Secret Hidden-in-Plain-Site Inbound Marketing Tip: Call-to-Action

Secret Hidden-in-Plain-Site Inbound Marketing Tip: Call-to-Action, written by Jaco Grobbelaar of BroadVision Marketing

If the main idea of inbound marketing is to get your potential customers to become clients, how do you know you have succeeded? You have people hopping on and off your website or your Facebook page and Twitter all day, but that doesn’t mean success. You can look at all the fancy analytics your heart desires, but that doesn’t mean success either.  You know you have succeeded when your potential customers become paying clients. You know that you can get them to do that using outbound marketing methods where you chase them down and yell at them between segments of their favorite shows.

But the whole idea behind inbound marketing is that people don’t want to be shouted at. So you speak softly, offering entertainment, information, hot chocolate (wait, that’s your mother offering hot chocolate). You give them big pretty pictures on your blog, infographics, Pinteresting pictures and you act all friendly on Facebook and Twitter. You are all sweetness and light. But that doesn’t assure success either.

What is wrong with this picture? It is all as one-sided as the old-fashioned outbound yell-a-thons.  You have to invite your guests to join in the conversation or all you have is a monologue. How do you get a person’s participation? Simple, you ask them to do something, which could be as simple as answering a question. There are places all over your website, your blog, your Facebook page and Twitter that are available for you to invite them to come in, sit down and visit for awhile. The name of these spots is Call-to Action or CTA. Without having CTAs you have as much chance to reach your potential clients as you have of hearing them cuss you out for blaring an ad at them in the middle of a tender scene. Unless you intend to make them jump off your inbound sites, you don’t want to treat your guests like that.

By using CTAs you can gently draw them from being outsiders to considering themselves at home. In the article Inbound Marketing Basics: A Crash Course in Generating Leads Online dated July 2013, the writer says:

Calls to Action: Your Keys to the Castle

If you really want to take your inbound marketing initiatives to the next level, you’ve got to encourage your site users to take an action - this turns them from an impression into a lead. In most cases, that action should be targeted toward getting more information from your site users. This is generally accomplished via some kind of offer.

That means creating targeted calls to action (ie. “download this free e-book” or “enter our contest”) and building specific landing pages and forms to support these. This is where users will submit their information, ultimately building a list of contacts tailored to taking the most advantage of all your future interactions.

You can use this list for focused email campaigns, lead-scoring, marketing automation and analytics reporting. In this way, inbound marketing becomes cyclical - making it that much easier to create the kind of targeted content that will ultimately generate more leads and help you close the sale for leads further down the funnel.

That’s really a bunch of general information, but there is nothing general about a good CTA.  The language you use in the CTA is the most important part of a call to action.  A good article and cheat sheet for how to use your words can be found in Stephen Kupusta’s July 2013 article Call-to-Action Cheat Sheet for Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy. Don’t let the title confuse you. These words are good for an onsite inbound marketing CTA as well as an ad. The words that Stephen suggests are pure gold. Just a sample include such hooks are “qualify, improve, learn, catch, receive, activate.” Stephen shows how to use them in effective CTAs:

Combine call-to-action words with targeted keywords:

• Buy Camping Gear On Sale Today!
• Download Accounting Software Now.
• Triple Business ROI w/ these Tips.

*keyword underlined

Combine call-to-action words with promotion or offer:

• Save 25% When You Buy Today!
• Plan Dream Vacaction Cheap & Easy.
• Redeem Coupon & Save $50 Now!

*promo underlined

Combine call-to-action words with urgency:

• Subscribe Now! Offer Ending Soon.
• Sign Up Before It’s Too Late!
• Only 3 Days Left. Register Now!

*urgency underlined

Where are they hiding?

Where do you want these hooks to show up? I can think of several places where I have seen CTAs. Most of us are familiar with the upper right hand corner and the little CTA question at the end of an article. But when you look around a really great website, you will find the sneaky little things all over the place. CTAs also include links that a person might want to check out along with what they are reading. Oh yes, they are and the best links are back to a landing page while the second best are to particular pages on your website. Sharing buttons are CTAs and can be above and below an article. Did you know you could put sharing buttons on your Facebook page? You also want to place CTAs in your email marketing at least 3 different times.

What was that question again?

Ah yes, back to our lead-in question: If the main idea of inbound marketing is to get your potential customers to become clients, how do you know you have succeeded? And the answer is that you watch their progress as they become your friends. You can follow potential clients as they sign up for a free report or to subscribe to your blog. Next, you will see how they respond to the email campaign letter you sent them. One afternoon we had over 75 people open up a blog article following an email that didn’t go out until 4 p.m. on a Wednesday. Finally, you will find them knocking on your literal or virtual front door ready to do business with you, their friend. No yelling required.

How many CTAs did you find on this page?

For more information on how to grow your business with inbound marketing, watch this short 2-minute video "Why Inbound Marketing" and don't hesitate to ask us your questions.