CTA Copy

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are kind of the “point” of any piece of marketing. You’ve garnered attention (headline) and laid out your argument (subheads). You’ve been convincing and compelling (body), and now you want the reader to do something. It’s time for action!

If there’s a place where your copy has the potential to fizzle out, this is likely to be it. This is where the momentum you’ve been building can be transformed and channeled into your reader doing the Obvious Next Thing, or end with them putting a pin in it and planning to keep you in mind. (Which they very likely won’t, because they more than likely can’t, thanks to the sheer volume of information we all take in, day in, day out, these days.)

Headline > Subhead > Body > CTA (> Button > Micro)

There’s still work to be done on the other side of the CTA copy – like making pressing the button feel good and right, like removing doubts and making guarantees with your microcopy, and then there’s the whole experience of your cart/checkout process – but if the CTA falls flat, there is no “other side”.

Inspiration is the key

I’ve heard the CTA rather loftily referred to as a call to adventure, which, you know, isn’t that far off. I mean, sure, applying for a loan, say, isn’t in and of itself an “adventure” …but getting that first car is and so is setting up your business. And those things are only happening because of the loan (probably).

So, the trick, then, when you’re trying to spur your reader on, to call them to action (or adventure,) is to keep the focus (and your language) on the thing that makes doing the action worth it.

Less, “Register today to talk with one of our agents,” and more, “Find out how close you are to driving your new car off the lot, by booking a call with one of our dream makers.” (Okay, maybe don’t call your sales staff dream makers…or, on the other hand, maybe do?)

Finding the inspiring language that talks to your ideal customer’s desires and motivations (and/or fears and pains) is the key. Don’t talk about what you’re offering, talk about what they’re pursuing (or avoiding). That’s how you get things moving, how you get people excited about taking that next step with you. It’s all about inspiration.

When it happens matters

But all the inspiration in the world won’t cause someone to spring into action if the timing isn’t right. (Ever try to get your kids to go outside when they’re in the middle of an epic LEGO session?) When (and where) you put your CTA matters, a lot.

By “when,” I mean relative to their awareness, their time spent taking in your copy. By “where,” I mean the physical location on the page or in the email.

If you’re asking people to get on a call with you in the hero section of your homepage, it’s not likely to land. Your reader won’t have had a chance to find out why you’re the right person to talk to about their problems, or what they can expect when they work with you.

On the other hand, if you’re selling a product that is flying off the shelves and “everyone” knows it by name, maybe the best thing you can do is have a picture of the product right at the top of the page accompanied by a quick and frictionless “Buy Now” button. In that case, you might annoy your readers (who have searched your product by name and are just looking to get their order in before you sell out) by taking the time to share the backstory of who you are as a person or company.

There are no hard and fast rules to the correct timing and placement of your CTA, except that you take the time to consider your ideal reader/visitor’s journey—where they’re coming from, what their level of awareness of your product/solution is, how much they likely already know, what they need, and how they need it.

You need to talk to your customers

The only way to be sure you’re using the right CTA at the right time and place is by taking the time to get to know your customers via research (and then testing your hypotheses about the takeaways from that research).

Imagine you talk to 6-10 customers and find out that almost all of them scoured the internet for scent-free vegan soap for days before landing on your site. And that they only finally found out that yours fit the bill once they had clicked through to the product details page, at which point they immediately purchased a bulk order.

A good takeaway and hypothesis would be that if you mentioned those facts about your soap early on in a reader’s journey through your page (or, realistically, in your ads or search listings, in this case,) you would sell more soap, converting not only the diligent click-through-to-the-product-details-page types but also the going-to-bounce-in-5-seconds-flat-if-not-convinced types.

So, as a test, you might want to move that message up to the top of your homepage, potentially incorporating it into a top-of-page CTA that says, “Try our scent-free vegan soap, buy 5 get 1 free,” or something like that. Capitalizing on the features people are specifically looking for and the knowledge that these people, once they find what they are looking for, want to stock up.

How I write CTAs

I usually write CTAs by working backward from the button copy (the two have to work together and there’s less wiggle room in the button copy).

I often use a Q&A-style approach where the CTA section subhead is a question that your ideal reader will answer “yes” to (“Want to save on scent-free vegan soap by stocking up?”) and the CTA body copy offers the obvious solution to fulfilling that “yes” (“Get one free bar of soap for every 5 you purchase by ordering during our 6-for-5 sale this week.”).

This would end in button copy saying something like, “Get my free soap.” (Leading to a purchase page with a 5-bar order pre-entered, offering the ability to scale up your order to 10 bars, 20-bars, etc., with one click.) Notice how the button mirrors a phrase from the CTA copy? (“Get one free bar of soap…” > “Get my free soap.”)

And the button would have microcopy underneath it (maybe) that says, “Just looking for one bar? Click here.” (Leading to a purchase page with a 1-bar order pre-entered, offering the ability to scale up to 2 bars, 3 bars, etc., with one click on an up arrow.)

What makes a successful CTA

In short, a successful CTA is one that properly considers context. The context of the reader’s journey and the context of the page, section, or email it sits within.

Does your reader know enough, when called to action, to act confidently? Have you done all you need to convince them that the best thing they can do for themselves at this moment is to take the action you’re calling them to take?

It needs to:

• Use the right motivator or message to trigger action
• Line up with the reader’s current level of awareness of your product or service
• Logically flow from the section or paragraph immediately before it
• Logically flow into the button copy that it leads to

One last thought from me on the topic: If you’re writing a page with separate sections designed to target your top 3 known pains or desires, then you’d do well to include a separate CTA for each section.

This means each CTA (and button) can be designed to cater to the specific needs and wants of the person who finds that particular section to be the most important to them. In the soap example I’ve been using, one section could end in “Get my vegan soap,” another in “Get my scent-free soap,” and yet another in “Get 6 bars for the price of 5.”

Got thoughts on these thoughts? Let’s connect! Send me a message here.