Crafting irresistible calls-to-action that drive conversions
On today's episode of Process to Profitability, I am thrilled to kick off our new mini-series focused on lead generation strategies. As business owners, we all know how crucial it is to generate leads in order to grow and thrive. In this series, we will dive deep into crafting irresistible calls to action and leveraging our websites to drive conversions and attract potential clients. Join me as we explore the psychology behind effective CTAs, the importance of clear and action-oriented language, and practical tips for designing eye-catching buttons. Get ready to take your lead generation game to the next level and see increased conversion rates on your website. Let's get started!
Timestamps:
[00:00:57] Start by setting the goal for your website
[00:01:51] The role of calls-to-action in lead generation
[00:03:12] The psychology of an effective call-to-action
[00:05:46] How to get website visitors to click on your CTA
[00:09:08] Testing the effectiveness of your CTA
Key Takeaways:
Crafting irresistible calls to action for conversions
The role of CTAs in increasing conversion rates
Using clear, action-oriented language in CTAs
Understanding the psychology behind effective CTAs
Design tips to make CTAs appealing and eye-catching
Strategic placement of CTAs on websites
Making CTAs stand out and easy to read
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: On today's episode, I am going to introduce our next mini series of the podcast where we are talking all about lead generation. And I know this is a topic that so many of us want to cover in business because that's how we build our business and grow. We generate leads and then we convert them into clients. And so this mini series is all about lead generation strategies from my guests, and then how you can use your website to also help you bring in leads and then convert them into potential clients.
[00:00:38] I want to start off today by talking about how you can craft irresistible calls to action that drive conversions. So we are talking about CTAs on your website that lead to conversions, get people on your client calendar after they have learned about your service, and they are excited to work with you.
Start by setting the goal for your website
[00:00:57] Samantha Mabe: So this is something that I think a lot about with my clients when we start working together. One of the first questions I ask them is, what is the number one goal of your website? What do you want somebody who is a right fit for working with you to do after they land on your website? Do you want them to sign up for a consultation call? Do you want them to apply to work with you? Would you rather them just get onto your email list so that you can nurture them in a way that gets into their inbox and is more personal and takes a longer time?
[00:01:33] So when we think about that, the part of what we're doing is creating an irresistible call to action because it makes sense for your business. And then we tailor the language and the design and the layout to get people to click on those call to actions.
The role of calls-to-action in lead generation
[00:01:51] Samantha Mabe: Let's talk first about the role of a CTA in lead generation. A CTA is a call to action, and what that means is we are calling the people who are right fit leads to take an action to get closer to that end goal for our business.
[00:02:12] And generally this looks like a button. It might be a buy now button so that they check out. It might be an email signup, it might be an application. It might even look like on Instagram they're commenting or sending you a DM with a specific word so that you can then send them a resource or answer a question for them. That's become super popular. And what we're trying to do is get them to take an action so that we then have permission to follow up with them in whatever way they have requested.
[00:02:47] And the reason that calls to action CTAs are so important is because they lead to increased conversion rates on your website. When we have a call to action that is really strong, that resonates with our right fit leads, we are going to have more people click on it and then move down the funnel towards our end goal.
The psychology of an effective call-to-action
[00:03:12] Samantha Mabe: All right, so let's talk about the psychology of an effective call to action. First, we want to focus on the motivation of the leads that are coming to our website, and we also want to use really clear action oriented language.
[00:03:30] So when I give people my website content workbook, I give them examples of call to action. We want them to start with a verb. We want it to be three to five words long. We want it to really reflect what it is that are leads want. So instead of just saying something like, 'Click here' or even 'learn more', I would rather say, 'I'm ready' or 'I need this', or something. We are helping them to see very clearly that it resonates as far as the language, and it's very clear what's going to happen next.
[00:04:15] So I said we need to start with a verb. Sometimes if we want to use first person language, we start with I instead. So 'I need this', but it could be 'apply now' is even a pretty effective call to action because it's super clear.
[00:04:31] It's very important to remember that we want our calls to action to reflect the client language, but we also want them to be very clear. So if you have a chiropractic business and you want people to book a consultation, you could say something like, 'book your free consultation'. That's gonna be very clear. It's going to be action oriented.
[00:04:54] Whereas if you have something like my business where I have website design, people apply to work with me before we jump on a call to talk about their business. I say something like, 'apply now', or 'Let's do this', or 'I'm ready to transform my website' because the language that my clients are using is a little bit different. They are more casual, more fun, because that is just the type of people I'm targeting and because in my business, I want to make it very clear my personality and what they're going to be getting when they work with me.
[00:05:29] Where if somebody is coming to you because they are in pain and they want a chiropractic appointment, they just want things to be straightforward. It doesn't mean that you're not fun and friendly and open, welcoming. We just want to use language that's going to resonate with the people that we want to work with.
How to get website visitors to click on your CTA
[00:05:46] Samantha Mabe: All right, so then how do we figure out how to actually get people to click on these calls to actions. We've talked a little bit about the language. I always recommend that calls to action be three to five words long. We want to include a compelling verb. We want to make them stand out if it makes sense for the language to do more than just 'learn more' or ' schedule'. Now we want to make it a little bit more fun than that if it makes sense for our audience.
[00:06:17] And then we also want to make our calls to action appealing and eye catching. So how do we do that? The first thing I tell people is the easiest call to action design that you can create is a button, and when I say it's going to be a button, I want it to actually function as a button. So they hover over it, it's going to change colors. They click on it, it's going to then load up the next page or a pop-up, or whatever it is that you website works through. We also want to make them large enough that it's very easy for people to click on with a mouse or with their finger on a mobile device.
[00:06:59] We want to put it in strategic places. So I tell people you should always have a call to action at the top, above your fold section of your website. That's the top section before anybody has to scroll. You want a call to action at the bottom of your website, right below your right, above your footer, and then you want to have a call to action every two to three scrolls on longer pages.
[00:07:22] That means if you've got a really long sales page, you're gonna have multiple call to action buttons throughout that page. If you've got a shorter page, then you might only have one at the top, one at the bottom, and one in the middle. So you just have to look at the length of your page to determine where should I put these calls to action. The goal is that we don't want anybody falling off because they have to scroll back up or all the way down in order to click on that button.
[00:07:51] And then we want to make it stand out. So I really like to add calls to action on, um, image backgrounds so that it's a whole section that looks really appealing and stands out from the rest of the content, especially on sales pages.
[00:08:09] And we also want to make sure it's super easy to read. So when I get to the bottom call to action on most websites, what I will do is it will have an image or a colored background. It will have the button call to action, and then above that it's gonna have a headline and a subheading to talk more about that transformation my clients are looking for and what the next step is going to be. And then depending on how that looks, I might put a solid color block behind it just so that it's super easy to read and it stands out. And that's a pretty standard design of a call to action because it's more important that people be able to read it. Then it has this beautiful image that you see every element of. We really lose people if they can't read or click on a call to action button. And so we have to look at the function of that before we consider the aesthetics.
Testing the effectiveness of your CTA
[00:09:08] Samantha Mabe: And then what we want to do is test and make sure things are working. So the first way that we're gonna test it is once that page of your website is live, go to it on a separate window or a separate device and click on it and make sure that it actually works. So do that initial test to make sure that it's working correctly.
[00:09:26] And then we want to do some AB testing. Depending on your platform, you might be able to do this built in, or you might have to do this manually. But what we want to do is make smart decisions about what we're, the language that we're using and the design that we have created.
[00:09:44] And so if you do not have a website platform that allows you to do AB testing all the time, what I want you to do is set up your initial design, leave it for 30 to 60 days. Take a look at the data, how many people are coming to that page, how many people are clicking on that call to action. And then you can change it up, maybe change the language, maybe change the color, maybe change the placement, and then give it another 30 to 60 days and see if the percentage of people who clicked on it after coming to that page has increased or decreased from the previous test.
[00:10:26] I don't want you to change everything about your call to action at once because then you're not gonna know what it was that made that statistical significance. What you want to do is change one to two things. So just change the language or just change the color. And then as you test it, you can see, okay, well this color performs better than that color. Now I know color number. Color A performs better. Now I'm gonna try to tweak the language. Okay, well, Message B performs better. So let me combine those two and see how we can gradually improve our call to actions effectiveness.
[00:11:10] Another thing that really can improve your conversions is where you place your calls to action and making sure you have enough. And so that's another thing you can play around with is, okay, what if I put it in this section? What does that look like if I put it in this next section instead? What does that look like? And so we just want to take some time to test and see what's going to work best.
[00:11:32] Even as a website designer, I can't assume that my first design is what is going to be the absolute best because every business is different. Everybody's ideal clients are different. Everybody's user experience is going to be different, and so what we're trying to do is build a really solid foundation through our website design, and then use data and metrics to tell us what small changes we can make to then see improvements in our conversion rate from website visitor to clicking on that call to action.
[00:12:10] So what we really wanna think about when we think about creating effective calls to action is making sure that we are using actionable language that reflects our clients and what they are looking for. Making sure that the design stands out, and then testing and tweaking as needed so that we can see those conversions build through our websites.
[00:12:36] This is a part of what I do in my Website VIP Day, is I really strategize where to put call to action buttons. Even if I've got an outline from somebody's copy, I will still move those specific sections around on websites, depending on the design, and I always explain that when I'm doing a reveal, but as we actually get in there and we see things, then we can make sure that everything makes sense and looks really clean and clear, and it's easy for us to then optimize our websites with persuasive CTAs.
