Here is How to Improve your Online Content Engagement with CTA’s
Do more than improving brand awareness, focus on your contents’ ROI
Some 5 years ago, I did not know what CTA’s were. And I did not care either, because I had no knack for it at that time. What I loved doing was hunting, not lions or deers. Instead, I enjoyed hunting rabbits…
As difficult and time taking as hunting could be, I learned over time to be more strategic about every decision I make. Why? Those little sprinters (rabbits) are intelligent.
I could wait all day for the perfect time to take action and nothing happened. When I got frustrated, I had to start thinking. Because at that point, none of the tricks I had up my sleeves seemed to work.
I could even do without the sleeves at that point. So I did something different, something I’d never tried before. And this time, instead of running after them, I designed a process that would bring the rabbits to me.
I set up a trap. Different from what they were familiar with. A series of booby traps that all synchronized towards one goal. Get them to come down to the “promise land” — A transparent cage locked with a lot of goodies inside of it.
Usually, when you set a trap, you leave the door open, and then it shuts when they are trying to get the goodies, right? I tried that many times, and with zero success. So I re-engineered the whole process, thanks to a good friend of mine.
Told him about the idea and he came up with something solid after several attempts. This time around, I wanted to earn their affirmation — I needed those sprinters to take an action. More like a “Yes, I want the nuts”.
Again, I placed little nut rewards for every step they made along the way. But this time around, the door of the cage was shut. So when they finally got to the “promise land” — to eat the whole stack of nuts — all they had to do was step on the extended trap plate beneath their feet and the door would open.
And with this different approach, I recorded more success than I usually would do.
This is about the case for you, your business, and the content you’re creating consistently. After all the creative pictures, infographics, and long-form content writing, you get no lead, nothing in the pipeline.
It’s not always about creating content every day for the entire year. It’s a little more than that. More than the creatives of the picture or the videos created or the podcast recorded. All these are like a cake with no icing.
The icing is what calls your attention to a cake. And in my case, the booby traps (nuts) called the attention of the rabbit to the extended trap plate right at the door of the cage. They step on it, they see the door open right in their eyes and this stirs their desire to go for it.
Without the extended plate trap, the booby traps were like content without a CTA. The CTA tells your reader what to do next. If there is no CTA in your content, then you are expecting your reader to assume the next step to take.
Content that does not take your reader to the next phase, like handing a baton over to the next runner, will leave the reader stuck.
Does the CTA have to be a Call to Action with an offer? No, it also doesn’t have to be right at the button of the content. It doesn’t have to tell the reader “Buy now because the offer closes in 3 days.”
It could be a simple link that takes them to another blog post where they get more information that benefits them. It could be hyperlinked in the article they are reading. It could be a subscription form assuring them of informative emails. It could be a link to watch your recent youtube video or a link to your new podcast.
Whatever it is, there should be something handing over the next action to them in your content. Without any doubt, informative content packs a punch on how it meets the needs of the reader. But what happens after they get what they want?
The article or video has just helped them answer a question they need answers for. Do you think they will be receptive to your request asking for their name and emails? Yes. That's why you should lead them on with a CTA
This is exactly how Content Marketing works. And many top companies understand that there is more work to be done. Even after writing an impressive SEO article and it’s ranking on the first page of Google.
Adding a CTA somewhere in the article, telling them to subscribe would be a better option. This is because when you tell them what to do next, you get to increase engagement, their engagement with your content.
Companies like Hubspot are experts at this. SEO is a big thing, we already know. Still, Hubspot holds a large chunk of the SEO content and resources that you may find online. Videos, infographics, and a ton of long-form articles with pictures.
All these activities Hubspot is engaging in. They all have next action links or baton that hands you over to the next step. They are the booby traps that drive leads (possibly you, most definitely me) into their mailing list. And then down to their ‘FREE’ product — Ubersuggest.
By the way, Ubersuggest is a paid tool. But it is free for just a few necessities you may need. Hubspot knows that when you get results, you will want more and then you would have to pay for the full package. All that effort drives the lead to make a payment. As cunning as it could seem, this is how it is done.
First, you must understand that Content without a CTA is already dead.
Like stagnant water, it doesn’t flow the reader down to the next stage. And you already know why.
I don’t believe any company looking to improve marketing (organically) would have content that doesn’t request an action from the reader. Instead, they would be looking to improve their content marketing. How do they get to do that? Here's how:
Creating content is a ton of work. Companies like Bleachers Report consistently create picture/animation content. And it still passes the needed information with a series of interesting pictures.
So it doesn't matter what form of content you are creating. What matters is if it is in line with this content marketing framework:
Content Marketing requires a consistent creation of valuable content. These contents should be relevant enough to attract selected demography of people. If it's not relevant enough then it won't work and here's why. This entire piece of play has just one Goal. Generate a profitable action from the reader.
You could be searching for an answer on how to optimize keywords for SEO. And then read an article about Google’s recent Algorithm update on Keyword usage. That’s not relevant to you at that point but it is to someone else.
With that said, how do you make it better, relevant for your audience? And more profitable to you? At the next stop, I’ll go over it.
Remember the little Sprinters (the intelligent rabbits)? Good, I needed to succeed at catching them right? Here’s what I did, I created a multi-sequence of booby traps (nuts). I placed them in a certain place and in a particular order that leads them straight down to the cage.
It worked well and they fell for it. This is exactly how you should position your content. In a way that leads straight down to what you want them to have or buy or subscribe for. This is usually called a Funnel.
So each content (Video, Picture, or Blog post) should all interlink to one another (this creates Content Cluster — which is good for SEO). They should have a CTA. Remember that SEO is key. Your content has to be visible to your audience.
The booby trap had to be visible to attract the Rabbits. That’s the same for SEO, it ensures your contents are visible first. Then your content attracts your audience to it. And in no time, you would experience an increase in your content engagement.
So what happens if you already have a ton of content that has been published but they lacks these 3 key things:
- CTA
- Interlinking
- Poor SEO Optimisation
Here’s what you can do if you are in this type of situation. Take each one of them and work on them all over again. And this time, do it well. Ensure you tick all these 3 items in each content.
When you’re done, You can sit back and then try to measure your improved results — just like I did!
Takeaways
Try to remember these key points as you try to improve your Online Content Engagement with your Audience.
- Your CTA doesn’t have to be an Offer — It could be anything as long as it leads the reader to make an Action
- Any Content that does not lead the reader to make an Action is Dead or better still Ineffective
- Content Marketing requires a consistent creation of valuable content. This content should be relevant enough to attract a selected demography of people. And it should achieve one goal — generate a profitable action from the reader.
- Position your contents in a funnel. One that leads the reader straight down to what you want them to have or buy or subscribe for. Through a Series of contents passing the reader on.
- If you have content that has been published but lacks these structures, take each one and work on it all over again. And this time, do it well. Ensure you tick all these 3 items in each content.
