Within the mechanics of marketing communication, we have proven time and time again that a good Call to Action can often be exactly what is needed to sway an individual’s thinking, what they are feeling, and most importantly what they are doing. Additionally, there’s lots of irrelevant qualitative advice out there for Sales Professionals like “be more empathetic”, or “do this”, or “don’t do that”.
It is bothersome to me that, more often than not, the advice comes without specifics. I have always found myself walking out of training sessions asking myself, “Yeah, but how do I do it?”
“What exactly should I say?” or “What exactly do I do?”
Top 10 Calls to Action
With that in mind, here are my top ten Calls to Action I use in the content I create. Whether it’s an email, blog post, handwritten note, voicemail, letter to my mother, or whatever other gesture I am making, I try always to include at least one. In terms of Top 10, it should be more like Top 20. You can never have enough, and should constantly be doing a/b testing on success. But in the spirit of brevity (one of the top lessons I took away from SAP), here are 10 you should start to incorporate:
- 1. Click Here to Contact Me
- 2. Download Template Now
- 3. Subscribe Here for Daily Updates
- 4. Click Here to Tweet this to Your Followers!
- 5. Register for Inbound
- 6. Sign up for Webinar
- 7. Download this Free Ebook
- 8. Watch a Demonstration
- 9. Join our User Group
- 10. Sign up for a Free Trial
From a sales perspective, these may look more like something your buddy in Marketing is working on adding to the website. Look again. Think about the ways you can interchange words with these to shorten the massive sentences you’d typically put together.
For example, were I crafting an initial email to a CEO, the transformation might look something like this:
Dear John,
The purpose of this email is to hopefully prove to you how amazing my company is. Based on our work with Soandso and the results we delivered, I thought we should arrange a time to discuss how you might benefit similarly.
With a good Call to Action in place, that might turn into something like this:
Dear John,
We’ve just finished our engagement with Soandso. I thought you should be aware. Review details here.
That takes the communication from 43 words down to 18, it is much more concise, and the link could take my reader to a landing page where I can control his/her experience and be additionally resourceful.
The Bottom Line
If you’re not using a solid Call to Action in all of your dealings and communications, you are missing the mark. They are incredibly easy to incorporate into your work, make your messages far more concise, and provide a better customer experience for the reader. So do it!
Want help changing your team’s behavior? Click on the link below so we can speak. And if you’re interested in finding out how LinkedIn can help with your social selling, check out our 42 LinkedIn Sales Tips.
