In marketing and web design, we talk a lot the Call-to-Action (or CTA) and how important it is to include this on your sales and landing pages. It’s the key element that takes your website visitors to the next stage in their customer journey and an inch closer to the goal you have set for them. Whether your site is all about generating leads for your sales team to call, or about selling a product online, your CTA is what can make or break your sales page’s performance.
Different types of call-to-action
A call-to-action can be anything from a “Sign up” button for a newsletter subscription service to a “Get a Quote” button for an insurance quote to a “Call us today on 0800 xxxxxxx” to generate inbound telephone enquiries. There’s no one CTA that will work for every business and every scenario, so we need to think more strategically about how we use CTAs on our websites.
Customer journey focused
The most appropriate CTA to use will often depend on where your customer is on their customer journey. For example, if they are just researching possible solutions to their problem, they may not be ready to speak to your sales team just yet; it’s too soon to ask for their phone number or to book a call.
On the other hand, they may have been researching your service for months, shortlisted you and then eliminated your competitors. They’ve budgeted for your fees and now want to proceed as soon as possible. Now’s the time to hit them with a more presumptuous CTA of “Sign up today” or “Call us on…”.
But how do you know where your website visitors are on their customer journey? Truth is, you often have no idea, so you need take this into consideration when creating your sales and landing pages. You may need to cater for different stages of the customer journey with multiple CTAs.
Take this example from Slack:
The top half of their homepage (above the fold) contains 4 CTAs.
The first (and most prominent) is “Try Slack” – essentially this takes you to the page to sign up, hand over your details and create an account. You’re pretty committed at this point so you’ve probably already done your research and you’re here to sign up.
The second is the “See The Demo” button, which is almost greyed out in comparison to the first CTA. The demo offers users an opportunity to see the software in action, find out about its functionality and decide whether or not it’s for them. This CTA caters for those in the research/discovery phase of their journey – they’re not quite ready to commit just yet.
Then there’s 2 CTAs for existing customers. The first in small print under the main CTAs prompts users to “Sign in“. The second is more prominent in the top right corner – “Launch Slack“. The Launch Slack button was a later addition and, prior to this, one of my bugbears with the website was that existing users had to have really good eyesight to see where to login (especially on a mobile screen). They must have received similar feedback from others as the Launch Slack button appeared and made our lives a little easier.
[Side note: It’s really important to look after your existing customers and not just focus on acquiring new ones – this might not be relevant to every organisation, but think about what your customer would want to do on your website and provide them with simple CTAs to make their experience of working with you a pleasant and straightforward one.]
Client-centric CTAs
Ever put yourself in your customer’s shoes when deciding on your CTA and sales page messaging? You really should!
Sales people may tell you it’s best to get people on the phone, so having a “Request a call back” or a “Call us today” type of call-to-action should be the preferred choice. However, your customers may not be phone people. They may not want a call from a sales person where they feel pressured into signing up to something. This will especially be the case if they’re not yet ready to buy – it just won’t feel appropriate.
With this in mind, you can give visitors multiple options – Request an information pack via email (less committed), Request a quotation (more committed) and Request a call from our sales team (fully committed).
By tracking events on your website through Google Analytics, you can also measure which CTAs get the most interaction, helping you to build up a picture of where your customers typically are in their buying journey when they visit your website.
Remember, just because you want your website visitors to do one thing, doesn’t mean they have the same goal in mind when visiting your website, so be sure to take this into consideration before choosing your CTAs. By catering for users at different stages of their buying journey, you increase the chances of keeping yourself in the running when they do decide to fully commit!
Found this useful? Anything to add? Leave a comment below!
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