By now you know the importance of The Call to Action. It is critical in audience engagement and lead generation. In simple terms, it is an image and/or text that spurs immediate action from your visitor—action that should lead to sales. Is your call to action effective?

• First, be deliberate. When you create your call to action, make sure it focuses on your marketing goals and also provides focus to the customer.
• Second, use A/B testing to determine if one call to action is more effective than the other.

Consider these questions when creating and testing your call to action:

• Do you lay the foundation of why your visitor should respond to your call to action? Explain the problem that you provide a solution to before asking a visitor to act.
• Do you use active verbiage that clearly describes what you want the person to do?
• If there are multiple steps to complete, are you transparent about that?
• Do you use friendly terms that imply the benefit to the customer (i.e. get updates vs. subscribe)?
• Do you clearly describe the benefits of responding? People want to know what is in it for them—make sure they do.

To ensure an effective call to action, take these steps:

• Place the call to action prominently on your page or site.
  • Use distinct color and font that “pops” from the background. Apply psychology here and be mindful of how people respond to certain colors and styles.
  • Place the button or image where the eye will easily find it—above the fold and at multiple points on the page, particularly if scrolling down is an option.
• Use a small number of calls.  Remember, overwhelmed = inaction, so you want to make it simple for your visitors. Don’t give them too many options.
• Offer incentives like discounts, coupons or bonus content for meeting the call to action.
• Use links for logos and products on the landing page to enhance and inspire the call to action. For optimal search engine visibility, when linking to an article or resource, use the title or other meaningful link, instead of "more" or "click here."  You want search engines indexing your site for terms related to your content, not click here.
• Make sure your call to action adapts for delivery through multiple devices. Use strong <alt> text for images and bulletproof logos or images.

Make it count. Utilize a SaaS CMS that allows the flexibility and scalability to support and deliver your calls to action. You need to update frequently, measure your success and present intuitive, engaging design—so you can use your time to test various approaches, gather results and follow-up when your customers engage.