Think about the last time you were on social media, and you were itching to get on a company’s webpage to find out more about a product or service.
Perhaps you even visited the webpage two or three times through different channels and eventually made a purchase. You may not realize it, but the way that company got you to move from reading their content to making a purchase was through calls to action.
Well-written calls to action (CTAs) are a proven way to get more email subscribers, clicks to your webpage, and sales. If you are running your own coaching business, CTAs are a vital component of your digital marketing strategy.
If you wear many hats in your health and wellness coaching business, including that of content writer and marketing manager, this article will help you write effective CTAs and identify how you can increase engagement on your website.
Even if you are outsourcing the content and marketing of your business, identifying CTAs and opportunities to include them and evaluating whether they are written effectively are important for keeping an eye on your business’s wellbeing.
In this article, we provide you with a four-step process for writing compelling CTAs, and we explain six different kinds of CTAs that have been proven to work.
What Are Calls to Action (CTAs)?
CTAs are phrases that tell potential clients or customers what they need to do to gain access to your content, product, or service.
Through a social media post, video, blog, or infographic, CTAs capitalize on your followers’ attention and persuade them to take action. If you have created great content that is gaining traction online, but there is no easy way for people to engage with you further, you are missing an opportunity to convert leads into sales and clients.
Writing CTAs is both a science and an art. The science of writing effective CTAs reflects the data behind language that drives people to click through and take action. However, choosing the right words to ensure that CTAs reflect your brand voice is an art in its own rite.
Why Are CTAs Important?
You might be investing countless hours and tons of energy into creating amazing products, services, and packages for your clients. You love what you have to offer and want to just sit back and wait for people to see your value as well.
No matter how great your content is, if you aren’t creating strategies for people to click into it, they won’t explore your site or ultimately end up on your sales page. In that case, your time and investment go down the drain.
If the product, service, information, or tool is the what, the CTA is the why and the how. Sometimes, the information you offer before the CTA will include the why, in which case the CTA in itself should connect it to a how.
Let’s say you designed an integrated 12-week coaching package for your clients. You made a beautiful video that describes what the program entails and how it will benefit clients, with sneak peeks of the sessions. Two current clients even agreed to send five-star video reviews of your services. Finally, in the video you inform people that you are offering a free session to viewers.
In this example, the free session is the what, and the video describes the why.
But, what if you left out how they can actually access the free session? Your video might be getting hundreds, even thousands, of views, but if you don’t tell people how to gain access to the exclusive offer, or, more specifically, what they need to do to gain access to the program, then the impulse and emotion that potential leads feel right after watching your video go to waste.
Now, what if, in the video or the content accompanying the video, you have a compelling CTA? You telle people who are excited to take advantage of the offer to “Click here to claim your free session!” That is your CTA. It tells people exactly what they need to do to gain access to the content or service you are promoting.
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4 Steps to Writing Engaging CTAs
List Different Resources on Your Website That Are of Value to Clients
Gone are the days where all you needed to do was create a good product or service, put an ad in the paper, and wait for clients to come. In the world of digital marketing, it is essential to create valuable and original content for potential clients to learn about the problem you are solving, know that your business understands where their needs and desires are, and provide valuable and useful information and tools.
Think about content you have already created, paid and free, that is of interest to your clients. In general, you want to bring people to digital places where they can make a purchase, even if that isn’t the goal of the call to action. That might be your website, your social media pages, or a third-party service page.
It will always be easier for your clients to engage with your business when you offer free content, and it is a great first step that will bring them one step closer to purchasing a product or service.
- List the resources you have on your website.
- Ensure all resources and pages easily link to your sales page.
For digital marketing, you want to makes sure that the action is integrated into or near the CTA. You can hyperlink the action verbs on a blog, newsletter, or other digital materials or include a button on landing pages. For Instagram, you want to make sure the link is in your bio and accessible with a few taps.
One last tip on this—double-check the links are viable before launching a campaign that includes CTAs! You don’t want to lose potential leads because of an error in the hyperlink or a broken link.
Identify Relevant Action Words
There is no time to beat around the bush with CTAs. Action words should tell the client exactly what you want them to do.
Some CTAs are straightforward; you want them to buy a product or service you offer. As we mentioned before, most leads (potential clients) already know they are looking to benefit from a service or product like yours before deciding to buy into what you offer. However, they may shop around a bit, comparing your services with those offered by other health coaches, before deciding to go with you. By giving potential clients opportunities to learn more and gaining access to your knowledge and services with a simple click or exchange of information, you are engaging them. With increased lead engagement comes increased opportunities to purchase your products and services.
The action words will compel potential leads to engage with your content and website and bring them one step closer to using your coaching services and buying your products.
Some action words include:
- Buy
- Sign up
- Download
- Learn more
- Enroll
- Subscribe
- Request
- Click
- Visit
- Download
- Fill out
The action verbs should match up with ways potential clients can engage with your website and social media pages.
Make Sure the Benefit to Clients Is Clear
Ask yourself how the CTA can communicate, or reiterate, what the client will be receiving by acting on it. The value should be clear and in line with the content on your page. For example, if your CTA is “Download your free home workout guide now,” they should already know why they would want the workout guide through reading a blog or a sneak peek of the guide or seeing video clips of you doing some of the moves on your social media.
Keep in mind that sometimes the benefit is implicit in other parts of the content. For example, if you are describing your service on a page, the CTA “Buy now” at the end of the page doesn’t need any more explanation. The benefit of clicking, or responding to the CTA, will be gaining access to the product or service you offer.
Keep It Concise and Be Direct
CTAs should be clear and concise. While CTA length can vary from two words to two sentences, the reader should understand what to do.
Keep in mind that concise is not the same as short. A concise CTA uses only the words that it needs to communicate a message clearly.
Is there a rule for the length of CTAs? Not really. However, stand-alone CTAs, like on Facebook ads, tend to be long-form, while CTAs embedded in content are often shorter.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when you are writing CTAs is that staying brief and being direct helps clients focus on what is important without distractions. Choose your words carefully!
6 Kinds of Effective CTAs
No-Risk, Free Trial CTAs
People love free stuff. Offering a free session, consultation, or trial period to potential clients is a great way to engage them.
These CTAs are great for people who aren’t quite ready to make a purchase yet. They are either interested in learning what your service is about or are considering making a purchase, but they aren’t quite there yet.
Offering them a freebie to give them a taste of what they are missing might be the missing piece to get them to make a decision.
Here are some examples of No-Risk, Free Trial CTAs for your health and wellness business:
- Sign up for your free session now.
- Never tried health coaching before? The first session is on me. Click here for your free, no-risk trial session.
- Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! To show my gratitude, I want to offer you a free, live, consultation with me. Claim the offer here!
- Click here to claim you FREE, no-risk consultation.
Benefit Messaging CTAs
Why are your clients coming to you? Is it to feel better? Get fit? Learn to eat on a budget? Avoid toxins in the environment? These CTAs ask clients a fairly obvious question to which the answer would likely lead them to understand what role you can play in helping them achieve a goal.
These types of CTAs are often used in pop-ups, Instagram and Facebook stories, and headers in websites.
Let’s imagine an example to see how benefit messaging CTAs would work in action.
A user has clicked into your website while browsing nutrition coaching services that support people who are living with type 2 diabetes. As soon as they come into your site, they see a pop-up that says, “Do you want to get your type 2 diabetes under control?”
Then, they see two options: Yes! Nothing is working for me 🙁 OR No thanks! My type 2 diabetes is under control.
If they have come to your website in the first place, it is likely that their type 2 diabetes is not totally under control. So, when they click on Yes! Nothing is working for me :(, it will take them to your services page (with a heading like I am a health coach specializing in getting type 2 diabetes under control, and I’m here to help).
Alternatively, if you are building your mailing list, send them to a page where they can sign up for free glucose control tips.
The key to benefit messaging CTAs is getting viewers and visitors to click once so they are more likely to click again.
Form Submission CTAs
The two types of CTAs described above are common lead generation CTAs. Leads are potential clients who you can communicate with directly after having received their contact information but who have not yet purchased your product or service. To build a list of leads, you can exchange the content they are interested in for their basic contact information through forms.
Forms and the content or information you offer in exchange are called “gated content.” At the very least, forms should include name and email, but they may also include phone number, gender, age, and health goals or other information that will help you. Keep in mind that the more information you request on the form, the less likely potential clients are to give it to you.
Here are some CTAs that can motivate clients to fill out forms:
- Just one more step before accessing your free download! Fill out your name and email.
- Where can we send your personalized quote? Provide us with your email.
- 10% off any of our services when you sign up for our newsletter!
Read More CTAs
Read More CTAs are perfect for health coaches who have great blogs, articles, and digital resources that can be featured on social media and newsletters.
In the direct communication, you provide a “teaser” of sorts. Ideally, you leave out the most enticing part of the content and use ellipses to indicate the content keeps on going.
Read More CTAs can literally be a button or hyperlink that says “Read More,” but there are some variations. These include:
- Learn more
- Keep reading
- Want to learn more? Click here!
- This content was created exclusively for our community. Get access to the rest of the article by joining our community here.
Product or Service Discovery CTAs
The typical buyer’s journey includes the awareness stage, where they are learning about your product or service; the consideration stage, where they are thinking about buying it; and the decision stage, where they ultimately decide and pay for it. Clients will often engage with your media and content multiple times before making a decision to make a purchase.
As clients transition from one stage to another, it is vital that they have easy access to information about your services and products, including pages describing each service, FAQ pages, and even demo pages.
Here are some examples of CTAs that will lead users to learn more about your products and services:
- Have you seen the latest addition to my coaching services? It’s a game-changer! Click here to learn more.
- Are you new to coaching? Learn more about my coaching services here!
- We have six innovative coaching packages designed for different needs. Learn more about them here.
- Need support in navigating the health system? Learn about how I work with you and your healthcare provider through coaching services.
Making the Sale CTAs
At the end of the day, your business runs on clients buying your services and products. So, once you client is ready to make a purchase, it is vital that you make it as easy as possible for them to do that.
When people act on these CTAs, they’re ready to make a purchase. Here are some ways these CTAs will look:
- Ready to feel great? Click here to get a personalized quote.
- Buy your 12-week coaching pass.
- Reserve your space at our next group coaching session here.
- Buy the Functional Fitness ebook now.
Main Takeaways
CTAs are clear and concise statements that invite potential leads to take action to gain access to information, content, tools, resources, or communities.
Some effective types of CTAs we highlight here include no-risk CTAs, benefit messaging CTAs, form submission CTAs, read more CTAs, product and service discovery CTAs, and making the sale CTAs.
Ideally, you will integrate several types of CTAs across your website, social media, newsletter, and other communications. CTAs give clients at different points in the buyer’s journey an opportunity to engage with you, ultimately leading them to make a purchase.
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