Building a CTA Button Your Leads Can’t Help But Click

It’s the great marketing paradox. We spend hours brainstorming and months testing the copy of our calls-to-action, but whether we ask our users to Sign Up Now, Start a Free Trial, Get Started, Request Access, or Learn More, all we really want them to do it click the button.

Just click the button.

So why do so many of our quality leads fail to comply with our simple request? The way your CTA button is set up on a landing page is just as important as the CTA itself. Otherwise, it’s a button to nowhere.

Make your CTA pop on a pretty page

Visual appeal is everything. Before they see your CTA button, your landing page is the first impression your potential customers will have. Choose attractive, simple imagery – if your page is cluttered, your visitors won’t know where to look. Color scheme also is important: Using complementary but contrasting colors help a page to pop.

Notice how the below example from PopSurvey is coordinated with shades of blue, allowing the pink in the logo and CTA to pop out on the page. The secondary CTA, “Pricing & Sign Up” in the header is a slightly duller pink that still stands out but doesn’t distract from the main call-to-action button.

Ensure your page is easy to read and draws the attention of your customers’ eyes – don’t make them strain to read the text. The following landing page from Website Magazine is cluttered, has too many distracting colors, and small text. It’s impossible to know where to look!

Get to the point

Customers won’t have the patience to stay on your page if they don’t know what you’re offering. Use clear, strong wording to elicit the quick reactions that all good Calls-to-Action invoke.

Active verbs like “join” or “discover” can make people feel like they’ll be a part of something or learn something new. Negative questions like “worried?” and “confused?” can tap into human fears – always an attention-getter. And make it personal and urgent – use pronouns like “your” or “my” to convey ownership, as well as time-sensitive words, as in “Get my free newsletter now.”

Dollar Shave Club is the perfect example of this. They speak to men (notice the “No commitment”) in a take-it-or-leave-it offer. Do it or don’t. Either way, it’s impossible to miss that big CTA.

The copy here is also fantastic. It flows well, the value proposition is clear, and each sentence subsequently gets shorter up to the CTA.

At Socedo, one of our landing pages, is frill-free. We’re still A/B testing variations around “Start My Free Trial” or “Start My 14-Day Free Trial.” Regardless, previous testing has confirmed that the phrase “Free Trial” is crucial to our CTA buttons. It’s simple and to the point, and users know exactly what will happen when they click the button. No matter where you look on our site–the landing page, the navigation, or the blog–you’ll see a blue button with the “Free Trial” copy.

But just like any marketing strategy, you should always be A/B testing. What works for one brand might not work for another, and things can change over time.

Lead to the button with benefits

Drive more leads by offering your unique selling point. When a customer clicks on your CTA button, they should know why it will benefit them. Start with a confident headline on the page that conveys a key value you offer, and support it with a subhead that explains it. Follow with clear button copy that encourages users to claim these benefits.

If you’re like everyone else – boring and wordy – you won’t get your customers to pay attention or even to think about clicking your CTA. Add personality, emotions and enthusiasm to help draw in customers.

This landing page from Manpacks is fantastic and hilarious. It has a header with a clear benefit, in this case convenience on men’s essentials. Then the subhead explains exactly what Manpacks offers. By the time the user reaches the CTA button, they already know what they are going to “Get Started” with.

Sqord is a fitness and game tracking wristband for kids. Their landing page isn’t bad. It has a coherent color theme that reflects the audience and the product, the button pops, and it gets to the point. The headline is catchy but not very specific, and the subhead only provides a few more surface-level details: “Sqord is your online world, powered by real world play.”

By the time the user reaches the button text “Buy Sqord Membership & Gear” it’s hard to know what they’re actually buying. Is it the wristband, the app, or both? And why should I care?

Instill fear of missing out

You always want what you can’t have, right? It’s all about urgency. Customers hate missing out on a short-term offer. Focus on deadline phrases such as “limited time” or give them and end date. Add exclusivity to your product, when appropriate, with phrases like “while supplies last.” And CTAs that save money will always be a winning tactic. Customers can’t ignore it.

This landing page from Slope, a visual marketing platform, creates FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) by implying only a limited number of people will be allowed access to the beta. In addition to avoiding this negative, the button creates a positive experience of exclusivity. If you’re one of the select few who request early access, you’ll be part of the inner club–the talk of the town at your next marketers’ get-together.

Be creative

You’ll probably notice a pattern to the successful landing page CTAs mentioned here. They all have a high-benefit header, an explanatory subhead, and a button with active verbs. They all have a coordinated color palette, with the button standing out. They all get right to the point.

Most importantly, they all have some level of creativity. You can read as many prescriptive tips for CTA buttons as possible, but at the end of the day, it’s the unexpected element of your page that will give you the edge for higher conversion rates.

About the Author: Aseem Badshah, Founder and CEO of Socedo. Socedo helps sales and marketing professionals leverage social media data to discover, qualify, and nurture leads, automatically.

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How to Idiot Proof Your Ad Campaigns

Marketing promotion sucks when you treat people the same.

That goes for conversions, and it goes for advertising too.

But the minute things start to go awry, people start messing with their landing page headline or ad descriptions.

As if those tiny, miniscule elements are the primary reason traffic’s not comin’ or visits aren’t convertin’.

The best landing page, optimized 100% correctly, can’t make up for the wrong audience seeing that message.

Ad campaigns are already difficult. But the good news is that you don’t need to possess ninja PPC skillz.

Instead, here is a dead simple way you can isolate where problem areas might pop up and stop them dead in their tracks.

When ‘Best Practices’ are Good Enough

Commonly accepted best practices are a starting point. The tip of a metaphorical iceberg.

They get all the attention and ink online. But there’s a mountain below just waiting to sink your campaign.

On a GREAT day, landing pages convert around 10% of visitors (and those are the ‘uncommon’, special ones that vastly outperform all the rest). That means the majority of page visitors are doing, well, anything else besides converting.

Slapping on a different ad-description isn’t going to budge that number. It won’t change the fact that those people simply aren’t ready to buy. It might get you from 6-7%. Which is great!

But in a world where over 50% of all customers interactions follow a ‘multi-event, multi-channel’ journey that takes various touch points prior to converting, we should look beyond tactical ‘best practices’ to make sure the entire funnel aligns to deliver the best conversions for our buck.

Managing the growing complexity is a top priority for marketers, with most juggling anywhere from 5 – 31 separate tools to manage messaging in a multi-channel marketing environment.

This can be best illustrated with the help of Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase, which shows how a typical customer’s journey might look (including which channels influence which parts) for most industries. Yay visuals!

The point is, there are many things involved in a single conversion. Whether we’re talking about a product purchased or lead generated.

Unfortunately, ad campaigns today can’t be simple, static paths from New Visitor -> Conversion. Not in a world where it takes a minimum of 6-8 customer touch points prior to conversion. Or when your most profitable customers are NOT the ones who visit your site 1-3 times, but 14-20 before signing up.

Today’s ad campaigns are more like a delicate system of variables that depend on each other for success. (Enter your best ’synergistic’ MBA speak here.)

Making sure those things come together harmoniously is the best way to boost conversion rates for the long-term.

Here’s how.

1. Create Different Ad Campaigns for Each Customer Journey Stage

Ad campaigns should align with an appropriate stage of the sales funnel. Same as any inbound deliverable like an infographic, offline tradeshow, or other campaign.

You know, that whole Awareness, Consideration, Decision bit?

(If you have NO idea what I’m talking about, read about the buying cycle and triggers from David Skok. And then spend another 20 minutes reading everything else he writes – it’s worth it.)

Ad channels (and even different campaigns on the same channel) can then be used for different purposes, whether that’s driving new sales to generating leads or simply boosting awareness. The opportunities are vast, but the execution needs to be precise.

Let’s start with generating initial awareness to see how this works.

Demand Generation

The goal here is to bring in new, targeted visitors. Obviously.

Problem? Nobody knows who you are. And frankly, they don’t really care. They haven’t yet become aware that they have a need for you yet.

So help them. Literally.

Start with their daily life. What issues pop up, take too long, or cause them frustration (that can also possibly tie back into your widgets)?

Listen:

Consumers ignore 86% of display ads. And those average banner ad click through rates are a dismal 0.1%. It ain’t easy out there.

Botching this jeopardizes everything else. So your value proposition needs to be awesome. Not good, or great. But, “Holy s$*% I need to [click this link / read this post] right now”.

Typical display ads, AdWords, and Facebook are well tread options. So let’s look at new, fresh examples like Twitter and Instagram. Less competition typically = less expensive = higher return on ad spend. And the principles are the same, regardless of channel.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to get the attention on Twitter. Instead of simply promoting your account (and making it all about you), solving a huge pain point or even providing a fun distraction can be enough to start introducing your brand to consumers.

The best social ads at this stage also ‘blend’ in with the content people are already consuming. You know, like that whole native advertising thing. For example, this one from I.D. Sarrieri is very Instagram-ish – selling a mood or theme featuring their products.

Find this one, and many more great Instagram ad examples here.

Last but certainly not least, is your headline.

The best headlines are a crystallized version of your value proposition, and they tap into some deeper primal motivation to grab maximum attention. Bnonn’s SHINE headline formula is a great way to get started, giving you the ‘essential’ ingredients like Specificity and Immediacy that are critical to getting people to take action.

You can also study the masters like BuzzFeed, who crank out brilliant headlines day-after-day that can be templated for re-using later. For example:

This one might look like:

• # + [Perfect Adjective] + [Noun/Keyphrase Solution] + [To/For/Like] + [Fix Your Undesirable Thing]

Lead Generation

Once you’ve captured attention, the next step is to get them interested.

You do that by constructing a ‘bridge’ between their problems or pain points, and your widget which can ultimately solve those things for them.

One of the most popular techniques here is some kind of ‘lead magnet’ to generate a micro-conversion like a basic email address. Chances are, you’re familiar with all the usual suspects like eBooks, webinars, checklists, and more.

But ‘content’ based offers can mean much more.

For example, most designers are starved for stock photos, especially with the exorbitant costs at the well known sources.

Here, Bigstock is providing 35 free!

(Here are a few more Twitter ad examples to browse for inspiration.)

Even something as simple as a recipe could work wonders because it blends (pun intended) an offer to get attention with the products they’ll need (and can purchase from you).

Smirnoff’s example below is a perfect example of bridging the gap between those two worlds.

Closing Customers

By this point, prospects should know who you are and at least have some interest in your product.

Otherwise, we run into that original problem of trying to convert cold, unaware leads (which all of the best tactical practices in the world can’t help).

The key? Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Especially if switching costs are an issue.

For example, MailChimp executes brilliantly by running a competitive offer to Constant Contact peeps with a free three month offer. That should help soften the blow of having to move all email templates and contact records, while also giving those people enough time to settle in with the service.

(The actual content and CTA looks a little sloppy, but the overall offer is great.)

Admittedly, selling on Instagram is a, well, tough sell. It’s still early days, and the channel is mostly known for brand awareness.

But still, the Cromwell in Las Vegas does as good a job as any, highlighting their attractive property in a multi-ad set with an appropriate CTA.

If you’ve done all the hard work up to this point (like getting awareness, building interest, and developing trust), the sales offer should be simple and straightforward.

A great offer or promotion can help, but shouldn’t be required to get people to open up their wallets.

But if it is still difficult or damn near impossible, this next section can help.

2. Pinpoint & Upgrade Underperforming Stages

Creating different ad campaigns for specific sales funnel stages can help illustrate potential gaps, making it easier to break down exactly where you’re excelling (or falling short).

That way instead of overreacting and making rash conclusions, you can start measuring those micro-conversions between stages or steps to find leading indicators of success.

For example, experiencing low sales but demand seems to be there? Insert more lead gen and nurturing campaigns into the mix to bridge that gap. The end result, should resemble a complete ‘customer journey’ that seamlessly moves people from one step to the next.

But what if those things check out, and still nothing. You’ve got ad campaigns targeting each step, and they seem to be performing well. Except for that whole sales thing.

Break your ad campaigns down even further into the individual variables that dictate success.

Google AdWord’s Quality Score is kinda the gold standard for using algorithms to award and set pricing in an auction based ad system. Facebook has also been testing different algorithms that act similarly.

What’s unique, is that these algorithms use factors like ad relevancy from the ads you’re running, to the keyphrases or audiences, and even through the landing pages. They factor all of these details, and then create a holistic score that dictates (a) how often your ads show and (b) what you’re going to pay.

Algorithms like these force advertisers to consider how every single ad campaign element works together to produce the best ROI (instead of simply focusing on the single ad creative you’re working on).

So let’s start with the tactics, and work backwards to see if we can get any quick wins.

Addressing or changing elements like the ad creative and landing page are far easier than ripping up the offer and starting from scratch. You can A/B test these elements according to commonly accepted best practices (which take all of 5 minutes Googling).

And it’s the easiest, ‘low hanging fruit’ to quickly improve your Quality Score (or similar relevancy scores in other social ad platforms) that deliver fast results.

If issues still persist, take another step back to address the audience you’re targeting (or keyphrases in AdWords which inherently have a certain type of audience searching). Chances are, improving audience targeting could give you that breakthrough.

For example, custom audiences on Facebook help you get more specific by targeting segments of past customers, retargeting website visits, or even the individual product page visited. Target saw a “20% increase in conversion [using Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ads] compared to other Facebook ads”, according to Senior Vice President Kristi Argyilan.

Assuming your offer or value proposition is sound and that the channel is appropriate, iterating on the audience, ad creative, and landing pages should deliver something at the end of the day.

Otherwise, you have bigger issues (beyond advertising) that are holding you back.

Conclusion

The tactical best practices you read about all over the interwebs are important.

But only to a point.

Breaking things down by sales funnel stages can help you determine where you’re excelling or falling short in key categories. They alert you to gaps in the customer journey that can cause breakdowns in driving new sales.

Once that’s completed, you can get even more granular by looking at each independent variable within a single ad campaign to see where further bottlenecks are choking results. Working backwards from the ad creative and landing pages to your audience will give your campaigns a quick lift (assuming your offer or value proposition + channel selection check out).

Big conversion increases don’t happen overnight by swapping out your headline or button color. They come from iterating on these tiny details along the way, making small improvements at each little step.

And best of all, isolating different variables helps assign priority, keeping execution focused and simple in an increasingly complex world.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a founding partner at Codeless Interactive, a digital agency specializing in creating personalized customer experiences. Brad’s blog also features more marketing thoughts, opinions and the occasional insight.

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A Step-by-Step Guide for Determining Keywords to Bid On

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) and paid ads, a lot goes into these campaigns. You have to create the landing page, design the ad, and set up a framework for the campaign. Not to mention A/B testing various aspects of the ad and landing page.

If there’s one step that can’t be overlooked when setting up your campaign, it’s selecting keywords to bid on. Keywords make or break a PPC campaign because they determine who sees your ad and who doesn’t. Even the most clever paid ads will fail if they don’t get in front of the right people.

Choosing keywords wisely ensures your audience is well-targeted and relevant, and your budget is put to good use. These 4 steps are all you need to determine the best keywords for your next paid campaign.

Step 1: Brainstorm

The first step in choosing keywords for any campaign is to brainstorm a big, long list of potential terms. Your list should be based on the landing pages the ads will link to.

The key is to get inside your customer’s mind. What are they searching for? How do they phrase search queries? What are they typing into that magic Google box when they’re looking for your product? Don’t forget to include synonyms that customers might use instead of another word and alternate spellings.

Another thing to consider: Your list should include both head terms and long-tail keyword phrases. Head terms are broader and likely bring in a lot of search volume, while long-tail phrases get your ads in front of a highly targeted audience — so it’s good to include both in your campaigns.

To ensure you have a comprehensive list, consider all 4 types of keyword terms:

• Generic terms — Keywords that describe your product or service (i.e. running shoes)
• Related terms — Terms that don’t directly apply to your business that your audience may be search for (i.e. jogging)
• Brand terms — Keywords containing your brand or business name (i.e. Nike.com)
• Competitor terms — Terms including brands and names of your competitors (i.e. New Balance shoes)

The sky’s the limit, so find a whiteboard and list every keyword you can muster to consider bidding on. You’ll whittle this down later, so it’s impossible to have too many keywords at this stage. Once you’ve completely racked your brain, we can move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Choose Local Search Keywords

Local search keywords are exactly what they sound like — search terms that involve a particular location. The query “shoe stores in wicker park, chicago” is a good example. For businesses that are more than e-commerce, these are a big deal. With so many searches happening on mobile devices, these queries bring you even closer to an actual sale. If you have a brick & mortar location, local search keywords will draw the most engaged and relevant audience to your site and your store, because searchers are literally right down the road from you.

Keep local search in mind when creating and refining your list of keywords. Be sure to include terms that relate to your street address, neighborhood, and town. There’s nothing more valuable than getting your ads in front of potential customers who are looking for exactly what you offer, right where you are.

Step 3: Think About Relevance

Now that you have a huge list of more keywords than you can possibly bid on, it’s time to start narrowing it down. The most effective way to choose which terms to eliminate and which to keep is to weigh relevance.

The key to determining how relevant a search term is is to consider the searcher’s intent. Are people who search this term actually looking for what you offer? And how likely are they to buy from you? For example, if your industry has strong brands, then search traffic around competitor terms may not be relevant enough to include. Users who search explicitly for a particular brand — i.e. “Nike shoes” — are probably not interested in buying from Puma.

Another important factor to consider is where in the buying cycle users are. Someone who searches “Nike Womens Free 4.0 Flyknit” is probably a lot closer to making a purchase than someone searching “good running shoes.” Depending on the type of content your ads link to, you’ll want to target terms that indicate a particular time in the buyer’s journey. If your ad is for a blog post called “What Characteristics Make a Great Running Shoe,” then target users early in the cycle. For product-specific landing pages, you want to get in front of people who are ready to make a purchase.

Don’t Forget Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are terms and phrases that you explicitly don’t want your ads to show for. By including them in your campaign, you’re essentially telling Google, Don’t waste my budget on these terms. As your campaign runs, you can find negative keywords in your search query reports. If you see any terms that aren’t a good fit for your campaign (they’re irrelevant or offensive, or user intent doesn’t fit), you can add them to your negative keywords at any time.

However, you should be able to identify some negative terms right off the bat. For example, if you’re located in Tulsa, you can eliminate queries like “shoe stores in atlanta ga.” If you’re selling software that doesn’t include a freemium option, omit terms like those pictured above. Including these from the get-go will help you spend your budget on terms that actually drive revenue.

Step 4: Consider Competition and Cost

By now, you should have a decent-sized list of keywords that have been refined to reflect what your business really does and what your customers really search for. This list is your ideal campaign. However, now you need to consider the competition for these keywords and how much you’ll have to spend to actually show up for them.

Here’s an example, if your company is named “Apple Running Shoes,” can you realistically expect your ads to show up when people search for “apple?” (Hint: The answer is no.) It can also get expensive to bid on your competitors’ brand terms.

It’s important to do your research to determine who else is bidding on the keywords you want, how much they’re spending, and average cost per click. This info will help you determine which terms are worth spending your budget on and which ones are just a pipe dream that will chew through budget with little return. Once you have cost and competitive data, you can eliminate overly competitive and high-cost keywords from your list.

Step 5: Get Some Tools

Great news: You don’t have to do all of the above by yourself. There are plenty of tools available to help you determine user intent, competition, and the overall value of bidding on specific keywords.

• With Google’s Keyword Planner in AdWords, you can see historical stats on any keyword. You can get information on how keywords might perform, what competitive bids look like, and recommended budgets.
• Google Insights for Search gives you access to a wide range of data to help you predict future trends and turn information into actionable, well, insights.
• HubSpot’s Keyword Grader condenses all of the data into one, easy to interpret number. The “difficulty score” is based on a number of metrics and scored 0-100.

There are tons of other options for keyword research, too. All you have to do is find the one that works for you.

Get Started

Now it’s time to get moving. To get started with your initial list, keep these brainstorming rules in mind:

• No criticism
• Encourage wild ideas
• Emphasize quantity

At first glance, it might seem obvious which keywords make sense for your business and your campaign. However, taking the time to complete the steps above will ensure your campaign is well-informed and highly effective. Choosing the most targeted keywords through adequate research and data analysis can be the difference between success and failure.

About the Author: Kiera Abbamonte is the Content Marketing Specialist for Citrix Grasshopper. She loves a good baseball game and finding new ways to make content awesome. Catch up with her on Twitter @kieraabbamonte.

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How to Create Urgency to Fuel E-Commerce Sales

Swift action.

Our marketing and sales teams dream of prospects who see our product, know they want it, and then buy without hesitation.

We all know that’s an anomaly. Most sales require your team to nurture the customer relationship and even demo the product.

However, there is a way to speed up the process. The key is to create a sense of urgency that will move the buyer forward in the sales cycle.

Dan Tyre, sales director at HubSpot, writes, “[The] top 2% salespeople can recognize ‘tells’ in prospects that indicate whether they’ll move toward purchase or delay the process.”

It’s time to harness the power of your team’s existing expertise with practical steps.

Let’s explore how to create a sense of urgency within your customers.

Why Choose Urgency

Urgency gives us a reason to think differently about our purchases.

Expert behavioral psychologists found that “urgent situations cause us to suspend deliberate thought and to act quickly.”

By creating a sense of urgency in the sales process, you motivate potential buyers to take action on your website. And that includes signing up for an email, enrolling in a free webinar, or actually purchasing your services.

Your goal is to break through the cognitive friction that delays people from converting.

Be wary of assuming that urgency equals persuasion. Because no level of motivation will convince someone to buy a horrible product that doesn’t meet a need.

“Winning a conversion takes two things: A feeling of desire (“I’ve got to have this thing!”) and a nudge that refuses to allow the lead to procrastinate (“But I’ll get it later”). Your sales copy is the hook, and urgency is the tug on the reel,” writes Joel Klettke, a conversion-focused copywriter at Business Casual Copywriting.

The longer your prospect waits to make a purchase, the less likely the sale will actually happen. More time translates into unrelated life distractions, the opportunity to shop with a competitor, and mental barriers to hinder the deal.

Procrastination is not your friend. Build urgency to seal the deal.

Word Choice Matters

Words have meaning. Therefore, every word on your website matters. So, choose wisely.

Write copy that will be a no-brainer for customers to take action. The key is to resonate with the shopper’s inner thoughts to sell your services.

Start by showcasing benefits, not features. Give visitors a glimpse of the results they will receive after using your services.

People don’t buy products to remain stagnant. Showcase how your product will make their lives better. Highlighting the value-added benefits will keep you at the top of their minds.

Vishal Ray Malik, founder of ConversionLink, notes that urgency is a driving force for effective sales copy. He suggests using a few of these keywords:

Inbound.org knows how to create urgency. Here’s an example of how the company elicits a response:

To understand which words trigger action within your customer base, spend less time selling. Instead, focus more time listening to your consumer’s word choices.

Tell your team to jot down what your clients are saying during sales calls or demos. You also can have your live chat agents record specific examples after chat sessions.

In the end, you want to help your prospects recognize their needs and why now is the best time to buy. Give them a reason to solve their problems today, not tomorrow.

Limited Offers

Scarcity can entice people to take action. It’s human nature to want to be part of something special.

And to speed up the sales process, businesses must tap into their customers’ brains to create that scarcity.

“Businesses keep this legacy alive by creating new products or consistently updating versions of the products they already sell. Anything new and improved, or rebranded, helps a salesperson who is creating a sense of urgency,” says Borja Obeso, Founder of Rebel Growth.

Another way is to include countdown timers on your product page, rather than showing the date the sale ends. MakersKit implements this strategy on sale items.

Timers give the precise “deadline” of when a customer will miss an opportunity. So, it encourages the consumer to either buy or face the consequence of not having the product.

Moreover, clarifying the consequences of inaction may induce FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). This occurs when people don’t want to be left out of the “in” crowd or conversation.

Restricting quantity works, too. It produces exclusivity.

Knowing that a limited supply exists tramples procrastination and entices people to take part. Amazon is well known for this technique.

Limited offers let consumers know up front that action is necessary, in order to obtain what they desire.

Visual Urgency

E-commerce centers around being the most visually attractive product. People hate ugly websites, and don’t trust them either.

Smart design can be used to appeal to a customer’s sense of urgency. Graphical elements, like color, size, and shape, play a major role in whether people click a call-to-action or abandon a shopping cart.

Colors impact your customers’ buying decisions. Oranges, reds, and similar shades work well because they remind us of emergencies.

Zendesk, a customer service software company, uses orange for their “Try it for free” button.

Arrows can also help draw people’s attention to particular information or deals. Notice how content curation tool Quuu uses an arrow to highlight their “hand curated, not machines” benefit.

Copywriter Christina Boyes, says, “Most designers and marketing writers will tell you that placing social proof and testimonies near the call to action buttons can improve your credibility and improve conversions.”

Video hosting company Wistia adds testimonials to their pricing page to help induce sales faster.

Induce emotion with your visual cues. And compel customers to learn more about your services. Influencing their behavior will create an urgent demand for your product.

What Not To Do

Knowing what to do is half the battle. The other 50% involves knowing what will not cause urgency amongst potential customers.

So, sit down with your team and discuss the copy and design tactics that should be eliminated from your website conversion strategy. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Don’t urge customers to buy just for the hell of it.
• Don’t nag customers every single day to participate in a “once-in-a-lifetime” sale.
• Don’t participate in unethical sales techniques, like lying to the customer.
• Don’t pressure a customer to buy when the service doesn’t meet their needs.
• Don’t coerce consumers into special deals only to charge them higher prices late.

Use these no-nos as a foundation to build an honest sales campaign. Your customers will value your business more.

Encourage Action

Urgency is part of our human DNA. Sometimes, we just need a little push to move forward.

Learn how urgency can work for your business model. Word selection in your copy determines whether your customer will act or not.

Offer limited offers to pique interest. Produce visual aids to draw in the buyer. And avoid common pitfalls, like dishonesty.

Don’t wait for sales. Instead, create customer urgency.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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