Skip to main content

Creative Calls to Action

I've mentioned before that your web site should have a call to action. I also gave some simple examples of actions. Today, while running around Town Lake here in downtown Austin, I brainstormed some new possibilities:

  • Quiz. Quiz your visitors about the product or service you provide and grade them on their performance. For example, if you sell a service, grade your visitors on how well they could perform the service themselves (without your help).
  • Audit. Assess your visitors' situations based on a short form they fill out. Give them a free assessment that shows how much they need your product or service to improve their situation.
  • ROI calculator. Based on a form they fill out, show your visitors the probable impact of your product or service on their ROI.
  • Derivative product. Let your visitors use a product developed using the product or service that you offer.
Some attributes to consider when deciding on a call to action for your web site:
  1. Modest commitment. The action should require a modest level of commitment from visitors but not be or appear burdensome.
  2. Remarkable. Ideally, the action creates word of mouth (WOM). Visitors send e-mails to their colleagues and friends with links to your site. Bloggers write about your site and link to it.
  3. Message reinforcement. The action should reinforce the key messages you want to convey in marketing your product.
  4. Gateway. The action should be a gateway to a further level of commitment that leads to buying your product.
Other ideas?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri  makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Interaction Design: the Neglected Skill

Your product development organization has a big, gaping hole in it. (Be prepared to feel defensive as you continue reading.) One of the most important roles in product development is the role of interaction designer. An interaction designer designs how the users will interact with the product and conceptualize the tasks they perform. He decides whether, for example, the user interface will be command driven, object oriented (clicking on objects then specifying what to do with them), or wizard based. The interaction designer decides the individual steps in the use cases. Every company has one or more people that play the interaction designer role. Usually, those people have little or no expertise in interaction design. Sadly, they typically don't even realize how unqualified they are. Let's see who typically plays the role at companies. Engineer . An engineer is an expert on building what is designed. Yes, an engineer may know how to design the internal structure of the hardware

Stop Validating and Start Falsifying

The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray. Why Validate? In lean startup circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas: The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market. Indeed, it makes sense to transcend conventional approaches to making product decisions . Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating lean startup concepts , and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach. Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinio