Email Marketing Software

Ten Tips for Creating Enticing Calls to Action

Janelle Johnson

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I read recently that the main point of multi-channel marketing is to stimulate interest that leads to a personalized email conversation with a prospect. If all roads lead to email, then your lead generation and sales success still very much depends on executing every aspect of your email marketing campaigns with skill and creativity. Your call-to-action is particularly important.

Our partner Litmus provide a service that lets you preview your email messages on 30+ email clients and mobile devices. Litmus published a infographic titled “Designing the Perfect Call to Action” which provides smart points about making your email call to action as strong and compelling as possible.

We’re recapping the ten main tips just because we think they’re important and we’d like to underscore them:

Ten Tips for Creating the Perfect Call to Action

1. Format: Your call to action (CTA) can be image- or text-based; do remember that buttons often out-perform text links. Make sure you’re linking to something that will fulfill the expectation the CTA sets—a landing page, a form, etc.
2. Language: Be clear and direct; let the reader know exactly why to click and what to expect. Use active verbs to add a sense of urgency.
3. Content: Make it engaging and encouraging. Your body text should support your CTA, and design elements should help focus attention toward the CTA.
4. Size: Because people have short attention spans and scan rather than read closely, make your CTA big enough to grab attention, without being overpowering. Text should be easily legible and complement the CTA.
5. Color: Use color to draw attention to your CTA, and make it different from the background. Keep your overall branding color palette in mind.
6. Placement: Put your CTA above the fold; don’t count on a busy reader scrolling to the bottom of your message.
7. Repetition: Repeating the suggestion to click strengthens your message. Sprinkle clickable elements throughout your message, and ensure that logos, headlines, images, and so on link to appropriate pages, to maximize conversion.
8. White space: Let your CTA have room to breathe; give it balanced negative space from other text and images, so it’s a focal point.
9. Icons and images: Incorporating visual clues can help a reader understand and take action. For example, a shopping cart icon is both recognizable and helpful.
10. Bulletproof buttons: Images get higher click rates, but image-blocking software may render your beautiful buttons unreadable. Use HTML text, background colors and background images to make a button that will remain visible even when images are disabled.

Want more on Email Marketing Software? Discover about marketing software by exploring blog posts, white papers and other material on our marketing resource page. For a comparison of the best email marketing platforms available download Business-Software.com’s Top 10 Email Marketing Software report today.

[This post was originally published on Act-On Software’s Marketing Action blog.]

• Consultant

Janelle Johnson

Director, Demand Gen at Act-On Software, Inc., Act-On Software
Expert in Online Marketing

Janelle runs lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer satisfaction campaigns, using content marketing and cross-channel techniques. She's a key player in the development of all processes for lead and pipeline cultivation and maturation, with a primary focus on the activities ...