More comments. More shares. More sales. We all smart bloggers want that.
If that’s what you want, you need to write better copywriting, regardless of whether these texts are blog articles or sales texts. Either you sell reading. Or you sell a product.
You have to convince. Always.
And with this little trick, you will be able to write more compelling copywriting.
But what is this brilliant trick now?
Ask.
Why you should always ask
Ask?
Yup. Ask.
You have to ask your reader to take a specific action.
This question also has a name in technical jargon: call-to-action. The call to action.
A call-to-action can be a text “Now click on the yellow button”. Or the button itself, labeled “Click here.”
But why is it so important?
Why you need a call to action
If you are writing a text that is supposed to be convincing, then you need a strong call-to-action.
‘‘You have to tell your reader exactly what to do next, how to do it … and that to do it now.’’
Otherwise you will get weaker results.
That was what the old copywriters found out back then, who still sent their sales texts by post. But you also need a call to action on the Internet. These studies also show this.
Let’s take a look at that on a blog post.
This grabbed the attention with the heading and the introduction. Your reader reads sentence diligently by sentence.
At the end of the day, he thinks about leaving a comment. But he’s not sure. His time is precious.
A good call to action now would help. It would motivate him to jump over that final hurdle.
For example, you could say, “Leave a comment now,” which could increase your comments.
(Yep. It’s really that easy sometimes.)
But you also need a call-to-action with a sales text.
Again you generate attention with the headline and with the introduction. Then you come to the central part, the properties and the benefits.
In the end, your reader has to jump through the last hoop again. But he hesitates. Again, he’s not sure. Should he act? After all, there is a lot of smut done on the Internet.
A soft call to action could help you here.
Why do you need to be specific?
I’ve written here before how old copywriter Gary Halbert described his call-to-action as clearly as possible.
If you want to get action on the reader’s part, your call to action needs to be precise. As a reader, I need to know exactly what to do next. And I need to know exactly what’s next.
Please don’t leave me in the dark.
Just keep in mind that you are always as clear and direct as possible with your call-to-action.
I know. I know. When you hear all of this for the first time, it sounds super strange.
You think to yourself:
‘‘This can not be. I’m supposed to tell people exactly what to do. And does that work?.’’
Yup. Exactly. It does.
But that’s not because of your reader’s intelligence.
Why your readers aren't stupid
A call to action generally has nothing to do with unethical behaviour or any greasy sales techniques.
Your reader isn’t stupid either. By far not.
‘‘This can not be. I’m supposed to tell people exactly what to do. And does that work?.’’
The problem isn’t intelligence. It’s time.
When Lars Reader is on the Internet, the Facebook chat rings every 2 minutes. The Twitter stream rings every 5 minutes. And the cute cat pictures are already waiting for him.
It is clear to you. It’s obvious what to do next – leave a comment or hit the buy button.
But that’s far from reality. You may realize it. But not him.
And nothing is condescending about telling your intelligent reader what to do next in a straightforward manner.
Why being clear and direct is not always condescending
The thing is simple, Lars Reader thinks about other things when he sees your text.
Your text is not getting the full attention or intelligence. You only get a fraction of it.
He doesn’t study your text carefully. I have just scans.
That is also related to this article and the study described in it. If I don’t have time, then I want to understand something right away.
‘‘I want to understand what it’s about right away and I want to know what to do next … and how to do it right away..’’
So always keep in mind. The way to the goal is clear and direct.
Conclusions
If you want more comments, more shares, and more sales, you need to ask your reader to take a specific action.
And that has nothing to do with any high-pressure sales techniques. Your reader isn’t stupid either. He just doesn’t have time.
The nice thing about call-to-action is that you can use it right away. So put at least one call-to-action in every compelling copy that you write.
Think of an action for your reader to take. Ask him about it. Clear and direct.
Do you always use a call-to-action in your texts?
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