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5 Ways to Create a Better Call-to-Action

June 8th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

I write lots of blog posts, website content and ad copy, and often the trickiest part is the call-to-action (CTA). No matter how engaging your content is, the goal is to motivate your target audience to take action. That action may be as simple as signing up for your newsletter, or it may have a more immediate payoff if you convince someone to hire you or buy your product.

Either way, a strong CTA can put your copy and return a real investment. Here are five ways you can start creating more effective CTAs for your online marketing content, from blog posts to websites, right now.

1. Have someone sing your praises.

You’ve probably noticed that the back cover of every book you read has a list of industry experts explaining how great the book is. And, you can hardly turn on the TV without seeing a celebrity endorsing everything from weight loss plans to athletic shoes.

Credible endorsements work, and they can add tons of motivation to your CTAs. Start cultivating relationships with fellow bloggers and peers who would add credibility and clout to your posts. This goal will take some time, but it is worth it to have someone singing your praises that you – and your readers – respect.

2. Make a clear and tangible offer.

Readers like to know what they’re going to get before committing to your offer. Spell out exactly what your audience will receive when they respond to your CTA, and they will be more inclined to take action.

Write a headline that explains exactly what will happen if readers click on your offer. “Double your Facebook Likes in 1 month” is better than “Get More Facebook Likes.”

Assign a monetary value to your offer so readers feel like they are getting a bargain. Telling readers your webinar is worth $200 can compel them to attend.

Show readers an image of the offer when possible. If you are offering an e-course, showing an image of books and CDs can help readers visualize it.

3. Prove yourself socially.

Similar to earning an endorsement, gaining social proof adds credibility to your offer. A third-party recommendation of your blog may seem difficult to get, but all you have to do is guest post on popular blogs to get the same effect.

Be sure your posts are completely original so they will add value to the host blog as well. Well-known blogs only publish guest posts that are intriguing and useful, so if you are able to be featured, you will prove that your content is worth reading on a regular basis.

4. Know what your audience wants.

Do you know what your audience really wants? I’m talking about the things that keep them up at night, like a viral blog post or a successful Twitter campaign.

When you understand what your audience really wants, you are able to spell it out for them in your offer. The best way to do that is to speak with your readers in person or on the phone. Even if you can only talk to a handful of readers, their insight will help you craft more compelling CTAs for your entire audience.

5. Always be relevant.

What is the best time to offer readers a free e-book on SEO? The best time is right after they’ve read your blog post on creating keywords.

An SEO e-book offer is relevant to readers who’ve already shown interest on the subject by reading your blog post. So, you are more likely to get clicks on your CTA because your audience is primed to want more information on the subject.

Creating relevant offers takes time, but as you continue fueling your blog with engaging content, you will build a stash of content to repurpose for future CTAs.

***

How do you create offers your audience can’t resist? Share your tips for creating effective CTAs in the comment section below.

Image courtesy of designyourway.net

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Tags: ads, blogs, call-to-action, CTA, Marketing, online marketing, Search Marketing, social media, websites
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Small Business Social Media Trends

February 21st, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

When it comes to small businesses, Anita Campbell, author of Visual Marketing, knows a thing or two. Recently, Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner interviewed Campbell for her insight on small business social media trends. Here are some of the key takeaways:

Believe it or not, some small businesses won’t get much business from social media, no matter how hard they try. For example, a small landscaping company that gets most of its business from local neighborhoods may not see an impact from Facebook or Twitter. Campbell suggests businesses like this should stick to fliers, word of mouth marketing, and customer testimonials to get their message to the target market.

Campbell’s biggest tip for growing an online community sounds familiar, but it is worth repeating: When it comes to social media communications, don’t just broadcast – engage! Campbell believes in pulling information back in from your social networks and fostering back-and-forth conversation, rather than sending out tweets and posts that simply tell your audience what you’d like them to know. Give them a chance to talk, too, and you’ll get a better return for your investment on social media.

And, what is the biggest mistake Campbell sees small businesses making online? It’s neglected websites, and they’re really a turn-off for customers. When your website is out of date, and you greet customers with 2-year-old information, you’re sending customers a bad message. If you are neglecting your website – your online storefront to the world – how much attention do you give to your customers or to other parts of your business?

Campbell is constantly watching small business trends through her sites, BizSugar and Small Business Trends, and here is what she is seeing now:

Everyone is going mobile, including small businesses. They are embracing mobile marketing with text messaging, location-based coupons and QR codes.
Many small businesses are getting really good at social media. They’re out there testing different campaigns and communications tactics, and they’re getting big results.

Are you one of the small businesses embracing mobile and excelling at social media? You can check out more small business marketing tips and trends from Anita Campbell on BizSugar and Small Business Trends.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: Anita Campbell, engagement, Facebook, local search, Marketing, mobile, qr codes, social media, trends, Twitter, Visual Marketing, websites
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 4 Comments »

5 Website Mistakes to Avoid – and How to Fix Them

October 11th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

Because I write and edit website content on a regular basis, I am constantly running into common mistakes that everyone – small businesses, high-tech startups and well-established mid-sized companies – regularly makes. Here are the top five I see most often, along with how to fix them:

1. Keywords mushed into the content

When I write website content, I add the keywords a company wants to use for SEO once the content has been approved. I simply replace words and terms that are already there with the ones that the search engines will reward, but I always, always, always focus on readability.

If you just mush as many keywords as you can into the content with no thought about keeping the flow natural and sentences readable, you will make the content so hard to read that it’ll actually end up sounding fake and forced.

2. The “About Us” page is not about you

The About Us page should delve deeply into your company and go beyond what you do, rather than regurgitating the benefits and features of your products and services. What is your philosophy? How do you do what you do? How are you different from competitors?

You also want to briefly introduce the people who matter – the founders, the company leadership, your advisors. Their bios should be short and friendly. List their role at the company and a brief background that illustrates their expertise and experience. I also like to include some personal stuff to make them more approachable and “real.”

3. Auto-play audio or video

When you arrive at a website for the first time, do you like to be accosted by auto-play audio and video? Me neither. The worst is when you can’t even find the “stop” button and you have to scramble to turn down the volume.

Think carefully about adding an auto-play feature, as it is basically the equivalent of a salesperson who won’t shut up glomming onto you as soon as you walk through the door. No one likes to have something forced on them. Add your audio or video, but give your site visitors the option of listening to or watching it.

4. Hard-to-find contact info

There is no reason your contact information should be hidden. If you have a home office, get a post office box, but you should have your mailing address, phone number and email visibly displayed on your site.

5. Confusing site navigation

It should be super easy for your website visitors to not only find what they are looking for on you site, but also find their way back to where they started. Leave breadcrumbs scattered around by hyperlinking your logo to the home page and adding a home page button on each page. But also make sure that when they enter your services or products sections, it is easy for them to start their search over again.

Image by Flickr user Paul Downey (Creative Commons)

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Tags: About Us, audio, content, keywords, Marketing, seo, site navigation, video, website design, websites
Posted in Marketing, Web Design | 2 Comments »

How to Write Engaging Website Content That Will Generate Leads Part 1

August 24th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Writing website content that generates leads

Ever try to write website content for your own business? It is hard – really hard. I am a copywriter, and I struggled to write content for my own website even though I write for other companies’ sites all the time without a problem.

I think the problem most people run into when writing their own content is they don’t understand one simple thing: You cannot write about yourself from one page to the next. No one, but no one, cares about what you do and how you do it (OK, maybe your mom cares). They (really, us) just care what problems you solve for them (us).

In this three-part series, I will walk you through the beginning, middle, and end of writing website content that connects with your target market to the point that they say, Wow, I need to work with/buy from these guys.

Naturally, we will start at the beginning. Here are the first three things you need to do to write truly spectacular website content:

1. Define your target market.

Most companies think they know who their customer is, but they don’t because they are not specific enough. You can’t just say, My customers are government contractors or professional services firms. You need to drill down to specifics: revenue, employee size, geographic location, specialties, gender, age, income level, education level, etc.

Until you know exactly who you are trying to sell to, you can’t write anything.

2. Define your services.

Yes, I know you know what you do. But do you explain it in the most straightforward way possible? If your service is on the more complex side (financial advisor, let’s say), or sounds vague when you state what it is you do (management consultant), you need to break down your services and clearly define each one. What are the problems your clients have? What are the solutions? How do you implement those solutions and save the day?

So, instead of saying, “I provide interior design services,” list that you do space planning, staging for home sales, work with contractors during renovations, etc.

3. Write your value proposition.

Your value proposition is what makes you unique. It is the reason people buy your products and services. So sit down and brainstorm all the reasons you are different from the competition. If you want more inspiration, ask your clients why they chose you over everyone else. (All those quotes can become testimonials for your website.)

When you write your value prop, focus on your clients and the benefits you offer them. First start out by saying what problems you solve, then explain how you do it. It should be one sentence long, and it should flow nicely, as if you were actually talking to someone.

Your value proposition will go on the home page of your website. It has to be really good (no pressure!).

In my next post, we’ll cover the “middle” of writing website content: what pages to include, how to lay them out, and what to actually write in them.

Image by Flickr user dtron (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, target market, value proposition, website content, websites, writing
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Inbound Marketing and Online Advertising: Just-Released Stats and What They Mean for Your Business

August 5th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Inbound Marketing

I recently downloaded the just published “The Marketing Data Box,” and I found the information super useful for decisions related to online marketing. In this, the first of a two-part series, we’ll look at data on inbound marketing and online advertising; in the second, we’ll look at video marketing and mobile advertising.

So, where should you be spending your marketing dollars? Let’s begin by looking at the big picture. When it comes to marketing online, B2B and B2C businesses use:

Websites: 88%
Email: 84%
Social media: 66%
Paid search: 50%
Banner ads: 41%

If you are still relying on traditional marketing channels like direct mail and print ads because you think that online marketing is too costly, consider these numbers:

In 2011, the average cost per lead for outbound marketing was $373, while inbound was $143.

The least expensive inbound channels are blogs, social media and SEO, so if you are using those, you are likely spending your time and money well.

The most expensive? Paid search (PPC). (The most expensive source of leads overall, by the way, is trade shows.)

Don’t count out paid search, though, because it is still less expensive than traditional marketing or advertising. If you want to try it, use these numbers to help you decide where to spend your online ad dollars:

Google’s Ad Network reaches 93.1% of Americans online, followed by Yahoo Network Plus with an 85.5% reach, AOL Advertising with 85% and Yahoo Sites with 84.5%. Facebook.com crossed into the top 10 for the first time in January 2011 with a 72.3% reach.

So if you had to choose between advertising on Google and advertising on Facebook, you’ll need to know the demographics of your target market.

According to Gallup, men (42%) are about as likely as women (45%) to have a Facebook page. However, men (63%) are 12.5% more likely than women (56%) to say they visit Google in a given week. Overall, 40% more U.S. adults say they use Google in a typical week (60%) than have a Facebook page (43%).

“The Marketing Data Box” is a quarterly series published by Watershed Publishing’s Data Insights, based on HubSpot’s data and using graphics supplied by MarketingCharts.com.

Image by Flickr user epSos.de (Creative Commons)

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Tags: blogs, email, Facebook, Google, Inbound Marketing, Marketing, onine advertising, paid search, pay-per-click, PPC, seo, social media, The Marketing Data Box, websites
Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

How to Find Decision Makers on Social Media

May 6th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

Though social media is a great way to connect with your target market, using it to find the decision makers you can pitch directly to is not discussed very often. That’s too bad, because social media gives you the tools to not only find them, get introduced to them, and discover what their company is up to, but also to listen to them to learn what they are talking about.

Here’s what to look for on social media to help you find and connect with decision makers:

Title

Whether you are doing a little reconnaissance on LinkedIn or working through the list of people who have downloaded your white paper, the person’s business title will indicate where they fall on the corporate hierarchy and thus whether or not they can make decisions. If you target IT directors, for instance, you don’t want to waste your time on a network administrator, while the CTO might be too high up and therefore too busy to chat with you.

Social Media Updates

Use the information that either the person or their company is pushing out on social media to figure out if they are ready to buy.

Look around on LinkedIn for company news, such as new product or service launches, acquisitions, expansion efforts, and other clues that will tell you how sales-ready they are.

Find them on Twitter and start following their tweets. If they write about something you like, retweet it. If they write about something you can help them with, direct message them.

Follow their company on Facebook if you have not already.

This is not social media-related, but this is another really great way to find out more information about a company: Does their website have a news page? If so, it’ll be full of press releases—a great way to find out more information.

Connections

If your lead is not the decision-maker, search for a mutual connection to him or her on LinkedIn, and ask for an introduction.

The most important part of finding the decision-maker on social media is taking the time to listen to them. Before you know how to approach them and what you should say to them, you have to listen (or, really, read) what they are talking about, looking for, commenting on, and sharing. Hopefully they also share what events they are attending so you know to look for them there.

Of course, if you see them post something that is relevant to your product or service, jump into the conversation. Otherwise, hold back until you can create a compelling pitch that will grab their attention.

Image by Flickr user shining.darkness (Creative Commons)

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Tags: decision makers, Facebook, LinkedIn, news, social media, Twitter, websites
Posted in Marketing, small business, Social Media, social media | No Comments »