Call to Action

To sell your products, you have to tell visitors to buy. This is known as the "Call to Action." Are you doing it effectively?

Reason and Action
Call-to-action words won't work by themselves. To make such words work, you have to give visitors a reason or several reasons to act. For example, when you are selling products, yelling "Buy now!" won't do any good. That's why you need sales copy that explains the different benefits of your products. Those benefits are the reasons visitors should buy your products. Call-to-action words will do the job only after visitors are given reasons to act. Whatever your intention is, whether it is to get people to subscribe your newsletter, contact you for more information, or to take surveys, always give visitors BOTH reasons to act AND an action to take.

One Action
According to Gary Halbert of thegaryhalbertletter.com, with fewer options, you will get more responses. For instance, if you have different ways of taking orders -- say, by online shopping cart, fax, or by phone -- fewer people will buy. Instead, if you give visitors only one option, i.e. the online shopping cart only, far more people will buy your products. You can give different reasons, but you should give visitors only one option for action.

Crystal Clear
Also, make sure your call-to-action words are very clear. Let's say you want visitors to contact you for more information. Don't just say "more information." People might expect to see more information on another page of your website. To be clear, say "contact us for more information." It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when outcome mismatches expectation, even just a bit, people will stop acting; people will not comply with the actions you desire. So be extra careful that the wording is clear.