A Short Primer on How to Write Copy (Part 8: The Call to Action)

So now you're at the end of your sales letter. If you were a salesman making your pitch, this would be the hard part--you've got to ask your prospect to open his wallet and pay you. However, you're writing copy. So, this is easier. But you've still got to do it the right way.

In copywriting, we call the end of our sales pitch the call to action. Here, you give your prospect an opportunity to buy.

No...

You do more than give an opportunity. That is, if you want more conversions. You have to tell your prospect exactly what to do.

Writing the Call to Action

Writing the call to action certainly is a lot more easy if you have an easy selling mechanism. The easier it is you make it for the prospect to pay you, the better your call to action will be. And that's regardless of how you write it.

For example, providing them with a huge button that leads to a one-click checkout page is better than stringing them through a series of checkout pages (e.g., choosing the item, filling out shipping address, selecting purchase method...). Similarly, providing them with a contact form is better than simply listing your email and expecting them to go through the trouble of logging into their email client and entering your email address. On that note, if you do use a contact form don't make the mistake that even large businesses are making today: adding a bunch of "required" fields that the prospect must fill out before he can send his message; all this does is makes the prospect more likely to close the window.

Regardless, writing the call to action still takes a bit of thought. The words you use can have a large effect on whether your prospect goes through with the purchase.

For example, I've found switching just a single word in the call to action can affect conversion rates up to 50%.

Tips on Writing the Call to Action

1. Avoid priming ideas of money transactions in the prospect. For example, avoid words like "pay" and "buy." These are pain words. Spending money is not fun. "Paying" is not fun. However, "getting," "downloading," and "receiving" are fun. Use non-money words that mean the same thing.
2. Use first-person nouns. Take the prospect's point of view. In the call to action use words such as "I," "me," and "mine" instead of "you" and "your." Others' tests have shown that this has a huge effect on conversion rates. I suspect it has to do with the idea of getting into the prospect's mind. He's already having a conversation in his head, and he certainly isn't using "you" to refer to himself. Help him along in that conversation.
3. Go through the actual purchase yourself. Or even better, have a friend do it. Imagine you are the prospect seeing the call to action for the first time. Do you know exactly what to do? If it is not explicitly clear what to do, the call to action fails. Make sure it's clear, and don't overestimate your customers' intelligence.
4. Prime time. Prime is a verb in the previous sentence. Make time salient in the prospect's mind. You can do this with a countdown clock or other fancy widgets. But it's usually better just to state a limitation on the time of the offer. What if the offer is not time-limited? Well, make it time limited. There's always a way to do this. For example, state "this offer is only valid for five days" and change the offer slightly every five days. You could also raise the price or be constantly switching between prices. Do whatever you need to do to make the prospect feel the pressure of time, as this will push him to act now.
5. Offer multiple payment options for expensive products. It's a lot easier to make an excuse not to buy when the product looks expensive. It's your job to make the product seem affordable, even it if isn't truly affordable to certain prospects. Offer installment plans or a limited-time free trial that requires a credit card number and automatically bills the customer at the end of the trial. Anything you can do to make the customer think he can afford it when he really can't will help you sell. Don't try to be moral here; just try to get prospects to stop making excuses.

Check out part 9 of How to Write Copy.