At the tender age of 11, I watched the Hugh Jackman-Christian Bale starrer The Prestige, a movie that was significantly above my prepubescent intellect.
And I fell in love with magicians.
Not the exact moral of the story the director was driving toward, but regardless, I was fascinated.
(Yes, this is an article about CTAs! I'm leading to possibly the choppiest, most ridiculous segue in the history of segues but hear me out.)
(It is not bad writing if the writer is self-aware!)
Anyway, back to magicians. I studied them relentlessly. Dragged my father to not a few magic shows.
I remember the feeling when I learned the secrets behind the common tricks.
'How did I not think of that?! That's obviously how they do it!' I felt a little stupid and a little amazed at how a tiny deception could yield such miraculous results.
I soon grew out of my magician phase when I realized how little money there was in the industry, unless you were like… Houdini or something, and I certainly wasn't ready to die from being punched in the stomach.
But.
In my career as a copywriter, I finally had the chance to relive that emotion. The one that makes you feel kind of silly for not realizing the right answer immediately.
All because of one particular CTA that I got really, really wrong.
(Hey, I'd warned you about the segue).
Because CTAs are a little like magic tricks. Ridiculously simple and rewarding once you get them right. But mastering them isn't all that easy.
How changing one CTA got us from 0 calls to 9 in a week.
We built a pricing page for a strategy execution software, except we couldn't show pricing upfront. It all depended on the size of the company, the level of engagement they needed, yada yada.
You know how it goes.
It was still a great page.
And yet, we were getting 0 leads from this page. Something was wrong.
That's when we realized. It was the CTA:
If people wanted to book a demo, they could do it from any of the pages they were on. They were navigating to the pricing page to see the price.
But we were still doggedly asking them to request a demo.
Gods. I would have torn my hair out as a visitor.
People were already convinced of the value. This was a high-value product, not a $20 tool. They wanted to see if they could afford the software.
A demo was like a user manual, to see the product from the inside. But why would anyone want a user manual if they didn't know if they'd be able to buy the product or not?
A one-on-one demo was too high of a commitment to ask. That's why none of excellent stats and cost-of-problem sections worked.
We changed the CTA to Request Pricing, with a form they could fill out to get a quote and BOOM! Instant transformation!
Lesson #1. The Customer Intent.
If your CTA doesn't match what your visitor actually wants to see, your conversion rates are going to tank.
Before writing CTAs for any page, ask yourself—why is the visitor on this page? What do they want to do most once they land here?
- Do they want to learn more about the product and the industry?
- Do they want to see how the software helps their particular use case?
- Do they want to watch a video of your product in action?
- Are your visitors hesitant about demos because they feel they'll be held hostage and aggressively sold to for 45 minutes?
- Do they want to know the impact your software can have on their business, in numbers?
- Do they want to see a doc that compares all competitors in the industry?
Do the research on your visitor’s journey across your website, what your sales cycle typically looks like, what doubts your customers have before buying: and let your CTAs be stepping stones to the final decision.
Let me give you an example:
You're probably on this blog post because you think your CTAs are not converting as well as they should. Your objective likely isn't to hire me, or you'd be on the services page. You want to learn how to get more clicks.
(If in the process, you're impressed by my incredible writing skills and want to hire me... we can keep that a secret 😉 )
What's the biggest value I can provide you on this page, apart from the actual content? What would be an irresistible offer for you on this page?
What about a checklist to evaluate your CTA and see if it's doing the job it's supposed to? With an 8-question guide to help you find the right CTA for your page?
With a CTA that said 'Improve your conversions'?
CTA Cheatsheet
BOOM! Played you like a fiddle.
But that's not the only consideration you need to make.
You also need to pay attention to your audience's awareness level.
If your visitors are coming from an ad, is it too early in the buying process to ask for a demo? Is your product high-ticket or low-ticket? How complicated is the sales process?
This short excerpt from a Jellyfish blog talks about how you shouldn't show a demo to someone on the first call.
Do not show someone your product on the first call – even if they ask to see it. The simplest analogy is dating; no one is proposing on the first date (even if that’s what both people are looking for in the end). Patience can be a secret weapon in sales. Start by considering what information you will not share on a first date in order to secure a second.
With strategic sales, it’s your job to understand their specific use case to build a tailored, relevant product demo. The goal is to identify the 10% of your solution that will generate 90% of the value for them. And if your position on this is: “Well, customers are just so excited to see the product in action — so we show them!” Look at your conversion from demo to paying customer… You need to empower mobilizers to sell effectively internally, and a demo rarely, if ever, will do that.
Similarly, what you promise to your visitor on your website has a huge impact on whether they'll make the purchase or not.
What is an offer that helps them make the buying decision, without losing the intent of the page? What offer is okay to make?
You want your visitors to immediately pull out their wallets and start using your product. But this is your customers' playground. You have to play by their rules.
Make an offer that is mutually beneficial.
It should be something the visitor is happy to click on. AND it needs to nudge the visitor down the funnel and towards a sale.
Lesson #2: What will happen once they click the button?
No, what really happens when they click a button?
Here's what I mean. An example from Xavier Coiffard's post on Indie Hackers:
His conversion rate jumped from 0.6% to 2.3%.
'Get access' is too vague to show readers the value of the offer, even though it was something they were interested in. Readers probably didn't know what getting access to 400+ places meant.
Shake up the text and add a benefit to the button and BOOM!
I feel the same way about 'Get started'.
- Will it lead me to a demo form?
- Will it start a free trial?
- Will it take me to the pricing page?
- Am I getting started on making pancakes for a crowd of 17 teens? (You won't believe how often this has happened to me.)
Unless your headline makes it extremely clear what the visitor is getting started on—I'd say skip the 'Get started' buttons.
Let your visitors know what to expect when they click on your CTA. What are they agreeing to when they click?
And show them WHY they should click. Show what's in it for them. Make the value obvious.
Lesson #3: The Rest
The rest has been spoken about too often for me to go into great depth over it.
Harry from MarketingExamples has this great visual on combatting objections with CTAs.
There's thousands of examples of CTAs with Social Proof in the wild:
Make your buttons bright, give them a little jiggle if you want—make sure you have the basics sorted and I'm sure you'll see a change.
To be very frank with you,
I did not take CTAs seriously for a lot of my career. I thought 'Huh, the rest of my page is so damn convincing, only a fool wouldn't click on the button'.
But life has a way of humbling you. I was the fool. The fool was me.
CTAs can make a huge difference—if you get the customer intent wrong, you can effectively homicide your sales.
As a plus, heatmaps.
Analyze your heatmaps and find patterns. What are people spending time on—what are the answers they want to know? Give them ways to find more information.
For example:
See if one of your FAQs is getting a lot of heat on the maps. Maybe your visitors are wondering if the software is easy enough for their teams to use.
Add a CTA that takes them to a video demonstrating how easy your product is to use. 'See how Clairvoyant makes your accounts a 10-minute job'.
Clearly people want to know the answer for it and it's an important Q.
Okay, that's it! That's all I have to say on the subject of CTAs for now.
We hope our mistakes are fertile ground for you to grow your crops in. And while we’re on the subject of crops: we know someone who can organically guarantee a solid harvest. No pesticides or cheap hacks.
It’s this website revamp agency called Beetle Beetle, maybe you’ve heard of them?
Okay, you caught us. We’re Beetle Beetle. We’ve delivered amazing conversion rates, shone the light on value props that mattered, and helped products grow, get funded, acquired.
So if this kickass CTA check-list wasn’t enough to convince you to book a call with us asap, maybe our lovely clients and our work will?
