SUMMARY
Episode 32
On this episode of Video Marketing Unscripted, Ben answers Steve’s question: Is there a science to creating a good call to action?
It actually takes art, as well as science to create a good call to action. Ben explains how you use both to create a good call to action, explains the purpose of a call to action, and then offers some tips on how to best utilize your call to action.
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TRANSCRIPT
00:04 Ben: Or like a cat.
[music]
00:10 Ben: Hi, I’m Ben. Welcome to Video Marketing Unscripted, where I answer you video marketing questions completely unprompted. Bullshitting since 2017, 1979, whenever. Anthony, what’s our question today?
00:22 Anthony: Well, Ben, today’s question is from Steve in Durham. And he would like to know, “Is there a science to creating a good call to action?”
00:29 Ben: Okay. That’s a good question. Yeah. I think there’s a little bit of science to it. I think there’s a little bit of art to it also. So the art in the CTA probably actually starts in your video. You’re kind of setting them up for a certain action that you want them to take. The science then is having the strategy behind knowing where you want them to go next and making it as easy as possible for them to do that. For starters, a call to action is basically that thing that you want your viewer to do next. So this is your opportunity to kind of move them through their buyer’s journey. Get them to move to the next step in the funnel, ideally closer to a sale, typically. So hopefully what you’ve done is you’ve created a video that’s got someone wanting to take that step, whether they know what that step is or not. And a call to action is your opportunity to say, “Here’s what I want you to do next.” If you’ve got that kind of awareness brand piece and now you want them to learn more about your products, the call to action is a great opportunity to say, “Go to this page, sign up for a demo, sign up for a free trial,” whatever it is you want them to do next, so that they don’t have to guess.
01:39 Ben: You could have your website laid out with a whole bunch of great supporting content. It could be structured perfectly, but let’s think about it. People really like to be guided through any kind of process that they’re going through. If you leave them to figure it out, that just increases the chance that they may actually leave, because how much thought do we actually put into things, right? When it’s really easy to say, “Here’s the next place I want you to go,” it’s easy to go there. So that’s why you’d wanna use a call to action. Another thing about calls to action is you want them to be very simple and very straightforward. So when you’re thinking about the language of them, for example, you want it to be something kind of action-oriented and very short. Facebook’s got a great example. If you’re setting up a Facebook ad or any kind of promoted post, you’ve got basically six options. And I think they’re all two words. It’s like, “Subscribe now,” “Buy now,” “Learn more.” It’s very simple so that people don’t have to think a whole lot. You don’t wanna give them options, you wanna send them to one particular place.
02:40 Ben: Another thing you can do, and depending on the video hosting platform you’re on, you can actually integrate calls to action in end cards to your videos. So it’s not necessarily saying, “Go here, subscribe now,” it’s actually, “Click here to subscribe,” and then they’ve actually got a link that they can click that actually subscribes them. Or, “Click here for a demo,” and it takes them directly to a page where they can sign up for a demo for the product. It used to be that you had to tell someone what to do. Now you’ve really got the opportunity to just give them something to click, and then they’re right where you want them to be. So, Steve, I hope that answered your question. If you’ve got a video marketing question that you’d like me to answer, put it in the comments or fill out the form on our site. You’re welcome.