When we talk about digital strategy and content marketing, we tend to focus on creating texts intended to attract qualified traffic to our website and thus increase its natural. Of course, producing quality content is essential to the success of your digital marketing strategy. But that is not enough to increase the performance of your business. Once you have managed to reach your target, in fact, you still have to convert it so that it becomes a prospect and then a customer. This is where your call-to-action strategy comes in.
Call-to-action or action buttons, conversion levers
To fully understand the value of call-to-action (or calls to action in French), you have to put yourself in the minds of internet users and analyze their behavior. Excluding advertisements or other marketing actions, the key steps in your visitors’ customer journey are generally as follows:
- They make a specific request in a search engine like Google.
- If it is optimized for natural referencing (SEO) and positions itself on the keywords sought, your site appears in the first results, thus allowing you to attract the attention of Internet users and to develop your notoriety.
- Once you have managed to attract the attention of potential customers, you must then keep it by offering them content with high added value, that is to say, relevant content and which answers their questions.
- But your text may well be the most interesting in the world if you do not encourage your visitors to carry out the desired action (contact you, buy or other), the chances that they come to fetch you and that you, therefore, converting them into customers is reduced. Hence the interest in developing a good call-to-action strategy on your website and in your blog.
Calls to action are therefore real levers for conversion. They participate in achieving the web objectives that you have set for yourself. In addition, by integrating the actions that you have defined in your Google Analytics, you can easily analyze the performance of your site. This is an opportunity to constantly improve your digital strategy, by checking that your prospecting on the Web is indeed effective.
Different forms of call-to-action and different goals
In web marketing, call-to-action can take many forms and follow different objectives. Among the most recurrent forms and objectives, in fact, are:
Action buttons
Discreet while being clearly visible, action buttons have the advantage of being relatively easy to set up on a website. They integrate with all designs and can fulfill many different objectives. They are, for example, useful for:
Create internal networking on a website, allowing visitors to travel from page to page. Thus, buttons such as “Learn more about this product” or “Discover our services” allow us to facilitate navigation on your site.
Encourage the purchase via a “Buy” button. Very commonly used in e-commerce sites, they are then located on the product sheet of the item sold.
Encourage the visitor to contact you. In this case, the button generally refers to a page with a contact form, such as the contact page or even a landing page ( landing page whose explicit role is to encourage the desired action).
Contact forms
Particularly effective in collecting personal data from your prospects (last name, first name, email address, even telephone), contact forms are aptly named. The challenge, in fact, is to encourage contact, which means that the objectives are generally: talk about a project, be called back, download a white paper, subscribe to the newsletter, request a free quote … In short, actions with high added value, which could justify asking visitors to provide their personal data. Internet users, in fact, are generally reluctant to disclose their information. If they do, then they must receive something in return that is qualitative.
This type of call-to-action is very often found on the contact page, on a landing page or a sidebar. On storefront sites, which do not allow them to buy their solutions online, it can also be integrated at the end of the service or product pages.
Images and banners with an action button
Clickable images and banners are a much more visual alternative to traditional action buttons. More imposing than the latter, they generally consist of an illustration, a small incentive text, and an action button. At the end of a web page, for example, a blog article, they are generally more visible than simple call-to-action and thus obtain a higher conversion rate.
Set up a call-to-action strategy: some tips
Now that you understand the importance of call-to-action in your conversion strategy and that you know that it exists of all kinds, how to manage to create a strategy that will allow you to increase the conversion rate of your website? Here are 3 tips for effective calls to action.
Design, a crucial point!
The objective of a call-to-action is to convert Internet users, which means that their role in your marketing strategy is essential. Avoid creating small calls to action, visible only through a magnifying glass. All things considered, they must be big enough and colorful enough to catch the eye. While taking care to respect your graphic charter, choose colors that have the pep and which stand out compared to the general design of the site. Colors like red, orange and green work well for differentiating your call-to-action. If your incentive is right, remember that a banner with a photo usually gets a higher conversion rate.
The location of your call-to-action
There are a number of strategic areas that can accommodate your call-to-action. It is interesting to note that we do not read a web page in the same way as we would read the page of a book. On the Internet, in fact, the eye is mainly attracted by strong visual elements (an image, a title, the first paragraph, etc.). As for the text, we tend to fly over it to understand the main lines without reading it carefully. It is therefore important to think carefully about the location of your call-to-action.
A good practice, for example, is to start your page directly with a value proposition followed by a call-to-action. Internet users are fickle, it is best not to drag too much to offer them a specific action. If your buttons are too low on your page, they may not even see them.
Never end a web page without a call to action. You risk giving internet users the impression that their visit to your site has ended. Even if you still have lots of content to offer them, they will leave your site.
The area to the right of your page is also a strategic area. Languages from Latin traditionally read from left to right. Even if our way of reading is different on the Web, this movement remains natural for us, which explains why a call to action located on the right, for example in a sidebar or in the upper right corner of your page, will tend to attract the eye and thus be more efficient.
Attractive content
A call-to-action, whatever its form, is always accompanied by a few words. To optimize this text, it is advisable to use action verbs, which will make it easier to convince internet users to click on it: “add to cart”, “contact us” or “request your quote”. In some cases, speaking “I” can increase the conversion rate. The user feels concerned and identifies himself more easily, which encourages him to perform the expected action.
For a form or a banner, the button is often associated with a small text intended to entice the visitor even more. This content, which incorporates the good practices explained above, generally consists of a title and some strong arguments.
The title makes it possible to clearly express your offer (promotional or not): subscribe to our newsletter, let’s talk about your project … To be even more effective, you can integrate in your title a sense of urgency of the type: register quickly to our newsletter or tell us about your project now.
Arguments, on the other hand, are often presented in the form of a bulleted list. They allow you to briefly explain why the user should do the action expected of him. For example, why should he download your white paper or receive your emails?
The final word
When you create your company website, your goal is, of course, to be visible in Google. But not only. You want to either sell your products directly online or encourage your visitors to contact you (for a quote, a request for information …). Hence the importance of building an effective call-to-action strategy.