Every advertiser online aims for the most powerful call to action to increase sales and gain subscribers. If you are not focusing on a powerful call to action for your products or services on your website, you are missing out on hundreds, if not thousands of sales. The most successful call to action is just like being approached while shopping, being helped to find what you need and then practically escorting you up to the counter for the purchase. The goal is to be able to figure out how to do this virtually.
A call to action can vary on how and why it is used and is explained in more detail below:
Call to Action: Reaching a News Audience
Most people think the news is all the same. They might read about a car wreck in the newspaper or watch it on TV. The facts are identical. The burden is on media managers to drive those people to their news brand. Just as there are dozens of places to get a hamburger in town, there has to be a reason that customers choose one restaurant over the other. Take a look at your topical promotion. These are the advertising messages that you create each day to get people to buy your newspaper or click the channel to your newscast. Make sure the ads are closing the deal. Too often, news advertising simply says, “There was a big fire today. We have the story.” That's the equivalent of saying, “Our restaurant has hamburgers on the menu.”
You must drive people to your brand in a more compelling way. That means shifting the wording of your message from talking about “we” to talking about “you”, the customer. As in, “You have to see the struggles firefighters had in fighting the flames,” which in restaurant terms is the same as saying, “You must try our burgers because they're the best in town.”
Call to Action: Getting Advertisers to Buy into Your Brand
Your call to action takes a different dimension when trying to sell advertising to potential clients. You can use different techniques than you would for your readers or viewers. A call to action could involve a limited-time offer to get the best ad rates. Set a deadline for a client to sign a contract in order for her to save money.
You can also dangle a multi-platform arrangement as a way to close the deal. If someone buys ad space in your newspaper, you could throw in some online ads for free or at a reduced rate. Make clients feel as though they have to act now or else they'll miss out on an incredible opportunity. You are driving them to act.
Call to Action: Winning the Online Clicks
Nowhere else is a focused call to action more important than on the Internet. Your audience has countless other options, so it's critical that you convince these people why they must choose you for information or entertainment. Start with the meta description for your content. This is the information that appears in search engine results, like when someone types “Cruise ship fire” and sees your news story as well as others. Readers will likely scan your meta description as well as those of your competitors before deciding which link to click. You “win the click” by writing a compelling description, as you would promotional or advertising copy. “There was a cruise ship fire in the Gulf of Mexico” won't win the click as easily as, “Survivors on the cruise ship retell their personal stories as they watched the flames grow more intense.”
The goal of your call to action is to not only to draw in more subscribers or increase sales but to get people clicking around your website for more onsite traffic. This will not only increase the benefits mentioned above but will help your page rank continue to grow.
What are you favorite types of calls to action? Ones with freebies or simpler subscription type ones?
Article Source: About.com Media
Image Source: Dennis Skley on Flickr
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