Are your Calls to Action working?
When helping financial advice businesses review their marketing approaches, one of the foremost digital assets that gets a lot of attention is of course the company’s website. While there are many aspects to reviewing a site – the design, ease of travel through the site, quality of content and search performance being among the main areas, the subject of Calls to Action (CTA) usually is an important discussion too.
CTAs are a critical element of a website. After all, that’s what you want – the visitor not to leave, but to act. Here are a few thoughts to consider, when trying to encourage visitors to your site to move to the next stage through your sales funnel.
Remember AIDA
When it comes to the journey a person will go on before eventually becoming a buyer of a good or service, AIDA is an often-used acronym. It stands for
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
People will land on your website at different stages of the buyer cycle. Some will stumble across your website and are at the Awareness Stage. Others may be further along – for example they may be ready to do business with you and are at the Action stage. Others again may be at the interim stages of Interest or Desire.
The key for you is that there is a relevant CTA, no matter what stage of the buyer cycle the visitor to your website is at. Think through the various CTA options available to you and seek to provide a relevant action for all visitors. These might include,
- Subscribe to a newsletter
- Download a whitepaper
- Submit an enquiry
- Book a meeting
- Speak to someone via phone or chat functionality
Make sure your CTAs are seen
This is probably the greatest source of frustration. An adviser goes to the trouble of developing a really engaging set of CTAs and has the resources to fully activate them…. But nobody engages with them because they can’t find them. Don’t hide your CTAs away in the footer of your website, look to have them as visible as possible and across all / most pages. They need to be front and centre for that split second when someone decides to act. If not, the visitor will just move on…
Don’t be too greedy
Of course you want to gather as much information as possible about the visitor as soon as possible. I get that. But don’t be too greedy… If your form has too many questions, people will simply not give it the time. Instead at this stage, make it really welcoming and easy for someone by seeking the minimum of information. So for example, if you are looking for someone to sign up for your newsletter, all you need from them is their email address and maybe their name. Moving beyond this will probably reduce your sign-up rates. As people move through the buyer cycle and take further actions, you can then seek more information from them at a later stage.
Give visitors comfort
One concern I always have when signing up for newsletters and giving out my personal data is how it is going to be used. Am I suddenly going to start receiving a barrage of emails instead of the weekly newsletter I was expecting? Or worse again, is my data now in the hands of other 3rd parties and I’m now receiving emails about goods or services in which I have absolutely no interest. All very GDPR unfriendly… but it happens.
Be very clear about how a person’s data will be used. Don’t leave them wondering if they’ll be spammed by you… and worse still by others. Their data is a very valuable possession that you are being entrusted with, so treat it with the respect that it deserves.
Calls to Action are a critical element of your website. Get them right, and your website can deliver a steady stream of engaged visitors, and hopefully enquiries in time.
