CTA stands for Call To Action. Marketers use CTA’s to tell the user what action they need to take. CTA’s are used in many different forms of marketing from print materials, social media, landing pages, websites, email, video, and more. They are dependent on what the brand is asking of its customers or clients.
Let's dive into why CTA’s are so important and how you can use them in your marketing.
Having a clear call-to-action directs users to what you want them to do. For example, if you’re sending out a promotional email for a clothing sale you’re having, your CTA could be “Shop Now” in the form of a button. Users may have a harder time deciding the next steps if your email is just a blurb about the sale and a few images. With no clear and direct CTA, you cannot drive traffic to your website or the landing page you want users to go to. Essentially, you are limiting the effectiveness of your marketing without it.
Clarity is key when it comes to a good CTA. Keep things concise with a single direction of what you want users to do. If you’re using too many, users can get confused or overwhelmed and will ignore what they’re being shown. CTA’s majorly impact businesses in ways you might not have thought of in the past. Even on an educational social media post, a CTA at the end with a link to “Learn More” can drive traffic to your website and bring in new site users. Those new users can ultimately become prospects and customers. When you consistently use a CTA on all types of marketing material (paid and organic), you’ll be able to bring in more site traffic and with proper links and optimization, track where that traffic is coming from.
It’s always a best practice to A/B test different CTA’s and see which ones people respond to the best. Test and track performance to find your top converters. However, it’s important to remember that even if you find a top performer for one tactic, that CTA may not work on all other tactics. You’ll need to test your CTA’s across each tactic you use in your marketing.
Additionally, it’s also important to remember that at different points in the marketing funnel, different CTAs work better based on where the user is on their path to purchase. If a user is towards the end of their journey, you’ll want to choose different CTA’s than the ones you’d choose for a user at the beginning of their journey.
There are thousands of options when it comes to choosing a CTA. You can always go with the general “Learn More” or “Visit Our Website.” But, you can also get creative with it depending on your brand and what you’re offering. When new users visit the Netflix website, they see a “Join Free For A Month” CTA. This lets users know they can watch Netflix free for one month with no commitment and is unique to Netflix. Another example is Lyft, the rideshare app. On their homepage, you see the title “Let's Ride” with two calls to action: “Apply to Drive” (for drivers) and “Sign Up To Ride” (for riders.) It’s important to customize your CTA based on your brand and what you’re offering.
When deciding on a CTA, be sure to identify your audience ahead of time. Every brand has a target audience. Tune in to that audience and think about what would resonate with them best. Different CTAs can be used for different demographics so be sure that your CTA is fitting to whomever you’re trying to reach.
We hope this blog helped you better understand what a CTA is and how to use them. If your brand needs some marketing help, reach out to the Brand3 team!
