When creating your website, every element has its role. The design, the copy, the logo, the colors – everything. So, when the time comes to monetize your business, only one element can convert your audience into loyal customers – the Call-to-Action. Better known in the marketing world as a CTA, it usually has a gateway task. Regardless of the type and the channel, every content needs a CTA at the end to forward your audience down the funnel. That’s the CTA’s main job. To push down the funnel and segment your audience based on whether they took the predetermined action or not.

As you can imagine, there are many types of CTA’s, based on the goal of the content and the channel. We discussed them all in detail in this dedicated article. Today, however, we will concentrate only on the biggest CTA – the one that aims to convert your audience into customers. We will show you how to create one truly spectacular CTA, regardless of your product or target audience. Naturally, the creative work will be all up to you, but the blueprint is on us. 

Pick the best position for your CTA

When creating your website, you make more than an online store or an internet business card. You are building a story, a journey you want your customer to finish. The CTA should be the catalyst that pushes the reader to turn the page. To do that effectively, the CTA needs to have many qualities, which we will all discuss in a bit. But before that, we need to know where to put it first. If your website were a book, it would be easy. The CTA will always go at the bottom of the page, so the reader will turn the paper after everything has been read.

Unfortunately, unlike books, marketing content as a whole is not linear. This means that positioning your CTA’s correctly is a bit harder. It depends on your goals. For example, suppose you target only a hot audience you’ve carefully nurtured with your customer’s journey. In that case, you can go ahead and place your CTA right at the top. This way, you can “greet” your visitors with a powerful sales message that aims to capture them emotionally and convince them to purchase the product impulsively.

For example, in our case, our research showed that most people who visit our homepage are primarily interested in our plans and pricing. So, of course, we try to accommodate their needs without wasting their time.

However, the bottom of the page is the best place for a pure conversion or lead generation CTA. After all, that’s where the customer’s journey should get into a new phase. So even if you place a sales CTA at the top, adding another one at the bottom won’t hurt. On the contrary, it will benefit you greatly. 

Make your CTA the logical conclusion

Creating a customer journey is instrumental in converting your readers into customers. After all, you must nurture their interest and convince them that your product or service will solve their pressing problem. Naturally, the customer needs a reminder to step forward after each phase. That’s where the CTA comes into play. The CTA will push the reader to take the next step in their journey. Naturally, it should be a logical conclusion of the phase.

Moreover, it must correspond with the content’s goal. For an extremely obvious example, you can’t place a “learn more” CTA at the bottom of a sales content, as the point is not to redirect them to a new landing page but to convert them into a buyer. By the time they get to the CTA, they should already know everything there is to know about your product or service, and they should’ve already made their decision. The task of your CTA there is to recap the content above and bluntly tell the reader to end their journey. 

Obviously, the CTA must be pretty reliant on the landing page. However, a good CTA can save a mediocre landing page, while a brilliant landing page can never salvage a poor CTA. 

Of course, the CTA is not just a recap of what the landing page has already said. Instead, it reframes it from a different, much more audience-oriented perspective. In other words, the CTA must influence the customer psychologically. 

Build curiosity and anticipation

Surprising or not, one of the primary CTA missions is to fire your customer’s neurological pathways and activate their anterior insula. That part of the brain is responsible for human desires. The best way to do that is by building curiosity and anticipation with your CTA. 

The first step in building curiosity and anticipation with your CTA is to know your audience and their needs. Your entire customer journey should be like a rollercoaster. You need to build up tension with your CTA’s and ads and relieve it with your landing pages, social media posts, and blog posts. Once you’ve reduced the tension, you must build it again so the audience won’t lose interest. This is the CTA’s job. Naturally, the culmination should be right before the purchase. You need to hype your audience so much that they will be willing to pay to relieve the build-up tension. 

Here is one brilliant example by Fantastic Services. 

The CTA cracks the door just enough to show what awaits the audience after they click the button (an entirely new journey, but one that promises a bright future). This implements that this button won’t just give you momentary satisfaction but will continue to deliver joy over a prolonged period of time. They also show what’s at the end of the journey (becoming “Fantastic”) and add a quiet nudge, as if a whisper, that you need to take a leap of fate if you wish good things to happen. 

As you can see, words significantly impact the CTA, so let’s see how to use them properly. 

Use Action Words

What words you must use for your CTA depends entirely on your target audience. You can’t expect a business owner who deals in the millions to have a similar reaction as a low-income user searching for off-brand t-shirts. So, before you write your CTA, you must know for whom you are writing it. 

If you search for advice on the internet, you will find a suggestion to use command verbs and strong words like “buy,” “order,” “book,” etc. Those will work perfectly fine for a typical B2C audience. However, if you target high-end B2B audiences, this type of word will not impress them. Moreover, they might even get offended by the notion that you order them around. Simply put, these command verbs work only on people who are used to getting ordered around. For those, who are used to command, these will be a nuisance. To impress such audiences, you need to think like them. What motivates them, and what makes them act? So for such clients, go for words like “enhance,” “reach,” “enrich,” and “acquire.” 

If we get back to the previous Fantastic Services example, you can easily determine that they are selling a product to some high-end business people, as they do not try to command them. Instead, they ask for a leap of fate, promising a bright future in return.

Now see the contrast between their CTA to their low-end product 

It’s way more direct and imperative. It doesn’t ask. It tells. The CTA even ends with an exclamation point, which aims to raise the imperative tone even higher. The button is also much more direct and lacks the invitation. It implies that you will be processed and will get an answer. It’s much different than “Start your journey,” which implies that the process will start immediately. 

Add Value

These implications are usually extremely important in your CTA, as they give added value to your call-to-action and the offered product. You can be blunt and direct with your product’s benefits on the landing page. In the CTA, however, you need to act on an emotional level, so you must represent not what the benefits are but why they count. 

Check out our CTA, for example. 

With the small print, we show that our benefits are not directly for our clients but for their clients, which gives them an edge over their competition. This works on two levels, as anyone who needs a website knows the importance of a fast, secure, and stable hosting service. As we pride ourselves in our cloud-based services, which provide lightning-fast loading time to our customers while at the same time, there is practically no chance of the website going down and the server getting breached, we can honestly say that our product will bring extremely good value to those who follow our CTA.

Of course, words can be dangerous if you are not careful. Using the wrong words may inadvertently ruin your business. So, when writing your CTA’s copy, you must choose your words precisely.

Choose your words carefully.

Words are a powerful but dangerous weapon in your marketing arsenal. You need to know when and how to use them. Otherwise, you can get burned badly. Business owners who prefer to write their own content often fall into a trap where they want to sound unique, but they fail to recognize the intended meaning behind each word. For example, the two CTA’s “Want more customers?” and “Need more customers?” may seem identical at first glance, but the verb “want” suggests that this is just the reader’s whim, while the word “need” implies that the reader has no choice in the matter. Which one will work better depends on your target audience.

Sometimes there are cultural factors that need to be taken into consideration. For example, “Convert your audience into customers” is a brilliant CTA in the US. Still, in the UK, due to their harsh history of religious conversions, this term will subconsciously repel the audience rather than excite it. 

So, as a general rule of thumb, knowing your audience means you should also know their cultural specifics. 

Enlist FOMO’s help

The fear of missing out (or FOMO for short) is a great ally when creating a winning CTA. It’s a highly potent motivator for the audience to take the next step, as it not only raises the tension but also gives a time frame to relieve it. However, creating FOMO is not as easy as some might think. Udemy, are a perfect example of how you shouldn’t go for a FOMO. Their courses are significantly lowered every other week. This disrupts the FOMO altogether as people know they can have the same course at the same price next week.

Adobe, on the other hand, gives such promotions only once a year, and the chance of missing out is real.

A great way to create FOMO is by implying the scarcity of the product. For example, many retailers put a promotion “until sold out.” This implies that the product will simply deplete, and if you miss it out, you won’t be able to find it even at an enhanced price. 

Another good way to introduce FOMO is by showing how many product items are left. You can even go a step further and add some colors based on the product’s availability. For example, if there are fewer than ten products in stock, you can paint them red, so people will know they need to act fast. 

Creating a viable strategy with FOMO’s help depends on the characteristics of your product. For example, Adobe can’t claim that a product’s availability is depleting as they offer software. So, before you consider implementing FOMO into your CTA, consider the best way to do it so it will look genuine and alluring. 

Spice it up a bit

Following all tips above will help you create one truly astonishing CTA, but unfortunately, that’s far from enough if you want it to be successful. Almost all retailers and businesses use these techniques, so to stand out in front of the pack, you need to spice your CTA a bit. You need to use your imagination and make your CTA not only direct and lucrative but also unique and enticing. This is especially important if you are not a renowned brand. Those can afford to use simple and direct CTAs. An excellent example of such is Netflix, which has absolutely nothing imaginative in its CTA. Yet they have one vastly recognizable brand that speaks for itself.

On the other hand, if you are a lesser-known brand, you need to get some inspiration from your audience. Make your CTA as if you are talking to your customers directly. For example, instead of simply asking if they are ready to join, ask them if they are ready to enjoy the benefits of your product – “Are you ready to get younger, to giggle, etc.? Moreover, try to use uncommon words in your CTA, as they capture attention. Check out Panthera.org and their subscription CTA. It’s done perfectly: 

Moreover, notice their outstanding CTA design. Yes, unsurprisingly, the CTA design also plays a massive role in the CTA’s success.

Do NOT underestimate the design

The design of your CTA is just as crucial as its positioning and copy. You need to follow your branding colors and fonts closely and make sure to separate the CTA visually from the rest of the content. Make sure your button looks “Clickable.” Adding some depth to the image will bring you a long way. This also works on a psychological level, as people are prone to push buttons, especially brightly colored ones. So, naturally, ensure your button stands out but does not look tacky or out of place. 

Yes, CTA design is not easy, and it takes a lot of experience and time to master. Most importantly, however, make your CTA just as stunning on mobile as it is on PC or any other device. 

There is no clear formula for the perfect CTA design. Still, to make it effective, you need to create a CTA that stands out from other elements and entices people to click. Adding an image or a visual component to the CTA can be a two-edged sword, as it entirely depends on your website’s overall design. Furthermore, CTA design is a vast topic that greatly changes due to the constant deviations in the user’s behavior. Thus, testing is the best way to find a good look for your CTA.

Test your CTA

Testing your CTA is probably the easiest task on this list. All it takes is some extra time and funds, but it’s relatively easy in the grand scheme. To test your CTA, we suggest using the A/B testing method in which you change only one element and see how the changed CTA compares to the original. The primary metric you should follow is the conversion rate, of course, as that’s the CTA’s main task. 

So, your first task is choosing an element you think you can improve. Whether it’s the copy, colors, design, icons, borders, font, button size, or CTA positions, it doesn’t matter. First, make the changes and let them run for a specific timeframe (for example, 4 weeks). After that, compare the results with the original, keep the better one, and move to the next element or the next version. 

For example, if with your original CTA, you received 70 clicks from 100 views, and from the test version, you received 500 clicks from 1000 views, the conversion rate of the former is 70%, while on the latter, only 50%. So naturally, you’d want to keep the original version. 

Going through all elements and changing everything is time-consuming. Still, if you want to improve your CTA quality, testing is the only way to prove it and find a better solution. 

Conclusion

Creating the perfect CTA is definitely not an easy task. You need a lot of knowledge and understanding of customer behavior, copywriting, and design. That’s why the best CTA’s are usually done by teams, not by a person. 

Still, if you are new on the market and just started your first website, you still need to place a CTA on your page, even if you can’t hire a professional team. Following our blueprint, you can still get ahead of your competitors, who disregard these best practices. This way, you will get the much-needed initial boost every new business needs when starting its online journey.