Is the “Call To Action” a Myth?
| August 30th, 2010 by Carl
Why don’t more visitors respond to the calls to action on your website? This question came up recently, so, I took a journey in the wayback machine to see how I handled it in my previous life as a stockbroker.
As a stockbroker, I never, ever asked prospective clients for the order. I asked enough questions to get them talking and shut up. Then I provided answers to their questions, and enough information, until the prospective client said some version of, “What’s next?” I didn’t make the ‘close’, they did.
Conversions Occur In the Mind’s of your Visitors
Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments makes a brilliant observation, “Conversion doesn’t occur on the website, it occurs in the mind of the visitor”. This is exactly what happened when my prospective client said, “What’s next?” I hadn’t sold him, or her, anything. Conversion had occurred in their minds. When they said, “What’s next?” they had sold themselves.
Billboards, Commercials and Calls to Action
So what, then, is a Call to Action? Are you really ‘calling them to action’? Are you asking for the order? You are, but, until conversion has occurred in the mind of the prospect, or visitor, your call to action is just another billboard along the highway. You can call them to action all you want to, but until they want to know “What’s next?” they are fast-forwarding through your commercial.
Calls to Action do Work
So, do you still need calls to action? Absolutely. They must be available when the visitor is ready. This is when “Add to Cart”, your telephone number, the email signup is critical. When the visitor thinks, “What’s next?” your call to action must be right there. It must be simple, visible and most importantly, available.
Don’t kid yourself that you are ‘closing’ anyone. Your visitors close themselves. Your job is to get on their wavelength and make that as simple as possible.
My old sales manager also taught me the “Pass them the pen and shut up, Close”. With the lesson being that the next person who talks loses. Unless of course it’s your potential sale saying goodbye to you.
I agree that a call to action is not the end-all strategy that gets the agreement to email, call or order. It’s the next item to do after you get that agreement.
Can you imagine what a website would look like without one?
Comment by Scott C — August 30, 2010 @ 9:40 pm
Profoundly insightful post, Carl. This is a concept that anyone in sales or marketing (i.e. EVERY BUSINESS PERSON) needs to understand an apply.
One of the major shifts that took place in my professional life came from reading Howard Browne’s book, The Secret to Selling Anything. Browne helped me to see that sales as we know it is upside down. A sale is something initiated in the mind of the buyer. The best we can do is to help him or her see that our offer is the best to serve his or her interests.
Browne calls it a “universal fallacy” to look at it otherwise.
Comment by Donnie Bryant — August 31, 2010 @ 1:28 am
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Scott – I agree – Without any calls to action, websites would be mighty confusing and frustrating places for visitors, that were ready to take that next step.
Comment by Carl — August 31, 2010 @ 8:34 am
Thanks Donnie for reminding me of Howard Browne’s book – he really understood the selling process and in addition had the gift of being able to explain his theories so that anyone who was interested could learn to do them.
Comment by Carl — August 31, 2010 @ 8:46 am
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