MARKETING
14 Real-Life Examples of CTA Copy YOU Should Copy
Moving people to act is a challenging task. With just a few words, CTA copy needs to show that you see where your audience is coming from and empathize with their issues. That CTA (call-to-action) must also motivate them to move toward a solution.
If the CTA copy you craft doesn’t keep your visitors’ attention, it can hurt your click-through rate, lead conversions, and ultimately, sales.
So, a CTA needs to inspire, encourage, and coax a person into action, but not bore, scold, or distract. Clearly, writing CTAs is a tricky balance of skill, influence, and awareness. But how can you write the perfect CTA copy on your own?
Keep reading or skip to a section to learn:
What is CTA copy?
CTA copy is a brief message that asks the reader to engage in some way. For example, website CTA copy could ask a user to click a link, complete a form, or make a purchase.
When marketers think about call-to-action (CTA) creation, the first thing many of them tend to focus on is design. And while CTA design is critical to initially drawing the attention of your visitors, it’s CTA copy that has to be compelling enough to get them clicking.
Bring your calls-to-action to life with HubSpot’s 28 Free CTA Templates. Simply add your own copy, adjust designs as needed, save as an image, and upload to your CMS.
Looking at CTA examples can also help when you’re writing. The following examples can inspire you and compel your visitors to click and convert.
Real-Life Examples of CTA Copy YOU Should Copy
1. HubSpot
HubSpot is all about growing better, and visitors quickly get that message from the call-to-action at the top of the page. Then, the copy outlines how HubSpot can help your business grow better.
The next CTA is highlighted with a button, “Start free or get a demo.” This gives you two different choices with a single click, meeting the needs of many different users with a single action.
2. Kate Spade
This compelling CTA asks readers to “treat yourself” and “shop self-gifting.” The contrast of traditional Valentine’s day terms like “romancing” and “heart” with a unique statement makes this CTA stand out. It also highlights a specific audience that’s often ignored on this holiday, inviting them to flip through and “make the moment all about you.”
3. KLM
The language of this call-to-action (“50,000 Bonus Miles online offer”) is written in a way that gives visitors context even if they skim over the copy listed below it. The bottom line of text uses punctuation and uppercase letters to emphasize urgency. It’s effective because it’s both specific and action-oriented.
4. Duolingo
The copy of the call-to-action button here is so descriptive that visitors can move immediately into action, either getting started or continuing to use the app. This straightforward CTA tells you exactly what this app does and why you want to use it. Remember — sometimes being to the point is all you need to drive conversions.
5. Eventbrite
The text outside the call-to-action button here serves to create an incentive. The best time to find an event is now, so there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t just go ahead and find one. While this app is best known for creating events online, this CTA shows that Eventbrite also invests in promoting events posted on the app, creating more reasons to use the platform.
6. American Red Cross
This is an inspirational CTA example. It starts by reminding each individual who visits the site of their potential impact with one phrase — “You Can Make a Difference.” Then, it outlines how a financial gift can help. This framework creates an experience that feels more inspiring and less transactional, while still supporting the goal of collecting donations.
7. AWS
In this example, the text above the call-to-action — “Start Building on AWS Today” — gives specific details about the action visitors will be taking if they click. It reveals the ‘how’ of “Get Started for Free” too, with detailed sections for builders and decision makers. This copy clearly sets expectations before conversion so visitors know exactly what they’ll get in return for their click.
8. GoTo
This CTA starts with “One solution. So many ways to stay connected.” It goes on to describe the value of their cloud phone system. Then GoTo uses CTA buttons to clarify exactly what visitors will get after their click(s): either “See Plans and Pricing” or “Get a Demo.” The lesson is simple, if your button text is short and simple, clarifying copy can give visitors an extra boost to click.
9. Fitbit
In this example, the CTA copy tackles the problem of decision overload. Some companies use a CTA to compare their products to a competitor, then offer their best product as the best choice. Instead, this CTA assumes that the issue isn’t whether to purchase from Fitbit, but which Fitbit product to buy.
The CTA copy calls out a problem in a friendly way — “Trouble choosing? We’ve got you covered.” Then, it offers an immediate solution — “Start the quiz.” While some customers have complicated problems, you can simplify by looking at your ideas from your customers’ perspective.
10. Turbo Tax
When a web page offers many different choices, you may need to display more than one CTA. Each CTA needs to be powerful by itself, conveying a compelling and targeted offer through both visuals and copy. In this example, the language of the calls-to-action here gives readers solid context around three distinct offers.
11. Secureworks
This call-to-action gives visitors enough information to take the next step without needing to give away much background information. This text is a teaser that tempts people to keep reading, making a subject that can sometimes seem boring (cybersecurity) more enticing.
12. On24
The main call-to-action in this example urges action. Then, the text above each follow-up CTA highlights details about each offer. This language offers clarity and sets expectations for the visitor, eliminating any guesswork.
13. Upwork
This CTA starts with a motivational message — “How work should work” — then shifts the focus to direct action. The CTA buttons offer two different ways to engage. First, a CTA that asks visitors to start using the platform for hiring. Next, a CTA for people who aren’t sure how to hire and may have a longer buyer journey before they start using the platform.
14. Citizen Group
Simple doesn’t mean boring. This example offers creative CTA copy that aligns with the voice of the organization. CTAs like “Building Citizen Brands,” “Connecting Through Culture,” and “Let the Work Speak” offer a clear idea of what visitors will find after clicking. At the same time, the tone and voice of each CTA feels unique to this brand and makes the act of clicking more exciting.
Check out this post for more clickable call-to-action examples.
How to Write CTA Copy That Converts
- Use active language.
- Make your message specific.
- Short and simple copy is best.
- Avoid cliches and trends.
- Focus on practical value.
- Connect your CTA to your other copy.
- Target a specific audience.
- Test your CTAs for results.
CTA copy is often the shortest copy on the page, so to some, it can be mystifying that it’s often the copy that takes the longest to write. A call-to-action is like a bumblebee, with its big body and tiny wings. It carries a heavy load with just a few carefully chosen words.
To create a CTA that makes the most of every blog, landing page, email, and button, check out these tips.
1. Use active language.
Using active voice puts the reader in the center of the action. It also helps cut down on wordiness. An example of active voice is, “Jack eats cherries to stay fit.”
In contrast, passive voice talks about action in a more roundabout way. For example, “The cherries were eaten by Jack for fitness.”
A writing tool like Hemingway Editor can help you test your copy for active voice.
2. Make your message specific.
CTA copy needs to be original, eye-catching, and drive action. That is a lot of work for a small number of words. So, to meet conversion goals with your CTAs, be specific.
Specific copy focuses on a single focused topic. Then, it uses language that makes it easy to visualize both the problem at hand and how the CTA offer can help.
If you’re not sure whether your language is specific enough, ask a few friends or colleagues to quickly scan your copy. If they all come up with the same meaning, chances are your CTA copy is specific enough. But if your proofreaders come back with different ideas about your offer and meaning, you probably want to rewrite your CTA.
3. Short and simple copy is best.
CTA copy should be easy to scan and understand. People tend to scan when they read online, and CTAs should draw their eye and be quick to take in.
Positive language with simple word choices can also help you create more effective CTAs. Check out this post for more tips on how to write clickable copy.
4. Avoid cliches and trends.
If you’re not sure what to write for your CTA it can be tempting to mimic what competitors are doing or to add a familiar cliche. It’s easy to understand why you’d do this, but it may impact your conversions.
Cliches are easy to remember because you’ve heard them so many times. Jumping on what competitors are doing might make readers think your business lacks creativity.
These approaches to writing copy may give your CTAs meanings that you don’t intend. They’re also something your reader has seen or heard before, so they’re likely to skim over and ignore your call to action.
Instead, use your CTA to tell an authentic story or make an interesting point. This will spark curiosity, and make your reader more likely to engage.
5. Focus on practical value.
Online readers are often searching to solve a problem. And the most effective CTAs make it quick and easy to see that you are offering a solution to that problem.
There are many ways to entice a reader to take a desired action. But being direct can be surprisingly effective. You can often get readers to do what you want them to do by offering a practical solution to a specific problem.
More resources:
6. Connect your CTA to your other copy.
Context is essential when you’re building trust with a customer. For example, say you’re at a dog show. If you’re selling dog food, you have a good chance of making a sale. But if you sell cat food, you may not have as much luck. You might even draw negative attention.
CTA copy needs to align with its context too. If you’re writing a landing page for a product, the action you want users to take needs to match the intention that brought that person to the page. Then the CTA copy you write needs to combine the content of the landing page with that offer.
To do this, use phrases and emotional words that match the two pieces of content that you’re connecting with your CTA. Then, edit your copy to emphasize why that connection is useful to your reader.
This post offers more dos and don’ts for CTA copy.
7. Target a specific audience.
You might have a broad target audience. But CTA copy needs to connect with that audience at a particular moment in their journey to drive conversions.
It’s important to know who you’re speaking to. Is it a new visitor to your site arriving from a referral page? Is it a current customer who’s looking for answers? Or a lead hoping to take the next step toward a purchase?
Take some time to look at your content and offer from a target user’s perspective, then write a CTA that will connect to them at the right moment.
8. Test your CTAs for results.
While you can jump into a new CTA and gauge your results by looking at your conversion data, there’s a less risky way to try out new calls to action.
The most popular way to test CTA copy is with A/B testing. You can test CTA performance on different landing pages, with unique designs, or test different versions of CTA copy.
This testing approach isolates one variable at a time so that you can see how the copy of your CTA is impacting performance. Then you can make changes to optimize your CTAs.
Write Copy That Inspires People to Take Action
When it works a CTA can transform your buyer journey, drive conversions, and fuel business growth. But a lackluster CTA can damage your brand reputation, product sales, and more.
CTA copy is how you connect your marketing and sales content to the value your business offers. Writing this copy is both a craft and an art. It takes practice, research, and hours of effort to put together just the right message.
Use the tips and examples in this post to develop your CTA know-how. Then, track your results to refine your skills and keep learning.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
MARKETING
Quiet Quitting vs. Setting Healthy Boundaries: Where’s The Line?
MARKETING
Microsoft unveils a new small language model
Phi-3-Mini is the first in a family of small language models Microsoft plans to release over the coming weeks. Phi-3-Small and Phi-3-Medium are in the works. In contrast to large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, small language models are trained on much smaller datasets and are said to be much more affordable for users.
We are excited to introduce Phi-3, a family of open AI models developed by Microsoft. Phi-3 models are the most capable and cost-effective small language models (SLMs) available, outperforming models of the same size and next size up across a variety of language, reasoning, coding and math benchmarks.
What are they for? For one thing, the reduced size of this language model may make it suitable to run locally, for example as an app on a smartphone. Something the size of ChatGPT lives in the cloud and requires an internet connection for access.
While ChatGPT is said to have over a trillion parameters, Phi-3-Mini has only 3.8 billion. Sanjeev Bora, who works with genAI in the healthcare space, writes: “The number of parameters in a model usually dictates its size and complexity. Larger models with more parameters are generally more capable but come at the cost of increased computational requirements. The choice of size often depends on the specific problem being addressed.”
Phi-3-Mini was trained on a relatively small dataset of 3.3 trillion tokens — instances of human language expressed numerically. But that’s still a lot of tokens.
Why we care. While it is generally reported, and confirmed by Microsoft, that these SLMs will be much more affordable than the big LLMs, it’s hard to find exact details on the pricing. Nevertheless, taking the promise at face-value, one can imagine a democratization of genAI, making it available to very small businesses and sole proprietors.
We need to see what these models can do in practice, but it’s plausible that use cases like writing a marketing newsletter, coming up with email subject lines or drafting social media posts just don’t require the gigantic power of a LLM.
Dig deeper: How a non-profit farmers market is leveraging AI
MARKETING
Navigating the Video Marketing Maze: Short-Form vs. Long-Form
Are you torn between using long-form or short-form videos for your small business marketing campaign? Well, you are not alone. Despite 89% of consumers wanting to see more brand videos, there is no one-size-fits-all answer about the ideal video length.
However, this should not deter you from creating an effective video strategy. In 2023, people watched an average of 17 videos per day, highlighting the influence of video content in today’s digital landscape.
Both short-form and long-form videos offer unique advantages and come with their set of challenges. Join me as I uncover the benefits and limitations of each video format to help you make informed marketing decisions.
What are Short-Form Videos?
Short videos typically range from 30 seconds to less than 10 minutes long. They are popular on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Short-form videos deliver brief yet engaging messages that quickly capture the viewer’s attention. Here are some popular types of short-form video content.
- TikTok Challenges
- Instagram Reels
- Snapchat Stories
- YouTube Shorts
- Twitter Video Ads
Benefits of Short-Form Videos
A previously cited report shows that 39% of marketers find short-form videos, ranging from 30-60 seconds long, more successful. The same study reports that 44% of customers prefer watching a short video to learn about a brand’s offerings.
So, it is evident that short-form videos have their benefits. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Attention-Grabbing
Short-form videos capture attention quickly, making them ideal for the fast-scrolling nature of social media platforms. Your audience is more likely to watch them in their entirety compared to longer content.
Cost-Effective Production
Creating short-form videos requires less time and resources compared to longer videos. As a small business owner with a limited budget, using short-form videos can be cost-effective.
Increased Engagement
Short-form videos engage viewers due to their crisp and concise nature. This results in more likes, comments, and shares that boost your content’s visibility and increase brand awareness.
Integrating short-form videos into your influencer marketing campaigns can further amplify your reach to new and diverse audiences.
Highly Shareable
Short videos are highly shareable. This makes it more likely for your viewers to share them, increasing their virality.
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There are multiple benefits of adding video to your website including increased engagement, improved SEO, and enhanced user experience.
Limitations of Short-Form Videos
While short-form videos offer many advantages in content marketing, they also present some challenges.
Limited Message Depth
Due to their brief duration, short-form videos may struggle to convey complex or detailed messages. Longer videos might be more suitable if you need to communicate intricate information.
Competition for Attention
Standing out on platforms flooded with short-form video content can be challenging. You must create content that stands out to avoid becoming lost in the sea of other videos.
Shorter Lifespan
Short videos may lose their relevance with time. They can quickly get buried in users’ feeds, leading to a shorter visibility and engagement period than longer, evergreen content.
This means you must consistently create short-form videos to maintain audience interest over time.
Limited SEO Impact
Short-form videos may be more challenging to optimize for search engines than longer, more keyword-rich content. This can affect the discoverability of your content outside the social media scene.
What are Long-Form Videos?
Long-form videos are typically longer, ranging from a few minutes to several hours. They extend beyond a few minutes to several hours, providing ample time for in-depth topic exploration and detailed content.
These videos are particularly suitable for educational content, product demonstrations, and narrative-driven storytelling. Long-form videos are common on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Common types of long-form video content include:
- YouTube Series
- Webinars
- Educational Tutorials and Courses:
- Behind-the-Scenes Content
- Interviews and Conversations
Advantages of Long-Form Videos
Long-form video content is the fastest-growing segment, with videos above 30 minutes experiencing tremendous growth over the years. Let’s explore some of the benefits behind this growth.
Establishes Expertise and Credibility
Long-form videos allow you to provide in-depth information about various subjects, establishing your brand as an authority. Potential customers will likely trust and rely on your insights when you consistently deliver valuable content.
Builds Strong Audience Connections
The more your audience watches your videos, the more they become familiar with your content and brand. This consistent engagement promotes trust and loyalty, helping you create deeper connections with your audience.
Provide SEO Optimization Opportunities
Long-form videos keep your audience engaged for a longer duration than short ones. This signals search engines that your content provides value, resulting in higher rankings and increased visibility.
Besides, these videos provide opportunities to optimize for relevant keywords. This Attrock guide offers more insights into the value of SEO for your small business.
They Are Sustainable
Unlike short videos, well-produced and valuable long-form videos have an extended shelf life. They can continue to attract views and engagement over an extended period, contributing to a sustainable content strategy.
Instagram reels are also a part of short videos and you can get benefits from this platform by integrating it with your website. You can learn how to embed Instagram Reels on websites and get extra benefits from your Reels.
Drawbacks of Long-Form Videos
Despite their benefits, long-form videos also have certain limitations, including:
Attention Span Challenges
Between distractions, juggling tasks, and information overload, user attention span quickly diminishes. Viewers may lose interest and disengage from your long video before its conclusion.
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Complex Production Process
Creating high-quality long-form videos requires more resources, including time, equipment, and skilled personnel. This can be disadvantageous, especially for small businesses with limited budgets.
Platform Limitations
Some social media platforms and video hosting sites may limit video length, making it challenging to distribute long-form video content. You may then be forced to repurpose your content to suit various platforms.
Short-Form or Long-Form Videos: Which Are Better?
Now that you know the benefits and limitations of each format, which one should you choose? Short-form or long-form videos?
Well, it all boils down to considering several factors, such as:
Content Objectives
What do you want to achieve from your video marketing campaign? Short-form videos are highly effective for quick brand exposure and generating buzz. Long-form videos, on the other hand, contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the brand.
Target Audience Preferences
Audiences with short attention spans likely prefer short-form videos, while long-form videos appeal to those seeking a more immersive experience.
Similarly, short-form videos may appeal more to younger audiences, while older demographics may prefer the depth of long-form content.
Platform Dynamics
Various platforms support different content formats. Short-form videos are well-suited for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. On the other hand, platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are better for hosting longer videos.
Industry Type
Short-form videos would be ideal if your industry thrives on trends, entertainment, and quick messages. However, long-form videos are effective for industries requiring in-depth explanations or educational content.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, choosing short-form or long-form videos depends on your business’s specific needs and goals. Since both formats have advantages and limitations, making a choice may prove difficult.
However, it doesn’t have to be an uphill task. The key lies in recognizing when to incorporate each video format into your marketing strategy. Understanding your audience and its needs allows you to combine both formats strategically, maximizing the benefits of each.
Continuously analyze performance metrics and adapt your video marketing strategy accordingly to ensure optimal engagement and conversion rates.
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