Four strategies for writing better calls-to-action

Whether you’re trying to gain more followers for your social media channels or want to encourage social users to click on a link, there are several ways to improve your marketing campaign’s chances of success. Here are four of the best strategies for writing awesome calls-to-action:

1. Add an Element of Urgency

If you’re browsing through your social media feed and see a sponsored ad that simply says “sign up,” would you feel compelled to sign up right away? Probably not — you may just ignore it and go back to scrolling down your feed. Psychological research has asserted for years that humans are driven by urgency (or the “scarcity principle”), which means you’ll be more successful if you incorporate words and phrases such as “limited time offer,” “now,” “get it today,” or other time-sensitive phrasing that creates an aura of urgency around your offer.

2. Focus on the Visitor’s Perspective

To get social media users to click on your web link, like your page, or engage with your posts, your copy needs to reflect the benefits they will get out of following your call-to-action. Even a simple word change – such as “get your copy today” instead of “get a copy today” – can make a huge difference in conversions. Additionally, you don’t want to describe the features of your product/service/company as much as the benefits. What will they get out of it?

3. Be Extremely Clear and Concise

Unclear calls-to-action are some of the biggest causes of low click-through rates. If you want visitors to like your Facebook page, then be direct about it. Instead of “visit our page,” your copy should say “like our page” and include some kind of benefit they’ll get out of doing so (such as getting access to valuable tips from experts, daily updates on your blog, etc.).

You don’t have much room in a Facebook ad to be long-winded with your copy, so keep it short and concise. Don’t include superfluous information or even too much information because they might overshadow your call-to-action and drive visitors away from your ad as soon as they see a block of text with no clear recommended course of action.

4. Match the Copy and Images with the Call-to-Action

This might sound intuitive, but it’s amazing how often marketers craft completely unrelated copy to go along with their call-to-action. For instance, promoting your company’s history of stellar customer service and quality products might seem like a good way to prove why social audiences should buy your products/services, but this doesn’t really tell audiences what they’ll get from clicking on a link or downloading your free offer.

Similarly, you can’t include a barely-relevant or poor quality image in your post and expect users to jump on the bandwagon. If you’re trying to get visitors to sign up for an event, but your promotional post includes an image of your product or company logo, then there’s a mismatch between your visual and textual elements that could confuse visitors. To avoid this, make sure your images are always connected to your call-to-action in some immediately discernible way.