It may seem obvious, but it’s crucial to ask people to do what you want them to do.  In marketing terms, this is called a Call to Action.  It’s a very important part of every marketing campaign, message or ad.

Any time you’re marketing your business, including your website, your brochures, social media, etc., you need to make sure you’re letting people know what you want them to do next.  Should they give you a call for a free quote?  Should they fill out a form with more information?

A  good call to action should:

• be one sentence
• be short and to-the-point
• clearly state the benefit to the customer
• ask the customer to take action (duh)
• specifically point out the action you want them to take

For example:

• Click here for our free website evaluation.
• Call 248-707-9666 or email saz@sazbean.com for a free consultation and quote.

Many businesses forget the call to action because it seems so obvious, but it just makes it clear what the next action should be if the person is interested. Even if its something like “contact me for more details”, any call to action is better than no call to action.

What do you think?

(photo by hiddedevries @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Only @ InSights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.