This is the last episode in our conversation on growing your list. We move onto the next topic after this one. Last, and certainly not least, for growing your list is the Call To Action. You need to create a sense of urgency, use action words and more to ensure you’ve gained a new subscriber.

00:22 Andy Shore: Welcome back. Today, we’re gonna wrap up our conversation for now on growing your email list, and that focus that we’ve been on the last couple on writing compelling copy as a way to grow your list on those sign-up forms. And what we’re gonna talk about today is a call to action.

00:39 Daniel Miller: Yeah, so the call to action on a sign-up form is, of course, the button that they have to click on to finally submit that form. And as I say submit, I wanna tell you, humans are not computers. When you say submit, eh, they may not register with that right away. Something like sign up, yes, I want this, something like that, that may have you stand out from the rest of the competitors that are out there. So those are just a few examples before we really dig into CTA’s calls to action.

01:07 AS: Yeah, that’s a good point. I think the default is submit, but that sounds like you’re trying to get someone to bend to your will, [chuckle] or even like a join us, that could get a little culty. Yeah, I’m thinking about how someone’s gonna do that, and what’s gonna make them want to do it. If you can do it in a way like, One of my favorite bands, when you go to their website and their sign-up form pops up, the two options are, “Yes, I want more face-melting rock and roll,” or “No, I like my face where it currently is.” Which are funny, it makes sense for the brand, but they do it in a way where it’s like, yeah, I want face-melting rock and roll. If you can make that call to action and get someone excited about for what clicking that button means, that’s what an effective call to action is.

01:58 DM: Again, what you just described right there, I think that is the perfect example of… When I picture somebody that’s rock and roll, they’re looking for face-melting rock and roll, right? If you just say yeah, sign me up, yeah, they’ll probably get subscribers, but the face-melting rock and roll, you’re speaking to your audience. And I think that’s the biggest thing that you wanna do there, remember who you’re speaking to and talk to them like they wanna be spoken to. I was just looking up on a site… Oh my goodness, I just lost it. But yeah, very similar to what Andy’s saying. Don’t just go with the default ones, try to figure out what is it… Put your buyer persona in your mind and talk to them at every point of contact on your website, and most importantly when they’re filling out a form and about to submit it.

02:41 AS: Yeah. And the most beautiful design work you put into that web page into the sign-up form, it could look amazing. If it doesn’t also have a compelling call to action, that CTA isn’t there, all the work you did is for nothing. The design doesn’t matter if the call to action isn’t there to back it up.

03:01 DM: Yeah exactly. And I’m trying to think what else we can really say about calls to action. One thing that I really like in case to action from other websites… And this is becoming more of a norm because of the security factors out there. For example, if you’re with trustee, I believe that by default you have to have your terms of use next to any form that somebody is filling out, meaning next to the call to action. But that’s also a very valuable piece of real estate, for you to say something like, “We will not sell or share your information.” Think of what fear your customer may have. Maybe it’s, “We promise we’ll only send to you once per month.” Whatever that is, that’s also a really good opportunity right next to the call to action that’s kind of supportive to what they’re about to submit. So it’s not necessarily the call to action, but it helps support somebody to feel confident to click on the call to action.

03:57 AS: Definitely. And just some other aspects of the call to action to consider is, make it action-oriented, so they feel like they need to act on it, like, “Sign up today. Join us now.” It’s that sense of urgency that’s gonna make them want to take action that’s important. Make it big and clear. That font should be easy to read, you can’t miss it. If you got a big blue button and tiny little white text in the middle of it, it’s gonna look weird, one, but they’re not gonna be able to easily read it. Think about those old people remotes that are giant with the giant numbers, that’s really how the text needs to look on that call to action because, well, our CMO will probably laugh when she listens to this episode, but oftentimes in our meeting, we get a request from her to zoom in one more on a doc that we’re all looking at on the projector, those things. And she loves to remind us that as we age we’re gonna be in that camp, too, so it’s important to remember that that anyone at any range is using the internet nowadays, so make that call to action easy-to-read.

05:01 AS: And last not least, test. We keep talking about testing. This is another opportunity. Even something that seems so small to you, to what you’re call to action button on the sign-up form says can make huge differences. If you have great automations that trigger once someone signs up through a sign-up form and you’re converting crazy amounts of sales in that automation, something as small as upping the percentage of people on your page that sign up on that sign-up form can mean huge dollars and cents for your business. So test out what that copy is, what you’re writing, to make a compelling call to action to sign up to your email list, because it’s gonna pay off for you in the end.

05:44 DM: Yeah. And not just the copy on the call to action as well, but the visual of it, make sure that it stands out. If you have a white background, don’t do a transparent call to action with just a border. Don’t forget, this is kind of more of getting into a discussion with your design team and marketing team. The marketing team wants the action to happen, the design team wants it to look good. Find that middle balance there, but make sure that the call to action stands out so your subscribers don’t miss it.

06:13 AS: Definitely. And this concludes our whole section on growing your list. I’m sure we’ll revisit at some point in the hopefully very long history of this podcast, but for now we’re gonna move on to the next topic, which is now that you’ve put in all the work to grow your list, let’s start to understand your subscribers and get to know who they are. And so we’re gonna launch an entire conversation about that in the next several episodes. Thanks for sticking to us about this section, and we’ll catch you next time.