Have you recorded a video ad but are not achieving the desired ROI? Is your content not bringing in sufficient conversions? If that’s the case, we think there are two possible reasons for that — your ad is not good enough, or you don’t have an actionable CTA! Now let’s say that the former is not the case, so what do you do? How do you make a more compelling CTA for videos? That, among other things, is what we’re going to teach you today! Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover:
- What Is a CTA and Why Use It?
- Where Should You Put Your CTA?
- CTA Types and Examples
- Tips for Creating Actionable CTAs
Now let’s get straight to it!
What Is a CTA and Why Use It?
A CTA (call to action) is a term used in marketing to denote the act of encouraging viewers to take a specific action. Some of the simplest examples of CTAs would be inviting readers to follow a link, subscribe to a newsletter, buy a product, fill a poll, etc. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? After all, people should be more likely to do something if you ask them to, shouldn’t they?
Yes, that is true. But you’d be surprised how many businesses don’t include a CTA in their videos! By doing so, they miss out on a lot of potential. And let’s not even mention those that put their CTAs in the sidebar or annotations — so few people pay attention to those that they’re almost irrelevant. Research has shown that if you incorporate a CTA into your video, you will get 380% more clicks than putting it in the sidebar!
Essentially, you have nothing to lose by incorporating a CTA into your content but a lot of potential for gain. Effective CTAs for videos are, for example, excellent opportunities to increase sales with little to no extra effort.
Where Should You Put Your CTA?
This question is a tough one, as it will most often depend on your business needs and goals. In most cases, though, you will be choosing between two options — pre-roll CTA and post-roll CTA. Let’s check out the benefits and downsides to each of these positions.
Pre-Roll Pros:
- All viewers will see them
- It will be more memorable as the users will be freshly focused
Pre-Roll Cons:
- Many users will just skip it
- It can feel too assertive, which might discourage some users from ever watching your video in the first place
Post-Roll Pros:
- Only the most interested users will remain until the end
- Most likely to result in conversions
- Feels most natural
Post-Roll Cons:
- Many users will never get to the point of seeing this CTA as only a few reach the end of a video
- Easily skippable
As you can see, both of these options have different positive and negative aspects, so, depending on your business needs, you’ll have to settle for one. Also, depending on the type of CTA for videos you use, either of these could end up being more suitable. For example, if your marketing video’s goal is to collect customer testimonials or survey your audience, including a CTA at the beginning would be an excellent idea. But if your business is looking to sell a niche product, the better call would be to settle for the post-roll CTA. That would focus on converting only your most valuable prospects.
CTA Types and Examples
When it comes to creating the right CTA for your piece of content, you have plenty of options. Generally, there are three major types of CTAs for videos you could consider — informational, lead generation, and transactional. Here is a brief overview of and a few examples for each of the three:
Informational
You use this type of call to action when you want to entice your audience to look for or gain additional information. Here are a few examples:
- See More
- Explore
- Show Me How
- Start Watching
These CTAs pique the users’ curiosity, which makes them particularly useful for marketing campaigns focused on increasing brand awareness.
Lead Generation
Lead generation CTAs are most effective when you’re looking to collect data on your user base, such as name, last name, address, email, etc. Here are some examples:
- Register Now
- Apply Now
- Try X For Free
- Book Today
These CTAs invite the users to participate in an event, purchase something, or just leave their info to get something in return. Marketers can later use that information to enhance their consumer targeting or collect an extensive user database, which they can then use for things like creating an email campaign.
Transactional
These CTAs focus primarily on driving as many sales as possible. That is why they are framed to encourage consumers to make a purchase. Take a look at the following few examples:
- Shop Now
- Add to Cart
- Don’t Miss Out!
- Sign-Up
These CTAs encourage users to purchase your products and services, meaning that they are more direct than our previous two types. These usually represent the final step in the video sales funnel and are some of the most common CTAs for videos out there.
Other Types of CTAs
Your CTAs don’t necessarily have to fit in any of these three categories. There are many other types that focus on a variety of different outcomes, so here are a few examples:
- Enter to Win — you could invite your users to enter a competition or a giveaway you are doing.
- Free Trial — offer your audience an opportunity to try your product or service before deciding to settle for it.
- Fill Out a Short Form — if you’re interested in gaining feedback from your customers, why not ask them to fill out a form? That could help you improve your services, which would, in return, help you build your brand loyalty.
- Watch Another Video — This CTA would invite the users to engage with more of your marketing content, which could help you establish a dedicated audience.
- Ask a Question — This method is particularly effective for engaging your audience in a conversation about your brand or products. Aside from that, you may even get some insightful feedback.
Overall, you will have to experiment a little to see which type of video calls to action works best for you, so don’t hesitate to do that!
Tips for Creating Actionable CTAs
Now, let’s share some tips on how to come up with highly actionable CTAs for videos yourselves.
- Make sure your CTA complements your video’s message — Your video and call to action have to be in line or your CTA will stick out like a sore thumb. For example, if your consumers come across your video while looking for an explainer video and you redirect them to another video to “learn more,” you’ve done a poor job of servicing them.
- Make your CTAs as specific as possible — Many brands fall into this trap of not making their CTAs accurate enough. An excellent example of a specific CTA would be “Learn More About Our Services Here” instead of “Learn More Here.”
- Optimize your CTAs for mobile — Make sure that the action your CTAs will lead to is optimized for mobile users. The most notable example would be if you were collecting answers to a poll or a survey. In that case, you’d have to make sure the entire survey is visible and user-friendly on phones, or people might not even bother.
- Make your CTA both visual and verbal — That means you should utilize the power of annotations or clickable buttons! Include them alongside the verbal CTA you’ll feature in the content itself.
- Make it obvious — This point might seem obvious, but many make the fatal mistake of putting their CTAs in obscure or hardly visible places. In short, ensure it’s crystal clear that you’re inviting your viewers to take action!
- Use strong verbs — As you’ve likely already seen from our CTA examples, you should use highly actionable verbs.
- Communicate in your customers’ language — By speaking as your customers would, you can better identify with them.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of CTAs!
If you haven’t been including CTAs in your videos, you’ve been missing out on a lot of potential prospects. Did our article make you reconsider incorporating some in your videos? If so, get to it as soon as possible. Oh, and let us know how it went! Feel free to message us on Twitter or other social media.
Until next time!
