Featured Post
Drafting a compelling CTA
By Kaylee Nelson
Rejoice! Your ad, website, landing page or piece of content marketing is on the screen in front of a potential customer and now the hard part is done because surely they’ll click on that call-to-action… right? It’s right there in front of them. They can’t miss it… but they just did. Alas, your 15 seconds of their attention is up and there they go to click on anything down the Internet rabbit hole other than what you hoped they would.
It turns out, converting a click through (when an ad click leads directly to a valuable user-action) is tougher than you may think. A large part of that success depends on how you, as the advertiser, are presenting your case through your CTA. Is it clear what you’re asking them to do? Is it clear that your CTA is a CTA and not just another part of the page?
Follow these five tips to make sure your CTA is a compelling one.
- Get Specific
Some of the most common CTAs out there are “Click Now”, “Click Here” or “Free Trial.” They are also some of the most mundane. These don’t really push people to act anymore, as they are so overused, our minds are becoming desensitized to the meaning. Use an actionable verb that describes specifically what you’d like them to do. “Download”, “Find” or “Receive” are good examples of these. “Download Ebook Now” gives a potential customer a much better idea of what they’re getting themselves into than “Click Here,” and often they will feel more comfortable doing so once they have been told.
Example:
- Get Personal
In grade school, we are always taught not to write to the audience addressing them in the second person, but in the marketing world, sometimes we have to reverse that thinking. Using personal pronouns like me, you, yours, us, we, etc. is a helpful way to add a personal touch to your CTA and make potential customers feel like you are speaking directly to them, not just to anyone that will lend you a click. In the example below, you are appearing relatable to your site’s visitor. As a potential customer, wouldn’t you rather grow your traffic instead of traffic in general?
Example:
- Get Powerful
Going hand-in-hand with getting specific with your language, making your CTA more powerful is all about how you word the action. This is such a small and simple detail – but because it takes a little extra creativity and brainpower, it is often ignored. Take a CTA urging you to sign up for a free trial for instance. Instead of having an email address field to fill out with a “Go” button after it, how about one that says, “Let’s Do it!” This verbiage expresses the same action with more enthusiasm and more dominance. A small adjustment for a largely different impression. Another example (below) doesn’t use passive verbiage like “Get Yours Free,” but instead invokes an active response of “Send a GiftRocket.” Remember to stay both assertive and creative when calling for your specific action.
Example:
- Get Urgent
Adding a time element to your CTA can be a persuasive way to narrow a potential customer’s attention on the fact that this deal/offer may not last forever. If you are advertising a product sale that only lasts 3 days, have your CTA say “Shop 3-Day Sale” instead of just “Shop Sale.” This will prompt customers to act more quickly instead of thinking they can come back to it later or get this deal at any time. Even if your offer doesn’t have a deadline, you can still add in the word “Now” for some sense of urgency. “Register Now”, “Download My Free Guide Now” or “Get Ebook Now” are all good examples of this.
Example:
- Get Pretty
After focusing so much on the correct content for your CTA, you can’t forget to give the design, placement and size of it its deserved attention as well. It is good practice to make your CTA look like a clickable button to help the customer know they can click on it. The color of the background of your button and the text on top should work together nicely in producing something clean and readable. Be careful not to try crazy or neon colors just to grab attention – you may end up doing the opposite. You also want the size of your CTA to be large enough to set it apart from the rest of the page and make it clear that it is the actionable part of the page/ad, but you don’t want to overwhelm visitors with an overly sales-y, “BUY NOW-even-though-you-don’t-know-what-you’re-buying” tactic. And as far as placement on the page, keep it up top and prominent, but make sure it is after verbiage that explains what they will get/why they should click your CTA. You want them to be educated before you prompt them for action.
Example:
Understanding customers online/gaining audience insights
By Stephen Peters, Senior Email Marketing Strategist, Content Marketing
In the B2B marketing world, it’s safe to say that the more you know about your customers, the better. And within the business sector – following the lead of the consumer sector – there has been a practical and philosophical shift occurring, according to a recent report by B2B Digital Trends, in partnership with Adobe.
These shifts have undoubtedly caused a shakeup in the way businesses are approaching how they market toward other businesses. It can no longer be assumed that because it’s always been “business as usual” between the two in the past that it will continue moving forward. Retaining a business customer is just as important, if not more, as acquiring new customers.
There are multiple avenues to pursue to gain an understanding and audience insight of those customers. The first being the social media path. In the consumer sector, it’s easy to understand what individuals want and seek – they let it be known quite frequently, whether it’s good or bad. Businesses are starting to behave in this manner as well.
It should be assumed that your potential target is on social media these days, because it’s a necessity these days, not a luxury. They’re on social media channels, they read blogs within their industry and they’re active in trying to find answers in their questions. As a B2B marketer, it’s imperative to be there with them. Follow the same blogs and subscribe to the same LinkedIn groups and engage them so your name registers with them. Little actions like that build on themselves and lead to big things later. It’s OK to track what those customers and prospects are saying. You can’t wait for them to ask you in this business climate; be proactive.
Another proactive approach is to attract them with content and keep them with experience. The consumer market is all about mobile, but the B2B world is strictly interested in content. The old adage goes “it’s about quality, not quantity,” and it certainly applies here.
Competition for attention is fierce – in any industry – and will force top-notch quality and specificity in your content. As stated in by Econsultancy.com, “the return on content is dictated by its long-term results, not a short-lived bump. Campaigns should be viewed as components of larger programs but in reality, many companies invest in content only to move on soon after launch.”
Additionally, it’s important to reuse, repurpose and re-campaign within your content strategy, and is a skill often lacking.
Lastly, in trying to gain audience insights is to use what you already have available to you. Insights are everywhere, and most business have a gratuitous amounts of information available to them already – website traffic numbers, email opens, click-through rates, etc.
Making sense of it can seem daunting, but BrightEdge, an SEO and content marketing management platform, has found the best way to build large, high-quality B2B audiences is to “regularly collect information and then immediately use each set of fresh insights.”
The data cannot simply be collected, it has to be used.
Don’t be like Kip!
Creating and distributing your content is difficult in today’s busy digital landscape. Your customers, now more than ever, are looking for engaging content before making purchasing decisions. MultiView’s Content Marketing program creates an exhaustive array of content (e.g., infographics, blogs, whitepapers, etc.) and puts it in front of your audience in an engaging way. Let’s boost those shares and retweets!
Reaching larger geographic regions with advertising
By Danielle Manley
Marketing and advertising over the past couple of years has focused on taking advantage of up-and-coming technologies. One of the most sought-after concepts has been geotargeting – delivering specific content to an audience based on their exact location.
While geotargeting has unlimited potential, it’s not the answer to every company’s marketing and advertising needs. A small business with a single location could benefit significantly from geotargeting, but what about the large corporation targeting a more diverse audience? This corporation doesn’t want to target a single, specific location; rather, it wants a larger-scale campaign that encompasses a larger geographic area.
So, how do you market and advertise to this larger geographic area without reverting back to the stagnant advertisement of the 20th century? Creation, collaboration and technology utilization.
Creation
Today’s consumer wants customization and a unique experience – and you must create it. However, creating unique advertising and marketing campaigns for consumers across a large geographic region can prove difficult. Consumers don’t want that same stagnant advertisement that they saw two months ago; they want something new, something fresh. So, what can your company create? For larger geographic areas, the creations should focus on social media because companies – and consumers alike – can share videos, articles and more with every friend or follower, and almost instantly engage in conversation. Your company’s creations should encompass the following:
- Content: Instead of a traditional advertisement, try creating sponsored content. Millennials, the largest consumer group with the most influence, want content that tells a story; don’t list off facts and statistics that tell people what they probably already know. Instead of creating an advertisement intended to pressure consumers into purchasing, create content that builds the relationship between the company and the consumer and allows for engagement between the two.
- Videos: The Animoto Online and Social Video Marketing Study shows how influential video marketing has become. Evidence from the study shows:
- Four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
- Only 14 percent of consumers remember the last display ad they’ve seen; 80 percent can recall the video ads they’ve watched online in the last week.
- Approximately 63 percent of consumers believe companies that use video understand how to reach their customers.
- Over 80 percent of consumers have liked a company video in their newsfeed; nearly half have shared a company video.
- Conversations: Now that your company has created content, it’s time to create the conversation. Millennials in particular want engagement, and with unique content and videos, you already have the base for your conversations. The channel for these conversations: social media. One thing to remember though, you cannot start the conversation and then be done with it. Today’s consumer wants interaction and personal attention; you have to continuously engage on social media to keep the consumer’s attention and build the relationship. Once the relationship is built, consumers will, in a sense, do the marketing for you in the form of shares, retweets, tags and more.
“Creations” allow companies to advertise and market to their consumers over a large geographic area in a way that is influential and effective. The ability to share and communicate over social media and mobile technology allows for instant marketing potential around the entire world. Create these three things and you can reach a larger geographic area with ease.
Collaboration
Today’s consumer is loyal – the most-loyal generation, in fact, according to Inc. Therefore, companies who collaborate with other companies who have a loyal customer base could gain a whole new set of loyal customers. Why? Because it will instill in the consumer an instant trust in the partnering company. And this consumer base will span the geographic region of the partnering company’s reign, spreading your brand even farther.
- Partnerships: Every company has partners that help the company run more effectively, but these partners typically serve a specific purpose. Have you ever considered partnering with a company of no relation for the sole purpose of sharing and increasing your customer base? For example, Gap and Virgin Hotels recently partnered to provide Gap products to Virgin Hotel guests. If a guest’s bags were lost by the airlines, they could check into their Virgin Hotel room, order clothing from the Gap, have the items delivered and the Gap bill added on to the hotel bill. They are not competitors and really had no relationship before; however, their partnership makes sense because they are able to “share” a customer base and increase their brand awareness. It’s a unique concept and consumers will take notice – and talk about it, probably on social media.
- Sponsorship: Sponsorship is not a new concept, but it’s time to take the old and make it innovative. In the past, companies would sponsor receptions, educational programs and other industry or association events, and the company’s logo and information would be displayed. However, this is an “old school” concept. The new way is to get innovative – what else could you sponsor to market and advertise your company? You can sponsor a sports team, an organization/nonprofit that is not in your industry but has a similar customer base, a fundraising event and much more. These sponsorships not only take your brand to different locations, it gives you the opportunity to do something for a cause – another thing that can affect millennial loyalty.
Technology utilization
As can be expected, technology is another way to reach larger geographic regions. But technology from two decades ago could reach large geographic regions, and we aren’t trying to regress back to the 20th century. So, what technology am I talking about for today’s marketing teams? Virtual advertising. According to the iTV Dictionary and Business Index, virtual advertising “uses computer graphics and digital editing to put products and/or related advertising into television programming.” This technology allows advertisements to be seen on TV when, in reality, the advertisements are not there. For example, when you are watching a Texas Rangers game, you will see advertisements behind the batter. These advertisements are not physically in the ballpark; rather, they are digitally placed for TV viewers. This allows for advertising to large geographic regions while also tailoring it to the viewing area because the digitally placed ad can be unique to the specific region. While this technology is currently limited to mainly sporting events, continued technological advancements will soon allow for the expansion of virtual advertising to other programs and devices.
Advertising to larger geographic regions requires companies to consider different options. For companies that have limited marketing and advertising knowledge, utilize what you do know. Millennials are the driving force behind marketing and advertising. They want unique content that builds a relationship with the company innovative concepts that make the company stand apart from the crowd, a philanthropic connection, and the ability to engage and have a conversation. Take these preferences and create the marketing campaign around them. By tapping into this generation, you are creating a relationship that will take your brand to larger geographic regions with the click of a button.
Step up your bounce rate game!
Tired of seeing prospects bounce from your site at an unbearable rate? In today’s digital world, your site must engage your audience in seconds or you’ll lose them. But just as important is the quality of the traffic you get to your site. MultiView specializes in finding the right audience of potential customers and driving them to your website through the power of targeted display advertising. And it’s no surprise that the more qualified traffic you get to your site the lower your bounce rate will go, while increasing page views and time on site.
