Getting Prospects to Actually Take Action With Your Emails

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There’s a reason that email marketing is one of the most lucrative marketing strategies out there:

It’s the relationship you build with your prospect in the inbox and how you position your offer that ultimately gets them to take action.

I’ve been talking a lot about email marketing in our recent Minute Minutes precisely because when you get email dialed in - you can use it to make a huge difference in your business.

And, with the right tools, like Connect365, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time either.

Today, I need to bring up a major part of any email success. This is the final push to get your prospects to take action:

The Call to Action.

Keep reading to learn:

• When to use what types of CTA’s
• Why you need to send the right CTA to the right audience
• What the different CTA’s can look like
• How to get more clicks on your CTA’s

Why A Call to Action

Put simply: A call to action is what pushes your prospect to do what you want (ideally). 

The sounding horn in a battle saying, “It’s time to act.”

Of course, when you read emails in your inbox, you're not hearing horns. But what you are seeing from those who understand calls to action is exactly what you should do if you want to take the next step.

The email itself has many purposes…

• To entertain
• Educate
• “Edutain”
• Build relevancy and awareness
• Stay top of mind
• And ultimately - to sell

We’ll get into why you need to adjust your CTA’s to align with the purpose of your emails.

The email itself needs to fulfill its purpose by educating, entertaining, selling, etc and then you need to tell the reader what to do next. 

Without a call to action, your reader is left thinking - “Well that’s nice.” And they get on with their day.

Will that email give you more sales? Nope! You haven’t directly told them what to do. 

Remember that when you minimize confusion, you have a straighter shot to the sale. A clear CTA helps you get that.

Alright, let’s talk about the types of CTA’s…

Know the Room: Types of CTA’s

You need to know how to adapt your call to action to “the room.” IE - to the people you’re writing to. The type of CTA should absolutely change for certain audiences. For example -

• A sales email with a CTA directly to a sales page should go to a “warmed up” audience.
• A purely educational email with a CTA to a blog post or video can go to cold or warmed-up audiences.

As mentioned above, knowing the purpose of your email will help with this. The reason it’s important to know your audience is that when you send a sales email, you will get far fewer conversions going to a cold audience who doesn’t know you. In fact, if you get any, you’d be lucky. That would mean that in your email you were able to build enough trust and credibility for them to take action right away.

That doesn’t always happen. Sending sales emails to an audience who’ve already heard from you multiple times is a better strategy.

Your call to action will reflect the email’s purpose.

CTA Placement and Design

Alright, what should your CTA’s actually look like? Take a quick look at the emails you’re already getting and you’ll notice several different varieties -

Pure text hyperlinks or buttons usually.

Let’s get into the nuances though.

1. First - how many should you include?

Then the answer is there’s no RIGHT answer… only what works for you. CTA best practices include two opposing theories -

Include as many different CTA’s as possible in order to appeal to somebody on your list.

Or…

Include just ONE CTA to provide a focused action and lessen confusion. 

Usually, my own emails to my list tend to include just one call to action - whether that’s to see a video, read a blog post, attend a webinar, or go to a sales page to buy something.

In those cases where we provide more than one CTA, it’s usually in a “round-up” of interesting blog posts or something similar. 

2. Ok - Second, placement. Where should you put your CTA’s in your email?

Best practices suggest that you place the CTA “above the fold” meaning at the top of your email so that the reader can see it without scrolling down. 

I do this sometimes and sometimes I don’t - it depends.

One factor it depends on is the email length. If the email is lengthy, I will always include just 1 CTA but include it several times. If the email is shorter, I find that just 1 CTA is sufficient. Whether I put it first or last in the email depends on the content of the email itself and where it fits best. 

For example, sometimes, I include the CTA after I tell a story. Sometimes the email gets right to the point with a CTA near the top of the email.

3. Third - Design - hyperlink vs buttons

I already mentioned that I tend to use hyperlinks in the emails but we have used buttons as well, specifically when we’re sending out a newsletter. The answer for you will really just be testing. That way you can see what your audience responds best to.

Best practices for hyperlinks and buttons alike include giving them space and making them stand out in some way:

Whether it’s bolding the text

Changing the color

Using arrows 

Etc.

One thing that helps is to put the hyperlink in its own line so that it’s easy to see and read and easy to click on!

4. CTA text

There are a lot of opinions out there on this. Here’s my take - the CTA (and the email copy leading up to it) needs to reflect the benefit of taking the action you want the reader to take. 

Some common CTA’s are:

• Click here
• Buy now
• Get more clients here
• Register now
• Access the report here
• Shop fall collection now
• Access your account
• Get 50% off today
• Start testing
• Learn more
• Start planning
• Show me how
• Run faster

Your Turn: Get More Clients + Time Back

Understanding the power of CTA’s in your emails is crucial if you want people to click through and respond. 

However, the problem too many businesses have with email marketing, whether to a mass list or to hand-picked prospects during an outreach campaign…

Is that it takes time, they don’t really know what to do, and/or they don’t know what to say that will:

1. Connect
2. Entice engagement 
3. Build a relationship 
4. Get sales

If that’s you too, don’t worry. This is most small business owners. The good news is, you don’t have to do it all on your own. 

My team and I have created a TURNKEY Lead Generator and Prospecting system that literally takes care of all of this FOR you, plus a whole lot more.

That means that while you’re focused on closing clients, servicing clients, growing your business, and everything else you have to do - you can rest easy knowing that you’ve still got enough hand-picked leads coming in every month. 

It gives you:

• Thousands of high ticket leads sent directly to you over the next 12 months
• Increases your brand awareness and visibility without creating any content
• And improves your sales process so that taking sales calls is a breeze
• So you can sign dozens (or more) high-paying clients

And most importantly…

• It takes work OFF your plate instead of adding it. 

If you’d like better results from your emails - while opening up more time so you can focus on other things (instead of sending emails all day), then join me for a private Zoom call. 

I’ll explain the whole system we’ve developed that provides leads and clients - without taking up more of your time.

I’d love for you to be there. The system is designed to deliver thousands of handpicked leads and dozens of clients every year.

Honestly, I wish I had something like this when I was still new in business.

That’s thanks to smart systems and technology that helps us do it. 

Join me on a private Zoom call to learn more about how you can grow your revenue and your business while doing less work.

>>>Register here and mark your calendar.