Call to Action

What is a visitor on your site supposed to do? Often we tend to try to cop-out on this one by thinking, "Isn't it OBVIOUS?!" Quite frankly, no, it's NOT obvious. Here's a good example of what a lack of a call to action will get you: http://www.brillpublications.com/

Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do? I bet the person who approved that design thought the entire experience was "obvious". For those of you in sales, have you EVER gotten the sale without ASKING for the sale? You must ask for the sale, you must present a call to action. Many of the most successful marketing calls to action have a deadline, a little something to get you going:

• Call now for this limited time offer!
• Sign up now while supplies last!
• Sign up in the next 2 minutes, and receive this FREE bonus gift!
  

If you don't ask your visitors to click on something, they're probably not going to click on it. Why should they? You can give the greatest sales pitch ever, but if you don't tell your prospective customers how to take advantage of your offer, how can you expect to sell anything?

I'm sure I sound like I'm harping on this a bit, and I am. I am amazed how many website owners try to be overly polite and use a passive voice to try to sell. A passive voice is an indirect statement, it implies a call to action, but it does not explicitly ask for a call to action. Here's an example on one of my client's website that will be going away soon:

• Not a member yet? Fix that here.

This is a small notation pushed off to the side of the page, and buried underneath other material that isn't at all compelling. It's not just that the language is indirect, but the fact that it's almost hidden makes it seem like it's apologetic for asking the visitor to become a customer. The rate at which visitors becomes customers (conversion rate) on that particular site is less than 1%. Is this really the kind of result we want?

Another issue I come into is the desire to not be pushy or rude, the desire to be polite. That is absolutely understandable, and I definitely don't want to work with a rude or pushy salesman. The "remedy", is to usually be OVERLY polite when presenting the call to action. This is a matter of perspective and context. If you use a certain tone of voice when talking to someone, and you suddenly change that tone when asking for a sale, what does that say to your prospect? For example, "Click here to join" becomes something like "Please click here if you'd like to join". Something DEFINITELY changed, and now as a prospective customer, I pause, because now I'm suspicious. Something's not right here. A second ago you were using a "normal" conversational tone, and now you're suddenly being polite and cautious, why? If nothing else, you've broken the energy flow you've built up to that point, and now it's all gone, and you'll probably lose the sale because of it.

Using a simple and direct call to action is not taken by most visitors as rude or pushy, it's simply stating the next step the visitor should take, that's it.

Remember to use the call to action. Don't be rude and pushy, but don't apologize for it either. Just ask for the action you want, perfectly OK, and it's expected.


Cheers,
Chris