Is Your Business Using the Call-to-Action?

It doesn’t matter where you are in the business cycle, from start-up to established industry leader, every company needs new customers. New companies just starting off need new customers just to survive and get growing. Established businesses must replace lost customers and continue to grow in order to maintain that leadership role.

This demands the right marketing plan, tailored to the right audience and delivered the right way. One common but often overlooked aspect of marketing is using the call-to-action. It is often, if not always, found somewhere near the end of the pitch either via email, phone call or by any other marketing delivery method.

A call-to-action can be subtle or straightforward!

These call-to-action inserts can be subtle, hidden or straightforward and direct. They have been a part of the sales formula since the earliest forms of marketing and they work. Hubspot said this about the value of using the call-to-action…

 

The most important key to converting website visitors into leads is to have what marketers call a “strong call to action.”

Using these prompts at the point of purchasing decisions is generally expected, using them throughout the sales funnel is key.

The Introduction

Once you get the attention of your audience it is important to keep their attention and help them progress through the funnel. That “call to action can be employed at this introduction stage to encourage and lead your audience. This could be an invitation to get more information, an offer to learn more about services or simply a welcoming greeting. The goal here is to nudge the customer to begin the customer journey…

The Relationship

Once the introduction is made, your business then begins to court and build a relationship with your audience. The purpose of those about us pages and who we are flyers are examples of reaching your audience. Engagement and interaction tactics can also be utilized during this stage of the funnel. A catchy find out about us or see our history call will promote interest, raise curiosity and ideally keep our customers moving through the funnel.

The Business

Regardless of how amazing a customer experience your business offers or how perfectly your customer relationship building program is – it will come down to business at some point. There will be that moment when your audience chooses to become a customer. Your customer has a want or a need, your business is there to provide those solutions and answers, this juncture is the close, the sale, the business of doing business.

Using the call-to-action

The customer journey, that is the customer’s experience through the sales funnel, is meant to do many things. All of them are aimed at one goal, creating a customer. Even though the design and thought process of the funnel is built with the entire sales process in mind, it doesn’t necessarily go that way. In fact, when and where a customer chooses to make the decision to buy can come at literally any point on the journey.

This is why using the call-to-action prompt should be implemented throughout the various stages of the funnel and all along the customer journey. A customer may have a dire need and your social marketing campaign caught their attention, the sale and the process were almost instantaneous.

Another customer doesn’t have any pressing need and is merely keeping their options open. This customer inquires about your company after seeing your Facebook post, does some research, and interacts through a bot. After a relationship is built and time has been invested, this customer is won.

There is no way to determine when the right time for a particular customer is but a business can always be ready…

The Time is Now

There is a rule in sales that says you should, “always be closing.” The idea here is that there should always be an ever-present persuasion and influence toward buying.

If you want to learn more about how to best market your business or improve your marketing campaign, contact us.

That is our nudge to get you to take the next step. We hope you will become a customer and at the very least explore the ways we can make your business better.

Can you start to see how this works now?