but powerful "tool" in their advertising.
This tool I'm hinting at is called... tada... a call to action.
What? Yes, it's a call to action.
If you don't ask, then you don't get. Sounds reasonable, right? But very few business owners (or their creative staff) use this simple tactic to boost sales.
All... and I mean all the marketing pieces that I write, and this includes white papers, print ads, landing pages, emails, you name it, includes some sort of call to action.
It's the very core of the type of advertising I use. This is called direct response marketing. And it works... like gangbusters, if done correctly.
Why Use A Call To Action (CTA)?
First of all, it works. It's a great way to move people down the sales funnel.
Second, it measures the effectiveness of your copywriting.
Think about it. The more responses you get directly indicates how compelling your copy must have been. In other words, your copy message is doing its job.
Now that you know the advantages of using a CTA, let's look at a few examples. They're not as difficult to come up with as you may think.
When you think about your "call to action" think about what objective you want the reader to do...
... sign up for a webinar, download some information, visit your store or call now.
Pretty simple, right?
If you're stuck or just can't find good ideas for your call to action, then start an advertising swipe file.
I've talked about this before but as a reminder, a swipe file is a collection of good ads that are producing good results. And how you'll know that these are "good" ads is that you'll see them running over and over again.
Savvy marketers do not like to spend money on advertising that is not producing. It's all about a good ROI (return on investment). And only good direct response marketing gives you this opportunity.
Now while I'm on the subject of putting together your CTA, it's only natural to talk about your writing style. Specifically, the words you choose.
According to social-media-scientist Dan Zarrella, verbs outperform adverbs, adjectives and nouns when eliciting 'shares' on Twitter.
This is true not only for Twitter and other social media but nearly any media outlet.
Here's a few bold verb examples that produce results:
Register
Subscribe
Buy
Download
Donate
These are much better than the plain old vanilla 'click here' and be sure to tell your reader what benefits she's getting, for example...
Download your free copy of our business survival guide
Register now to get in on this webinar
And so on.
Now let's add some urgency to the mix.
We humans sometimes need a bit of pushing sometimes. Adding some sincere urgency to drive the funnel can be just what's needed to get us moving.
Here's a few examples to get your creative juices flowing...
Offer expires
First 50 people only
Hurry, the price goes up at noon today
While supplies last
And one of personal favorites is 'Immediate Download.' It's a great call to action because folks like downloads and they like immediacy. Bam. Here you got both.
Last, let's talk about risk. Actually, let's talk about reducing removal or removing risk from your offer or call to action.
As you can imagine, risk removal or reversal is a powerful marketing tool.
How do we lower the risk?
Oftentimes doing business for the first time with a new company is a scary deal. After all, you know or trust this "new company." And who hasn't been burnt before. Heck, these days trust has flown out the window, right?
So why not start by truly focusing and empathizing with your prospect and clients. Put yourself in their shoes. Again, they do not know you and they don't trust you. Make a point to earn their trust... and keep earning their trust.
Prove that you truly care by showing them you'll shoulder the risk. Communicate this in all your marketing messages.
Here's a few examples...
"Start your no-obligation 30 day free trial"
"You have a no-hassle, no-questions asked, 100% money back guarantee"
"Not Satisfied? No Problem! We're double your money back immediately"
You get the idea.
Use these ideas to create a strong "call to action" in your next advertising pitch.
Yours for bigger profits,
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