Or so it may seem. In reality, though, new strategies for CTA design are merely shedding light on the inefficiencies of traditional calls-to-action, highlighting the limitations of text-based calls and conventional approaches. That simple call-to-action you placed at the end of your long blog post? Forty percent of your readers will never even see it, according to HubSpot. It’s a smart CTA design that fails to account for user behavior, which dictates that even great content gets skimmed or abandoned before the consumer finishes reading it.
Click-centric calls-to-action shouldn’t be abandoned, but their value might have been overinflated due to a lack of better options. But those alternatives are quickly entering the mainstream. As a result, click-based CTAs are giving way to more aggressive means of driving action, which leverage interactive elements to captivate consumers and lure them into engagement.
To be sure, marketers understand the value of driving an action from any type of content. We understand the basic principles behind a good CTA: Make calls prominent on the page, focus on driving one single action, and keep both the page and the CTA text simple.
But there’s a difference between asking a consumer to take action and compelling them to do so without thinking. Most CTAs are built in the mold of the former: They use content to make their case, then solicit a response from the user. It’s better than nothing, and definitely better than irrelevant pop-up or display ads. But it falls short of the potential truly compelling content has to offer.
As branded content strategy grows more diverse and dynamic, consumer attentions are being drawn to what’s most interesting and engaging. Innovative technologies are presenting immersive experiences where CTAs can thrive, and they’re setting the bar for engagement expectations across any content medium.
Augmented and virtual reality, 360-degree video, and beautifully-designed interactive graphics are all offering new, immersive experiences that bring consumers into a new context, treating them to experiences that were once the work of science fiction.
As Ulla Engeström (founder and CEO of interactive media platform ThingLink) notes for Medium, the perspective shift is subtle but critical: No longer positioned on the outside looking in at content, consumers now experience that content from within. These advanced forms of content may not be accessible to every brand, but marketers shouldn’t be discouraged: Easy-to-use tools can facilitate CTA installations into VR and other digital environments, meaning that consumers can discover these interactive points and engage with them. ThingLink’s virtual reality content app allows students, teachers, and parents to poke around an ecosystem—the French Alps, an Australian archipeligo—and get a hands-on learning experience. Imagine the effects that sort of an experience could have for a brand.
In a VR environment, for example, you just have to present users with a point of interaction, and they’ll be happy to explore this new form of content. This can range from branded experiences simply exploring a new environment or space, or it could be as specific as letting users try out a real-world product in a virtual space: Test-driving luxury cars, for instance.
Asking consumers to test-drive a car is as basic a CTA as you’ll find. But VR can create an experience that begs to be engaged on its own: Users could test-drive a car on a race-track or on a famous highway, or play around with the car’s dashboard. Through that experience, they grow a desire for that car and the brand, and they move one step closer to a conversion.
But because it’s so new and naturally engaging, building a CTA into a VR environment is easy, as long as you know how to do it. The trick is using these lessons to build more engaging CTAs across other types of content.
Marketers should look for CTA strategies that capitalize on the consumer’s desire for engaging experiences. As the Content Marketing Institute notes, Funifi built a newsletter sign-up CTA into a parenting-type quiz that required an email to deliver results.
The company saw great success: 2,700 newsletter subscriptions were added in the first 72 hours after the online quiz was launched.
Alternatively, Solar Simplified went beyond a piece of content that laid out the potential cost savings of switching to solar power for a residential home. Instead, it created a calculator to tabulate the potential savings for each potential customer, and then used those results to recommend an inquiry into solar power equipment:
In Solar Simplified’s case, the CTA was still as simple as a click deeper down the sales funnel. But consumers reached that point by going through an engaging, informative experience built on a custom calculator that personalized solar power’s potential savings.
With so much content floating around the internet nowadays, basic CTAs are a good start, but companies must start thinking about cutting-edge ways to engage and convert their audiences. Brands need to think outside the box and figure out how an organically interesting experience can be the launching pad for next-generation calls to action.
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