All marketers are familiar with Calls to Action (CTA) used to motivate a prospect to take action. In the pre-internet era this usually manifested itself as a "Call our 800 number."
The 800 number is certainly still in use today but is gradually being replaced with the more modern "Visit our Website". For many companys, 100% of their marketing spend is focused on driving traffic to their website and good SEO/SEM processes can help with traffic. However, once visitors arrive at the Corporate website the hard part begins.
How do we create a powerful CTA to filter serious prospects and convert them to leads once they are on the website?
Typical web based CTAs are offers for things like Whitepapers, Webinars and Self-Service Pricing. Most B2B markerters depend on this stable of CTAs for a reason; they work. The reason they work is that they abide by the 5 rules for effective CTAs:
1. It must have high value to the prospect
2. It should only be available on the vendor's website (scarcity)
3. It should appeal more to a serious prospect than a casual prospect
4. It should appeal to prospects in the early or "research" phase of a project when the vendor's value proposition has the most impact
5. It must be easy to act on for the prospect
Typical CTAs satisfy portions of this list. Item #1 (high value) is hard to determine because most prospects realize
that some CTAs are simply warmed‐over sales pitches. Keep whitepapers and webinars fresh with current issues and stick with solid whitepaper tactics.
Scarcity (#2) is an issue with the ubiquitous nature of the internet; make sure your content is not available via an easy Google search.
Items 3, 4 and 5 represent the true sweet spot for a successful CTA because the combination will ensure high quality prospects that can be influenced early in the sales cycle.
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