The definition of ‘Call to Action’ as defined by Wikipedia is…

“Call to action (CTA) is a marketing term used extensively in advertising and selling. It refers to any device designed to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale. A CTA most often refers to the use of words or phrases that can be incorporated into sales scripts, advertising messages or web pages that encourage consumers to take prompt action”.

Get more business with a ‘Call to Action’

Basically, a CTA is just a way to get people to interact with you and encourage them to look at your products or services. There are lots of different kinds of CTAs – here are a few that you’ll probably have seen loads of times…

“Don’t delay, sign up for our free cookery cards today – no obligation to buy!”

“Discover how I can help you with your tax problems. Subscribe today.”

“Do you want to be successful? Sign up to our monthly newsletter and find out how!”

These phrases are at the end of whatever you’re reading as a final instruction. No matter how you word your CTA, it all boils down to the same thing – you want people to look at your product or service with a view to buy or work with you. You’ll notice that they all have one thing in common, they are giving you something for free, using words like ‘no obligation’ – all you have to do is subscribe to a newsletter, monthly email and you get a free gift or valuable information.

If a free ‘gift’ is being offered, such as the cookery cards, they are giving you something to try in the hope that you’ll be impressed, like them and then buy their product. Similarly, if you sign up to a monthly newsletter, it might be that you get some great information, but at some point there will be an opportunity to try a training course, or buy an e-book. Of course, there is no obligation to do this and you’ll still get the information, but it’s a great marketing ploy to plug your business. And the way the CTA is written doesn’t give you time to think – the ‘do it now’ approach with no obligation means you have nothing to lose – it encourages you to respond straight away.

So, how can you use this for your small business? If you have a Facebook business page, there is a CTA button you can use – on my page, it says ‘Contact us’, but that can be changed to a variety of statements, such as ‘Book with us’, ‘Shop with us’ or ‘Learn more about us’. You can link it to your website or blog. But don’t just use the button – whether you are writing a Facebook post, Twitter post, Instagram etc. or if you are writing an article or blog, it’s good to have a strong CTA that will convince people to take that action. A CTA isn’t just about telling people what to do next, it’s also about giving them the reason or motivation to do it. It can be a short statement or a couple of sentences, but it’s important that it’s concise, to the point and focuses on what’s important…no frills and waffle.

For example, I’m sure you’ve heard of television streaming companies, where you can subscribe to get the latest films, TV shows direct to your device. One of them uses the CTA…”Watch anywhere; Cancel anytime. Free for a month.” This short statement lets you know that you can have their services with no obligation to buy, there’s a trial period and you can cancel it whenever you want to. So why wouldn’t you want to try it? Do you see the idea?

Give it a whirl the next time you write anything and drop me a line to let me know how you get on!