Call to Actions (CTA) are important for a particular page on your site and your whole website. They can be part of a singular webpage, an advertisement, or a piece of content on your site. A call-to-action encourages the audience to do something.
In terms of business, call-to-actions can help a business convert a visitor or reader into a lead and becoming a customer. But, of course, CTAs don’t just have to result in sales either, and they can drive various actions depending on the content’s goal.
What a Call-to-Action Means in Marketing
CTAs are relevant in marketing because they encourage your users to take action on a marketing campaign. A marketing campaign aims to guide potential customers into the buyer’s journey to make a purchase eventually.
Each marketing campaign may have a different action for the users to carry out beyond purchasing. There are several tactics you can use to guide potential customers in their journey.
Examples of Call-to-Actions
Every CTA serves a purpose, and it is key to know what works and what doesn’t. This will ultimately help decide how you want to design your ads and landing pages.
Below are some call-to-action examples that will entice potential customers to click and explore more.
1. Sign Up
You can use this CTA for a variety of different purposes. The user may be invited to sign up for a free trial, an online course, future event, or anything that you can think of that involves the user putting in their information. Of course, this all depends on the call-to-actions context of an ad or website.
Another way you can word this is by putting “Sign Me Up.” This feels way different because you see “Sign Up” more often. “Sign Me Up” makes the user feel like they are committing to something and may feel more personal and intriguing.
2. Subscribe
This CTA is helpful because it doesn’t commit a person to a purchase. Instead, it invited them to receive updates and possible sales from the company, depending on the type of business. “Subscribe” CTAs are more common for company’s blogs that want to develop and build their readership.
An email list is a great way to build up your viewership and nurture your current customers into more valuable readers. But, in order to make sure they stay interested, you have to supply quality content consistently over time.
3. Learn More
Sometimes what you are showcasing on your site or page doesn’t provide all the information, and you want your customers to get a bit more information. That’s what this CTA is for.
This is a simple and effective CTA to let your visitor know more information is out there. The simplicity of “Learn More” sets the expectation that the process of “learning more” will be smooth and painless.
4. Buy Now
This CTA may seem boring and not original, but it definitely shows that the company doesn’t mess around. This shows visitors that you should buy this and that it would be a good idea for you. “Buy Now” is an effective way to make a potential customer into a buying customer. It will make them want to click.
5. Add to Cart
This CTA is similar to “Buy Now.” While it is not encouraging customers to buy the product or services right at that moment, it encourages the customer to start building their cart.
The “Add to Cart” button has the ability to pivot the customer in the e-commerce sales funnel from prospective to paying customers.
6. Shop Now
Similar to the “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” CTAs, this CTA is the perfect way to entice online shoppers. But, this does not encourage them to buy at the very moment or build their cart at that very moment. Instead, this CTA encourages potential customers to just shop and explore their store.
This CTA would be great to use when your online store sells or promotes a certain service. It is great for using during a sale because it will make the potential customer feel as though they have savings right at their fingertips, and the “Shop Now” CTA can lead to sales.
7. Get a Quote
If your business is the type that offers services at different rates, this CTA is the one for you. With this button on a landing page, a potential customer will know what next steps they have to take within seconds of landing on the page.
Potential customers are more than likely on your page that talks about pricing because they want to know how much your services will cost them. But, this would be a great place to also put a subheading. For example, if your CTA button only says “Get a Quote,” the user won’t know what they are expecting. Are they going to get high rates? Low rates? All rates? If you add a sub-header along the lines of “Instantly Find the Lowest Price,” customers will know they will be receiving the lowest prices and be more apt to get that quote.
8. Get Started
This simple CTA can drive a variety of behaviors. Much like “Sign Up,” this CTA is useful for anything from a free trial to a free course, etc.
If you want a simple and concise CTA button, this is the one for you. It doesn’t give a lot of information away, but it will entice the user to find out more.
9. Get Limited Time Offer
This is a great CTA to use to promote a sale. Make sure that you always include as a subheading or a footnote when the sale or offer expires. This conveys to the user that there is an urgency to get this offer before it expires.
The purpose of this CTA is to tell the user that we have a special offer, what the special offer is, and that it won’t stick around for long. The urgency of this CTA can transform into profit for your company.
10. Find Out When We Have More
Nothing is more disheartening when you are looking for a product and when you’ve finally found the one you want is out of stock. As you know, it is not fun for the seller either. So even though you have run out of an item, you shouldn’t stop promoting it.
This CTA button ensures that customers don’t bounce from your site just because the item they are looking for is out of stock. This CTA turns bad news for the customer (the item they want is out of stock) into an opportunity to keep the customer (they will be the first to find out when you have more).
11. Contact Us
This CTA is compelling and is useful in many cases. For example, if you want to have customers reach out to find out more information or pay for your services, this is the CTA button that you will want to use. This is also good for businesses that want customers to leave a review and talk about their experience.
12. Get Involved
This CTA is unique if you want to get your customers and users on the site involved in the decision-making of products. For example, if you are a clothing business looking to launch a new design and clothing line but want your customer’s input, this CTA button will entice customers to vote on the design they want featured.
13. Redeem Now
This is a great email marketing approach for your email subscribers. This CTA is more useful in email marketing campaigns to send promotions to returning customers. But, this can also be useful for new customers to land on your site. For example, a CTA button that says “Redeem Now” could mean a 10% discount when you spend a certain amount. This encourages customers to make a purchase for the price shown and still save money.
Also, using the word “now” in this CTA expresses a sense of urgency to the customer, especially if you feature the offer’s expiry date in the email/on the website.
14. Get Your Free-Trial
This CTA can be worded differently in various ways that can effectively increase your business’ audience. For example, instead of saying “Get Your Free-Trial,” you can add a subtle twist on the button by saying “Claim Your Free-Trial.” Using the word ‘claim’ instead of ‘get’ or ‘start’ implies that the free trial is valuable and worthy of effort on the customer’s part. Claiming something takes time but is worth it in the long run.
15. Countdown Clock
This CTA is like the Limited Time Offer call-to-action but encourages the customer to take action. For example, if you have a limited-time offer or a sale coming up, a countdown clock is a great way to entice a customer to buy your product before the sale runs out. Or, if it is in the sense that a sale is coming up, the customer can sign up to receive an email when the sale is available so that they don’t miss out.
16. Book Now
You most notably see this CTA button with airlines or hotels to direct users towards the next steps to booking a flight or booking a hotel room. The use of the word “now” encourages customers to take that leap of faith and finish booking.
17. Checkout
This simple CTA encourages potential customers to finish their purchase and buy the items in their cart. It is best placed under the order summary. This CTA is useful whenever a customer adds a product to their cart. For example, if you have an online clothing store and add a pair of yoga pants to your cart, something will pop up to say checkout or continue shopping. Both of these encourage the customer to add more to their cart or complete their purchase.
18. Join Us
This CTA is useful if you manage an online community that works on collaboration between users. For example, clicking “Join Us” can bring up an on-page form with two or three simple fields, such as email address and name, to ask users to join.
19. Send Me Specials Now!
The purpose of this is to direct traffic to your site and keep visitors on your site and coming back for more. This is great when a site has daily specials. But, the fear that today’s specials are better than tomorrow’s might make people want to fill out the form or check out the specials for the day.
This CTA is a subtle way to get users to sign up for their email list to get the day’s specials and future specials. So not only will customers benefit by getting the specials that they want, but your business will also grow its email list.
20. Plan Your Movie Night
“Sign Up” and “Shop Now” are CTAs that many businesses use and can be ineffective because it is something that customers always see. But, using your charm and wit to craft something unique will benefit you and your business in the long run.
According to HubSpot, a marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales, personalized CTAs perform better than untargeted CTAs. For example, if you have to sell food and snacks, you can use a customizable CTA button like “Plan Your Movie Night” or “Complete Your Movie Night.” This is similar to a “Shop Now” CTA button but with a twist.
21. Shop the Collection
This call-to-action is perfect for a user who is looking at specific products. For example, if you are an online retailer that sells candles and home products, and a customer has been viewing candles, a CTA button that says “Shop the Collection” and links to the Candles Collection is a great way to help customers find what they are looking for and show them all that is available.
These are just a variety of call-to-action buttons that you can use to keep users on your site, grow your email list, and turn potential customers into new and buying customers. When you are creating your CTA Buttons, you want to make sure the color pops against other elements on the page and create a beautiful design that catches the users’ attention. You can do this by making the button color the opposite of the background color. This will attract visitors to your site to the CTA Button and serves its purpose.
Keep in mind that the examples given above are entirely customizable. So make sure you are being creative and unique and creating call-to-actions that are specific to your company and what you have to offer to the customer.
