The bittersweetness of a perfect Email Marketing campaign is the Call to Action. A key aspect that determines not only the success or failure of the marketing action, but also captures the reader’s interest regarding the received email.

The Call to Action is in fact, the emphatic point of a message and coincides with the expected goal, whether it’s a registration, a download, a purchase or any other action necessary to be carried out by the reader. Actions that are represented by words like: download, purchase, subscribe, which are not particularly appealing to customers. Nevertheless, most marketers still use them.

Not exalt the act itself, but its value

Let’s face the “Download” word and understand why writing a call to action in this way is not compelling. If this word is “interesting” for the marketer, because describes the end of the action, you cannot say the same for the user, whose objective is to obtain, for example, the content of a resource offered to acquire and exploit knowledge in a certain situation.

So here’s the question to ask for a truly engaging writing: as a user what I am looking for / what I want / what I need?

The real way to influence people is to empathize with them, speaking of what they want and showing them how to get it. After asking this question, is likely that a “Download” call to action becomes “Learn how to write Call To Action that work” while a generic “Start your Free Trial” becomes “Start now to organize your workflow.”

Particularly, in the last example, the reader’s attention is shifted by the action to the achievement of the purpose, by removing the temporary result due to the trial period. Also, using a self-explanatory Call To Action, helps to contrast the user’s lack of attention due the many received emails. From a quick scanning it can be noticed that it will be more attracted by the “Learn how to write Call To Action that work” version rather than by the simpler “Download your guide”.

Practical aspects to be considered

In a mobile perspective, better not exceed three to four words per Call To Action, unless you are using a textual call to action, for which you’ll surely have more visual margin.

A method to verify the balance of the chosen Call To Action is to wonder if every chosen word is useful to communicate how important is the offer. If a word has no attractive impact on the Call To Action, better trim without hesitation.

As known, it is good practice to boost the visibility of the main Call to Action with a button. This one can be created in html or graphically designed and although each method has pros and cons, we recommend the html version which will make the Call To Action always visible, even in limited bandwidth conditions.