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Getting Results with “Calls to Action”

Typewriter which has written "call to action" on a page

If you have even only dipped your toes into online marketing, you will have come across the term “call to action” (CTA). They’re ubiquitously mentioned because of their efficacy. Calls to action display a click-through rate (CTR) of 4.23%. That’s more than double the average CTR of Google search ads at 1.91%, and more than ten times the rate of 0.35% for display ads. A single CTA in an email can improve click rates by a staggering 371% and purchases by 1617%. Including well-crafted CTAs in your digital marketing is essential, so Rosewood’s digital marketing team has put together everything you need to know about calls to action to get you results.

What is a call to action?

Calls to action are a staple of effective marketing. They are the main way to motivate and direct your potential customers and clients to complete a certain task that’s being promoted in your marketing. An ad, email, or social media post may show an enticing product, service, discount, or piece of content to pique their interest. It is the call to action’s job to then rouse someone to click and follow their curiosity. 

CTAs are found in every kind of digital marketing. They are prompts in the text of blogs, posts, and ads. They are buttons on websites and ads. Even email subject lines can have calls to action. You may have followed a call to action to reach this blog from Rosewood’s own social media and you’ll find them in this article. They are everywhere because they are an essential conversion method of digital marketing. The ability of effective CTAs to convert marketing into revenue makes them integral to increasing your marketing’s results and return on investment. 

What makes an call to action get results?

There is precision to creating an effective call to action with impressive click-through rates. Here are the staples for crafting successful CTAs that get results.

Intentional – Know the results you want

To create any call to action you need to have a clear intention, a defined goal and result for that piece of marketing. The CTA will result in a click, but it needs to be associated with another action attached to that click. It could be a specific purchase, redeeming a promotion, or contacting for information about a service. Establishing that precise goal allows you to set the impetus of the CTA and where it leads.

Directional

CTAs are meant to guide someone, and that is only possible if it provides clear direction and guidance. Most call to actions include a simple command or suggestion. Some common examples include “Read more”, “Check it out here”, “Buy now”, or “Follow the link in our bio”. All of these make it clear where they are steering a user. That direction also needs to continue beyond just the written prompt. Every call to action should be linked so that it leads to the relevant page or contact method. The last thing you want to give a viewer is the first direction and then leave them lost on your homepage wondering if they need to take the next right or left. They are more likely to just leave from confusion.

Clear and Concise

That direction should be clear and concise. Short and sweet is the standard practice. Simple commands like “read more” or “buy now” explicitly and concisely tells a user what they need to do. Providing longer or more complicated CTAs reduces clarity and clicks. 

CTAs should also be visually clear. Hyperlinked text should be visible so that it is immediately recognizable that it leads to the relevant page. Even better are button CTAs with strong colours and text. These make a call to action more visually prominent and so they have better click-through rates. The average CTR of a button call to action is more than 1% higher than average at 5.31% with the highest performance at 70%.

Personalized

As with most marketing, the most effective calls to action are personalized. These identify a person by name, their location, language, or interests. A Hubspot study of over 333,000 CTAs found that personalized ones perform 202% better. Such personalization isn’t usually possible in social media, but Google and Meta ads and email marketing can utilize user information to create personalized marketing that speaks directly to your audience.

FOMO

Calls to action are about motivation. One of the most effective motivators is the “fear of missing out” (FOMO). This is not actual fear or anxiety but an incentive. FOMO incites someone to make an action a priority rather than forgetting and not following through later. Create this excitement by indicating time sensitivity. Identify clearly there is time limit on a promotion or that stocks are limited. Pair this with a call to action that creates urgency with words like “now”, “soon”, “today”, or a phrase like “don’t miss out” to inspire that click. Avoid making every CTA evoke FOMO, or users will soon become numb to its effects. If everything is urgent, nothing is.

Restraint and Focus

Lastly, calls to action are a crucial aspect of your marketing, but practice restraint. Don’t flood every piece of marketing with multiple to try to generate clicks. CTAs turn from motivating suggestions to tedious, overwhelming commands if they are a constant stream. Every piece of marketing should stick to a clear focus. Longer pieces of marketing like emails or blogs can have multiple CTAs; however, they should still be restricted to a thematic few that fit the overall piece of content. 

Start Creating Your CTAs Now

Now you have the essentials to start crafting effective calls to action to see more directed results from your marketing. Want some assistance in creating or honing your CTAs for social media, blogs, ads, and emails? The best time to start is now. Talk about CTAs and the most productive for your business with our digital marketing team today. See? Urgency, clarity, and direction. 

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How To Hook Customers In So They Check Out

A customer using their laptop hooked in to check out

Social media, email marketing, and online advertising all help drive traffic to your business’ website, but the ultimate goal is converting that traffic to purchasing your products or services. From the moment a user accesses your website, there could be numerous moments that encourage or discourage them from making a purchase. You want to minimize the latter and maximize the prior. Your website needs to make that process easy, straightforward, and even encouraging. It needs to hook customers in, so they check out. Seamless and streamlined should be at the heart of your website’s shopping experience. Here are some essential tips to make sure your webstore is providing that smooth shopping experience.

Make Check Out and Booking Easy

A cumbersome checkout or appointment making process is an easy place to lose customers. For this reason, nearly 70% of carts are abandoned. The checkout process should be straightforward and easy to complete. To start, you can provide autofill, such as for addresses, to simplify the process. You can streamline the rest of process with express checkout through digital wallets like GooglePay, ApplePay, ShopPay, PayPal as payment methods. All these load a user’s previously entered information for a seamless and immediate checkout. Another huge help is to make the promo code area clearly visible. You can even ensure promotions are automatically added. 

If your business is service based, make it easy for customers to contact you and/or arrange appointments. Only 33% of customers prefer scheduling appointments on the phone, meaning you should provide an online booking system for the more than two-thirds of customers that prefer it. For those who prefer direct communication, you should still provide linked contact information so that an email or phone call is only a click/tap away. Alternatively, you can present a fillable online contact form. Remember to keep it simple, so that users only need to provide essentials.

Getting Their Attention

Browsing and searching for just the right thing can sometimes be a fun treasure hunt, but it can also feel like sifting through dirt. The average user’s attention span for a single webpage is only 8 seconds. If customers do not see that right product or service quickly, they are more likely to leave. On the other hand, when customers immediately see products or services they are interested in, they are more likely to stay and browse. 

There are numerous ways to seize people’s attention. Banners on your home page that show a range of popular and new products or services can initially pique people’s interest. Testimonials and reviews can also help secure that attention. If customers come from an ad, email, or social media post featuring a product or service, it should take them to that specific page. Relying on them to find it themselves could leave them confused or frustrated.

Keeping Their Attention – Make Browsing Effective

Once you have gotten their attention, customers can be inclined to browse. However, the browsing experience still needs to be smooth and simple. Users should be able to easily find and move through products or services that interest them. To start, categories on each page will help customers immediately filter down to their interests. A search with filters is a simple way to help customers find their specific quarry. Showing similar items/services or those purchased together by other customers provides a curated browsing experience. Popups about product stock or deals can also guide and motivate customers to purchase. If they are repeating customers or clients, you can also use plugins to provide them with tailored recommendations based on their purchase history.

A Guiding Hand

At no point do you want a user to become lost while using your site. That can lead to confusion, frustration, and them leaving your website. Provide clear directions for customers to move through their shopping or booking experience. A clearly visible checkout or booking button on the top of every page on your website ensures customers are always only one click away from when they decide to move onto that next crucial step. After customers add an item to their cart, present an unobtrusive popup that confirms the addition and prompts them to check out or continue shopping. Keep call to actions like these as subtle nudges. Large popups or forced redirects can be overwhelming or confusing. 

Getting Their Attention Back

Although many carts are abandoned, that doesn’t mean people have lost interest. Sometimes life gets in the way. One of the best ways to get users back is abandoned cart emails. These automated emails remind customers about the products they have left sitting in their cart.  Personalized automations, like cart abandonment and product recommendations, are extremely effective for regaining a customer’s attention. Their average open rate is over 41% with a click rate of 26%, giving you another chance to hook them in for that checkout.

The Essential Information

Customers and clients will want to know certain things about a product or service. Leaving them to contact you or search for the information on another site will drastically increase the likelihood of them abandoning their cart or booking. Provide the essential details they should know. Measurements, size charts for clothing, shipping lengths, service timelines, and other specifications are all important details customers will want to know. 

If customers approach your business regularly with a question about a product, take that as a cue to add that information to the product or service page. A set of questions you commonly receive about your business or service, such as shipping, should prompt the creation of a frequently asked question (FAQ) section. 

Similarly, reviews are a valuable resource. You don’t want customers to go to another site to find them. Shopify provides plugins that add your own or connect Google reviews. These testimonials tell customers other essential information not provided in specifications, while increasing brand trust and authenticity.

Testing

You shop plenty online yourself. Test your website or have an associate try. User experience (UX) testing is one of the most valuable ways to ensure your online store’s functionality. If something is missing or not immediately apparent in your own run-throughs, that suggests a space for improvement. Similarly, listen to customers’ questions. Some might contact you about an issue with their user experience. That information is extremely valuable for streamlining and simplifying other users’ experience.

There’s Always Room for Improvement

Every moment they leave your site increases the likelihood of an abandoned cart or booking. Providing that optimal experience to help your customers check out requires constant monitoring. Keep your eyes and ears open. If you’re hoping to improve your website’s checkout rate, Rosewood’s web design team knows all the best practices. Our marketing team will make sure your ads are giving users a proper welcome and can also help you set up those personalized email automations that keep them returning.

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Rosewood’s Guide To Influencer Relationships

An influencer happy in her relationship with a business

You probably have found and started a relationship with an influencer for your business’ social media marketing. Maybe you followed our recent advice about the benefits of micro-influencers for small businesses. Like any relationship, those with influencers require maintenance. You want to manage and maintain that relationship properly because influencer marketing is valuable for your business and expanding your reach on social media. At least 61% of people’s trust in a brand grows because of an influencer’s recommendations. That value only increases over time as your partnership with your influencers and their audience strengthens. The more an influencer trusts you, so will their audience. Here’s Rosewood’s guide to influencer relationships to keep that partnership with your influencers strong and productive into the long term.

Communicate regularly

For any relationship to continue and thrive, you need to maintain open communication. This is no less true for the your business’ influencer relationships. Regularly and openly communicate with any of your influencers, so that you both have essential information. If you are sending them products, are launching a new product or service, or have some advice for reaching your own audience, you will want to update them. Maintaining this open line of communication will also allow you to ask questions and receive key information. Similarly, if they have questions about your business and its products, services, or values, answer them promptly. 

Check on what they need

It might not always be clear what an influencer needs from your business for a certain campaign or to create content. Regularly check if there is anything they need. They might require some more information, product details, brand statements, certain products, content materials, etc. They may expect an affiliate code or link to provide their followers. Rosewood’s sites, such as those built on WordPress and Shopify, have plugins that make affiliate programs easy to manage. Inquire with influencers to see what resources they need to produce content that will engage their audience for your business. Asking will help maintain open and constant communication with an influencer so that your partnership can have lasting results.

Clear objectives and strategies

Your business’ objectives and strategies are essential information for influencers to create effective campaigns for your business. Provide them with them this information as they start a campaign or create content in association with your business. If they are providing content about certain products or services, be sure to provide them with any key details you want them to highlight. If there is certain branding information you want emphasized, make that clear to your influencer. Just like you need this information to strategize advertising, so do influencers to create impactful campaigns that benefit your business. Giving them those essentials will prolong successful influencer relationships.

Feedback

It’s useful for influencers to know how effective their campaign or content has been for your business. Provide them with insights about performance. Statistics like number of conversions and how many times their affiliate code or link has been used after a certain series of posts or campaign are informative metrics. Provide feedback for what worked, what did not, and any clarifications. When articulating this information, focus on the results. Celebrate successes and don’t assign blame for any disappointing outcomes. Again, trust they are knowledgeable about their work. Influencers can use good and bad results to improve future campaigns. They just need that information.

Trust their expertise 

Don’t let your communication with an influencer turn into oversight or micromanagement. Trust their expertise and listen to their input. Remember this is a partnership created on their established platform. They’ve built their substantial and engaged following precisely because they understand how to create impactful content. Influencers understand what their audience likes and how it will resonate with them. Their job relies on understanding the intricate and mutable workings of social media. That knowledge is precisely why an influencer relationship and partnership is valuable to your business. When an influencer provides your business with information or their insights, be sure to listen.

Compensation

Influencers will expect compensation. From the start, communicate openly with them how much and what kind of compensation they expect, and you can provide. Some might expect payment, while others may also want to create an affiliate link from which they derive commission. Remember that this aspect of the partnership will develop over time, especially as you start measuring results from each. Make sure to keep compensation an open discussion.

Influencer Marketing Software

When starting your influencer relationships, we recommend contacting and managing them the old-fashioned way. Eventually, you will likely have multiple influencers providing their services for your company and will want to keep track of all of them. Fortunately, there is software that helps you manage your relationships, discover new ones, and manage content. These programs also track important data like budgets, spending, and provide reports and analytics for performance and ROIs. Some of the best include GRIN, LTK Connect, and Influence.co.

It’s a Relationship

Influencers are effective because they play a prominent social role. Agreements with influencers are partnerships and reciprocal relationships. Those take time and clear communication to develop. Keep those channels open and properly manage and maintain these relationships with influencers, benefiting your business in the long run. Need more information about managing relationships with influencers or maybe you are looking to start? Speak with Rosewood’s social media marketing team. They can help you find the right influencers and use their own social media expertise to effectively collaborate with your business’ partnerships. If you haven’t gotten to this point already stay tuned for our upcoming blog on hiring your own influencers.

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