Affiliate marketing sites and partnered affiliates have one primary responsibility when representing a brand: to get their audience to engage with the affiliate brand they’re promoting. When creating an affiliate marketing strategy, the endpoint an affiliate is attempting to reach is to get their audience to take the plunge, to move from affiliate content to the affiliate brand’s website.
There are a number of ways content creators approach this while forming their affiliate marketing strategy, from crafting content around their audience’s interests to attempting to subtly engage them through reviewing products. But while there are a number of methods to use, there is none quite as effective as implementing a Call To Action.
What Is a Call To Action?
A Call To Action (CTA) is a marketing tool used to evoke an actionable response from an audience. When employed in public advertising — billboards, posters, radio ads — CTAs can include telling an audience to call a company to learn more about their service or to visit their location to check out unbelievable deals. In the case of affiliate marketing, CTAs are used to encourage conversions among an audience. CTAs hope to lead audience members to a products or services page, thus increasing the likelihood that a conversion — sale — will be made, completing that affiliate marketing strategy cycle.
How Can a Call To Action Be Implemented?
Every business uses CTAs, and every business implements them differently. Again, the best way to think of a CTA is that it’s a means of encouragement and persuasion — you’re gently leading someone toward an actionable choice, one that will help them interact with a product or service more deeply. You’ve likely seen CTAs put into use either in ads on Instagram, an email asking for you to join a newsletter, or a company asking you to schedule a consultation appointment to learn more about their business.
For a CTA to garner interest, there needs to be something to capture a person’s attention. If you’re a YouTuber, you could finish a video with a vocalized CTA, but it’s not as likely to engage audience members. Rather, include a hyperlink in the description of the video that will lead interested viewers to the affiliate company and its services. Want to take it a step further? Consider adding a CTA button at the end of the video, which will lead viewers directly to the site without having to leave the video platform itself.
Putting Your Call To Action Button into Action
A Call To Action button goes a long way. The way you incorporate it into your affiliate marketing strategy matters. Here are some qualities to consider when crafting your CTA button.
Make the button stand out
When creating your CTA button, it should catch a person’s eye. The easiest way to do this is to give your button an eye-popping color. To make it stand out, consider contrast — how the color chosen for your CTA button will look in comparison to the rest of your content. Does it stand out? If so, it should be enough to catch a visitor’s eye.
Next, once considering which tone will best contrast with the rest of your content, you need to consider the emotional context of the color you’re choosing. If you want something relaxed, go for blue; if you want to make a viewer feel as if they need to click on your CTA button, informed by a sort of urgency, settle for a red button. Moreover, ensure your button is placed properly on your webpage — let it increase the effectiveness of content that comes before it, rather than just letting it sit by its lonesome.
Use engaging and persuasive language
Your CTA button should be clear in what emotion it wants to evoke. The written statement on your CTA button should be both engaging and persuasive. Keep it compact, using as few words as possible, allowing for a concise statement on its own. For example, consider you want other affiliates to partner with your business. A CTA button at the bottom of a blog post that reads “Join our team today” could be enough to entice someone to click and learn more.
If you’re looking to increase the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing strategy, you should consider placing a few CTA buttons across your content. Use them sparingly, though — you want to entice viewers when it matters most. Have questions about how to employ a CTA button when crafting your affiliate marketing strategy? Don’t hesitate to talk to one of our expert staff here at Refersion.
