What is a call-to-action and why is it important?
You may hope that after people read your blogs, newsletters or social media posts, they automatically turn from anonymous readers to potential clients.
But if you don’t tell them what specific action you want them to take next, how likely are they to do so?
That’s where a call-to-action (CTA) comes in. A CTA is a brief message at the end of your article that tells readers what they should do next.
The value of a CTA was established by scholars who studied the effect of CTAs in direct mailings and published their results in the Journal of Interactive marketing. They found:
- A CTA with an incentive had a higher impact on customers’ purchase behaviour than one without
- Non-monetary incentives were more effective than monetary incentives, because customers saw them as an added benefit
- Incentives that benefited the community (e.g. a donation to charity) were more effective than incentives that benefited the customers themselves
- Regular customers, and those who had been customers for longer, were more swayed by CTA because they regularly engaged with the business
Although this study analysed customers buying a product, it’s likely that service organisations, such as financial advice firms or credit repair agencies, would have similar results.
Components of an effective CTA
A CTA can take different forms, but it should abide by these rules:
- It should be short, targeted and clear
- It should include a verb that encourages the reader to do something specific
- It could include the expected result of the action
- If could include a time limit
- It should contact details, like a phone number, email address and link to a form on your website
Examples of CTAs
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Would you like well-written content to attach your CTAs to? Contact Hunter & Scribe at for social media posts, blogs, newsletters, ebooks or any other writing needs.
