Have you ever commented on a post, shared an article or subscribed to an email list? Of course you have! Most of the time you did it because someone asked you to. Their message was convincing enough to get you to take action. This is a call to action at its best.
A call to action (CTA) tells the reader exactly what action to take. It prompts an immediate response. It can be as simple as asking your reader to “Click Here” and as final as asking them to “Buy”.
Your call to action needs to be clear and concise. It needs to urge the reader to act. An effective call to action can guide a user from being a spectator to a buyer. It will draw their attention, pique their interest and get them to take action.
This week we ask Mogorosi Mashilo from TrendER to provide insight into what a call to action means to the consumer. And, to also give us advice on how to get our audience to take action.
Mogorosi, Tell us a bit about TrendER
When I started TrendER in 2014 I was a strategist at a large multi-national agency. I became increasingly frustrated with the way poorly executed communications were being developed due to a lack of market insights and understanding.
TrendER was therefore founded on the need to understand the “why” before determining the “how”. We believe in the power of truth, understanding and insight to produce insight driven ideas that will help solve some of the world’s business and social challenges.
How is a Call To Action viewed by the consumer?
A call to action can be viewed as answering the “so what?” question for the consumer. This is what we should keep in mind when considering what the consumer will take out of the communication message or sales pitch.
When a consumer asks “so what?”, your message should be able to address this. It should make the consumer take some sort of action after they have heard or seen your message.
What Call To Action do you think is most effective?
It is difficult to put different calls to action head to head. A CTA’s effectiveness depends on the mediums where your consumers are on as well as the objective of each particular medium.
We first need to focus on the consumer and understand their different behaviours on each of the mediums, whether it is online or mass media. Understanding this will give us a direction on which medium is best suited for our CTA.
What do you see that doesn’t work?
What I think doesn’t work is mostly about understanding your consumer and their needs. There is brilliant communication out there from marketers and advertising agencies in which lots of investment has been put to develop the communication.
However, if the communication does not reach the right audience then all of that effort is waisted. This is why consumer insights and knowing who your consumer is becomes of the outmost importance.
What advice would you give to content producers?
A CTA is always important to include in all of your communications in some way or another. The whole reason of a CTA is get some sort of reaction from your target audience. This also helps you to measure the effectiveness of your content.
I think content producers need a constant channel of feedback on the content they are producing. A CTA is one of the ways to get that feedback.
It’s A Wrapp!
As you look forward and start compiling your digital marketing strategy for the new year, we hope to have given you a lot to think about.
What’s your favourite CTA? Leave us a comment below.
Mr Mogorosi man of ideas, he’s always motivating he’s a good customer “Friend” of mine. I don’t know much about Marketing, but I know for a Fact that Trender is a answer to that..
Thank you Sthembiso. He’s a man of ideas indeed!