Converting visitors into leads is exactly what businesses want. But it’s no walk in the park. One proven way to drive sign-ups is by creating calls to action or CTA. There are many effective calls to action examples that can boost conversion rates.
Examples of Call to Action
There are various call to action examples to choose from at different stages of the marketing funnel. For example, in the early stages a simple call to action that encourages prospects to try your solutions can be highly effective to connect with them. Here, something as simple as Free trial for 30 days can be useful.
Let’s now take a look at some more call to action examples.
1. Subscribe
This call to action is effective in the early stages of the customer journey when businesses want to nurture new leads. The prospect is not encouraged to make any purchases yet. Instead, this CTA provides an opportunity for the business to share useful updates.
2. Join Us
If you have an online community that you’d like to promote, the Join Us call-to-action can be useful. This call-to-action is also effective when you’re trying to promote an event such as a webinar.
3. Start Free Trial
Often, a free trial is the biggest incentive for prospects to try a product or service. This call-to-action works well especially when your product is pricey and your prospects need to try it out before investing.
4. Read More
One way to draw attention to longer gated content is by sharing a snippet that can tempt prospects to learn more. This is where the Read more CTA button can come in handy. Here, the effectiveness of the CTA depends on the call to action copy. Unless you have a powerful text, you will not be able to entice your audience to read more.
5. Buy Now
Buy Now is one of the most common call-to-actions in ecommerce. From a customer journey perspective, it’s best introduced towards the end of the process
6. Download
The download CTA is effective for lead generation. Whether it’s an ebook, a whitepaper or a case study, the download CTA button can help businesses convert prospects into leads. The downloadable content needs to add value to inspire your prospects to take action.
7. Schedule a Call
This is a typical sales CTA that encourages prospects to get in touch with experts to know more. This can be useful for businesses that offer specialized services. For example, businesses that provide IT support or travel booking can add this option to provide a more personalized experience to the users.
8. Register Now
Planning a webinar or podcast? The Register Now CTA button is both useful and important. With this CTA, businesses can encourage users to sign up for special events. This CTA works well across formats (email, landing page, and ad).
9. Follow Us
For many small businesses, growing a social media following is beneficial in many ways. It can help them with word of mouth marketing and create an effective channel for promotion. This CTA is meant to help businesses grow their follower base on social media. To be able to achieve success with this, it’s important to incentivize the users. Some of these may include latest updates, discounts and exclusive offers on social media channels.
10. Watch now
This CTA works for videos. Here, the emphasis is on letting the prospects know they can find useful information by watching a clip or video.
Real Life CTA Examples
Many small and well-known brands use CTA buttons effectively to drive customer action. Here are some call to action examples to inspire you.
11. ShakaHarry (Shop Now)
The CTA in this Facebook ad is simple and effective. It encourages the audience to start shopping after giving them enough reasons to click the button. The benefits are clearly mentioned and the copy is interesting enough to entice the prospect to explore more. Also, note the attention to visuals that convey the key messages.
12. Spotify (Start free trial)
On Spotify.com, the same CTA (Start free trial) is placed strategically in two places. This is interesting because the Spotify CTA is asking prospects to try the free version before making a purchase. Many Shopify customers are small businesses that will appreciate a trial version before paying. Realizing this, Shopify encourages them to opt for a free trial before buying a plan.
13. HubSpot Blog (Download Now)
HubSpot Blog’s uniqueness is its content. It has several articles, ebooks, guides and courses. with its CTA HubSpot has focused on generating leads. The gated content is relevant for prospects reading the article. This way, the site keeps the visitors engaged. Once they are on it, visitors will be redirected to related content that they might find useful. This is a great way of showcasing content and keeping the audience on the site.
14. Steve Olsher (Strictly limited)
In this email, podcast expert Steve Olsher creates a sense of urgency for his target audience. The action phrases “strictly limited” and “end immediately” stand out because they tell the audience they will miss out if they don’t act now. This is call to action example shows how businesses can entice audience to act quickly
15. Netflix (Get started)
Netflix gets straight to the point with its CTA. The Netflix CTA clearly mentions two values that its audience will find important: the option to watch shows anywhere and the freedom to cancel any time. The focus here is on simplicity. For busy customers, this simple CTA saves them time and gives them more reasons to take the desired action.
16. SelfGrowth (Register for webinar)
When it comes to webinars, it is important to keep straightforward CTAs. In this example, SelfGrowth has highlighted the free webinar part quite effectively. The placement of the CTA is also interesting because it requires little scrolling to be able to reach the landing page.
17. Vimeo (See plan, Join for free)
Vimeo has two CTAs on its website: See plans and Join for free. What’s really interesting about both CTAs is how they highlight the free bit in an effective way. When the user clicks on the See plans option, they are shown all the free trials that are available to them. The objective is quite simple: show all the free plans to the target audience in all landing pages to attract their attention and prompt the desired action.
18. Aquaspresso (Send me specials now)
Coffee-company Aquaspresso uses creative CTA copy in its pop-up. It’s also clever in the way it brings the whole experience of ordering real coffee by highlighting today’s specials. The idea here is to make the audience feel like they will miss out on the specials if they don’t act now. They have also not gone with the usual “Try our products” call-to0-action. This makes it difficult for the audience to ignore the popup.
What is a Call to Action?
A call to action, in simple terms, is a straightforward text inviting the audience to take a certain action. It can take different forms depending on where the audience is in the buyer’s journey or the type of content you want to drive. Some of the most common calls to action include Read more, Subscribe, Sign up for free and Buy now.
There are two types of CTAs: primary and secondary. The primary CTAs encourage the prospect to take the desired action while the secondary CTAs offer an alternative action. And the goal is to find ways for how to get more conversions.
Why You Should Use a Call to Action
Without a compelling call to action it is difficult to turn prospects into buying customers. It’s also difficult to keep them engaged throughout the buying journey. That’s why including a primary call to action is crucial for marketers.
- Increase conversions: Research shows CTA buttons are read by 90% of ecommerce prospects. For website visitors, a simple CTA is way more intuitive and effective. When they have a clear action to take, they will be more interested in staying engaged.
- Lower bounce rates: CTAs on landing pages can keep the audience engaged and play a key role in reducing bounce rates. With creativity and clear customer journey mapping, businesses can direct users to the right content to not only reduce bounce rates but also ensure they keep coming back for more.
- Measurable metric: A key reason that makes CTAs useful in digital marketing is the ability to measure their impact. Marketers can easily measure and optimize their marketing campaigns based on the results.
- Expand social media following: With good call to actions you can direct prospects to follow you on social media. This is useful to build a following and encourage positive word of mouth.
- Enhance user experience: From a user perspective, a good CTA is useful because it prompts them to take the desired action. Without it, they may leave the site and end up somewhere else.
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