What do you want your readers or your customers to do?  Are you making sure they know what you want?  A “Call to Action” could be the missing link between the message you’re attempting to deliver and the reader adequately receiving and acting upon your message.

A call to action simply employs your readers to do exactly what you’d like them to do. If you are not including a call to action, you could be missing out on opportunities and hard-earned cash.  With a well-constructed CTA, you’ll have readers in the palm of your hand.

You’ll want your CTA to be deliberate and concise. The following tips will help you to create your own unique and intriguing CTAs that will result in new customers, newsletter subscriptions, and potentially even brand ambassadors for your business.

Don’t Just Sell, Sell, Sell

You are in business to make money, but you need to do that by helping people.  Providing a service they want or need and making the experience better than what anyone else offers.  You need to connect with customers and build trust with them.  Only when they like, know and trust you will they buy from you.

What are you giving them?  How are you making their life better?  Is your free content so good they keep coming back for more and want to do business with you?  Once you have that type of relationship, then you can begin to occasionally sell.  Your only communication with them should not be to sell, sell, sell.

Make It a Personable Experience

Talk to your customer. Your writing should speak directly to the reader as if they are a personal friend.  Imagine what he is thinking and feeling.  What are his pain points?

Use storytelling to connect with your customer.  Describe the positive feelings they will have when using a product or doing whatever you are asking them to take action on.   You cant to create an engaging and compelling reason for them to buy, do, etc.

Provide Clear Instructions

Most people on the Internet are busy scrolling through their social network feeds, checking their email, surfing websites, or checking sports scores.  Usually, people will attempt to multitask and complete all of these items at the same time. It is highly unlikely they will spend much time trying to figure anything out or reading detailed instructions.    So be clear and concise.  Provide simple step by step instructions that the reader can quickly follow to increase conversion rates.

Be Bold and Grab Attention

You want your CTA’s stand out from the rest of your content.  You want to make sure there is no chance that it will be missed by readers that are simply skimming the content.

Try increasing the text size or color of the font.  You can use a different font or add a button that displays your call to action.  It needs to stand out so it doesn’t get eaten up by all the other words on the page.

KISS

Keep it short and simple!  Develop just enough of a story to spark interest, then get straight to the point with your request.  By simply saying “click here to buy” instead of “check out all the benefits”, you are enabling your readers to know what to expect when they do click your link. This gives even more power to your landing page to do the selling for you.

Each call to action you create should only be one or two lines– this will remove any potential room for fluff or desperation.

When creating your “Call to Actions” try putting yourself in the shoes of your customers. Imagine living a day in their life before you begin crafting your CTA. This will help you identify and include specific attributes that will interest your readers and ultimately make them want to click that buy button.