Stronger Call to Action- 6 Tips Every Email Marketer Should Know

Written by: Lyris HQ Staff Writer

What is a call to action?

Email marketing programs and most types of online advertising use call to action as a marketing tool. A call to action is any request that is made to direct a consumer to finalize a sale, transaction, download, subscription or any other form of ‘conversion’. Some call to action requests may be used for phone calls, click to sites, redeem coupons, visit websites, or any other action to complete the desired result.

Let’s say you have your website perfectly organized, you have your email marketing program ready to roll, you have described your product or service, and everything is great, right? Wrong. You need to tell the reader where to go, use your call to action by directing the email reader to do something, because you need them to do it NOW! Below are a few examples of a call to action:

• Please call 1-800-000-0000 to contact the nearest dealer
• To redeem this coupon click here
• Please click here visit www.xyzcompany. com
• Click here to enter sweepstakes or drawing

To make sure that your email message is effective, make sure that your message conveys the information in a clear and to the point manner. By making sure that the email message can be seen in any format, you will have greater results.

We have outlined 6 ways to make sure your call to action is direct, concise, and understood loud and clear.

The call to action in an email message has three basic fundamentals, the act you want the reader to grasp, the words you use to deliver the action, and its physical appearance that should include text, image and location.

1. Explaining the Call to Action

Just by providing a “click here” link to your website in your email message does not explain to the email reader what you want them to do. Everyone knows what a click here button is, this is something we all understand. This is the easy part for the email reader. The hard part is just by clicking on the link; it does not always justify its service, or finalize the end result that is wanted by the email marketing program.

Many marketers believe that a “click here” link is sufficient and is self explanatory. No way, you can’t stop there! Most email marketing programs that experience low returns after overcoming all other obstacles find that the call to action was often to blame.

It is important to explain your call to action (or CTA). Give as much detail as the email message space will allow you to give. You need to be specific and to the point to deliver as much information as possible to induce an action from the email reader. The readers will take action only if you tell them clearly what is in it for them.

The CTA should never be considered standard form for all email marketing programs. It is not a one does it all type command. The CTA needs to have a custom fit that will vary based on who the email recipient is and who the sender is.

• For inducing a purchase action: Saying “BUY HERE!” is not always going to make your reader buy. It may get your reader to the website, but more often than not, your reader will not know where to go from there.
  Your “buy here” link should take your retail customer to the product description page to learn more about pricing, discounts and ways to purchase. This way if they want to think it over, they will have all the information readily in front of them to come back and finalize the purchase when they see fit. Sometimes if your buy here button only takes them to the purchase page, they may not be ready to commit to a sale. They may want to see more details, and think that there is no option to see more details and shy away from the purchase. This is where the right naming of your click here button becomes imperative. You don’t want your click here button to be named “Buy here”, if it is not linked to the buy here page that has product information. You would rather have it named “More Information”; this would clearly define what it is exactly that the reader would be clicking towards.
   
• For Email newsletters: These usually contain articles and paragraph texts. You would not use the same call to action as you would with retail marketing programs. “To read the full story click here; to subscribe to this newsletter click here,” would be self explanatory calls to action. “Click here” on the other hand, would be less than self explanatory and would not express the action you would expect your readers to take.

2. Call to action expression

The call to action should always match the end page where the email link will send the reader. A call to action should be a clear definition of this ending page. Every call to action will vary upon the type of email and its purpose.

If your email marketing campaign is targeted to retail sales or purchases, you can use a catchy phrase to use as a click here link. If your product or service has several different varieties to choose from, with descriptions and images, you could use, “Click to see all choices” or “See all choices here”.

Newsletters, bulletins and updates are used in a very different way. Typically a call to action on this type of email message is to direct the email reader to a specific web site to read the full story. Most of the time only clips or small pieces of a story or bulletin are included into the body of an email. By using a click here button alone, the reader does not know for sure why they are clicking. By just having the click here button, the email will usually fall on deaf ears and will be disregarded. You must explain to the reader what they will get out of it if they click here. Click here to read the full story or event, or to learn more about this article click here; are a couple of examples of the action to an unasked question.

Never use click here over and over on your email marketing program, always have other action words around it. Never use it as a main marketing call to action technique. By varying your word usage, and keeping click here as minimal as you can, you are keeping your email message from becoming stagnant and boring.

Repetitive wording tends to become redundant and often time over looked or read over.

3. Link Usage & Location

Call to action link is a must, but that is not and can not be your reader’s only path to the home or landing page. You must give your readers more ways to connect to your website. By using domain names, product names and product colors or choices as links within the body of the email, you are giving your customers more chances to link to your web page. More options that are given to the email reader will result in better total call to action.

Newsletter articles often have a link directed right in the headline. When using the headline as a call to action, you need to make the headline informative and action packed to get the right results.

Commercial emails should be handled just the same. By using product, service names or images, they should all be linked directly to your website page.

It doesn’t matter if you put your call to action in the beginning of your email, the middle or the end; the end result is the same. The more links you provide to your readers the better the chance that they will find one of interest.

Most place the CTA at the end of the email, but since most readers scan the page, and tend to read from up to down, then back up again, you need to have more than one link to your landing page into your email body.

4. Text Usage

Using bold font, or increased font size, you help catch the reader’s eye. This separates regular information from the important information that you want seen by your email reader.

Key phrases, action words, and eye catching phrases will drive the reader’s eye to the final call to action. By bold facing text, you are getting attention in the area that you are trying to convey to the reader. Many times a reader will scan the email for important information; scan reading is very common, but make yours stand out by pointing to what you want your reader to see.

Be careful not to boldface so much that you forget to draw attention to your Call to action. You can use italics, increased font size, indention, or highlight the CTA to use as some of your eye catching choices.

5. Using Images

There are three errors that are often seen when using images as call to actions.

• Image blocking
• Missing Link
• Image Map

Spam and virus software programs often block images by default, thinking they are protecting the user. The thought is nice, however, if your image is blocked, the call to action will be as well. Don’t enclose your CTA inside an image for this very reason. This is one of the biggest mistakes that email marketers make.

Missing links can kill your email marketing program. If you don’t make sure your link is usable and it is hyperlinked, most will think that it is deleted. Most email readers will not try to look for the broken link, nor will they come back later, they will assume that the email is broken, or deleted and that will be the end of it, causing you to lose out.

Never put your call to action in with your image maps. Image maps often restrict where the email reader can click. By restricting where your email reader can click, will make it to where they can’t reply to your offer. Use text links and supporting text in your preview pane so that the entire area is reachable.

Overall, the more calls to action that you use that are clear, to the point, and easy to navigate, the better chance you have of driving conversions, regardless of what type of email marketing program you may have. . The action taken by the reader is used for measuring click-through rates (CTRs) for email marketing programs. Your call to action is very important and using the wrong CTA results in poor click-through rates and can be detrimental to the success of an email marketing program With a little planning, a little more insight and clarity, you will have a better click-through rate by making sure that the CTA is easy for the reader to understand the how and why. By better managing your CTA, you will see your click-through increase.

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