6 Tips for Developing Calls-to-Action that Yield Conversion Rates with any Sales Lead Database

6 Tips for Developing Calls-to-Action that Yield Conversion Rates with any Sales Lead Database:from Business 2 Community by Margaret Spencer
Along with subject lines, content, and design, calls-to-action are among the most important elements of your email marketing campaign that contacts in your sales lead database and customer directory actually see and deal with. Calls-to-action are so essential that your emails simply can’t live without them. They tend to greatly influence conversion rates which are perhaps the most vital metric in your campaign. As such, it’s important that you get your calls-to-action strategy right early or throughout major junctures in your campaign.
Calls-to-action (CTAs) are what you use to point contacts in your sales lead database or some other B2B marketing databases to specific directions in your campaign. CTAs in email marketing are those components of your message (link, button, images, etc.) that offer a specific action, redirecting the recipients to another location called a landing page where further details can be found. As such, it’s really necessary to create CTAs that get the job done, and the following tips can help you do so:

1. Use actionable words.

Action words or verbs, although comprising the basic elements of a CTA, form only one part of its “actionable” aspect. In order to be really effective and actionable, CTAs need to be clearly and strongly phrased and avoid vague and uncertain terms. A classic mistake in relation to this would be using the term “Click Here” instead of using something stronger like “Get it Now” or “Register Now” as CTAs.

2. Motivate action with urgency.

From the above examples, the two suggested CTA versions both contain the word “Now” which not only increases the CTA’s strength but creates a sense of urgency as well. Aside from clarity, your CTAs should make your offer or command sound important, exclusive, and immediate.

3. Make your CTA stand out.

CTAs are almost useless if it takes a great deal of effort from your recipients to find, read, and understand them. That’s why it’s vital that you find the right balance between color scheme and contrast characteristics. In addition, your CTAs should be located right above or below the fold with no exceptions. With the increasing trend toward mobile emails, it’s also important to consider the potential effects of smaller display screens with the visibility and readability of your CTAs.

4. Use HTML in place of images.

A significant percentage of recipients in your clean B2B contact database may be using platforms that block images from appearing on your messages, thereby compromising the presence of your image-formatted CTA. A simple yet powerful HTML trick can achieve the same effect as images but eliminates the risk of not being blocked. Talk to your developer about applying this HTML approach.

5. Clarify the process.

Your CTAs should clearly indicate what your recipients are in for once they click on them. Effective CTAs are able to provide this information without being too lengthy or redundant, which can cause hesitation or loss of motivation from your readers. You need to avoid surprises as these can negatively affect your messages’ ability to convert or generate responses.

6. Limit available options.

Although there’s no explicit limit to the maximum number of CTAs you can insert into your emails, having too many can cause unwanted distractions from your desired actions. If you do need to include multiple CTAs, make sure to prioritize the most important ones by making them stand out from the rest.
Like anything else in email marketing, your CTA strategy should be able to adapt to the changes that are constantly taking place throughout your campaign. This is achieved only through regular and systematic testing, using tactics such as A/B split tests to find out the optimal parameters of your CTAs. So be prepared to do some frequent evaluations and modifications with your email calls-to-action as your campaign proceeds.
Do you have some other tips on calls-to-action you’d like to share?