Posted on Fri, Jun 18, 2010
by Gayle Davies
Until someone develops scratch and sniff website technology or some other sensory lure, business owners will have to rely on some tried and true internet marketing realities to attract potential customers surfing the web.
If you have ever walked past a bakery and smelled the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread and found yourself turning around and walking towards that smell, instantly realizing that you have a need (empty stomach) that needs to be met, you know what I mean.
Call to Action buttons serve the same purpose as that delicious bakery smell. It is the first step you use to convert that anonymous pedestrian into a potential customer. And because your website has the distinct disadvantage of not being able to appeal to all of our 6 senses, Call-to-Action buttons must be designed correctly. They rely mainly on sight.
Website Must-Have
As a small business owner struggling to keep up with new online marketing rules, you have heard all kinds of new terms. Social media, SEO, landing pages, call-to-action buttons. The list is endless but these are the tools you must master if you want your web presence to be successful. Your ROI depends on it.
Let me simplify one tool for you. Call-to-Action buttons. You may know the essential elements of an effective C2A button:
- Create a sense of urgency
- Use contrasting colors
- Make it clickable
- Use compelling images
- Use action words
But how does a call-to-action button translate into a customer or lead? Simply put, they attract your customer’s attention, just like that irresistible bakery smell. Once you have their attention, they will walk to your place of business and place their hand on the doorknob (click the button) in order to open the door to that thing they need (or want). In this case, bread.
Call-to-Action buttons are just doorknobs.
Posted on Mon, Feb 08, 2010
by Cathey Tarleton
Every business needs a blog now, right? It's key to in
tegrating inbound marketing with your overall marketing strategy, the next rung up the evolution ladder for good old-fashioned Word-of-Mouth. And, whether you're Fortune 500 or fortunate enough to have 500 bucks, if your blog is well-written, remarkable content, it will help your business get found and generate leads.
A few boot-camp basics of "writing right" will help you look more like the expert you already are. And, isn't that why you are blogging in the first place?
You can be a brilliant blogger, a miracle-working e-marketer and a sales superhero, but if you don't write better than a fifth grader, grammar-wise, your content is worth the paper it's printed on. (That's a joke.)
What difference does it make? Any writer will tell you they use good grammar for ONE reason: to keep the reader reading.
We do whatever it takes to make a reader/potential customer turn the page, click through, scroll down and read on. We don't want their eye to get caught on a dumb error and screech to a halt...
You know what I'm talking about: the misspelled word, the exclamation point overload, bad comma, missing periods and wrong quotation marks.
"Wait a minute," a flashback from English Class says, "Wait a minute. Isn't that supposed to be...?"
Let us help you be just as impressive and inspiring on the page as you are in person. Hafner Creative Communications presents a series of posts about some of the most common grammatical errors - and how to avoid them.
Look smart online. Sound like you know what you're talking about. Write right.
Posted on Mon, Oct 19, 2009
by Claudia Hafner
When you visit your favorite websites for news, entertainment, socializing, or anything else, do you find the ads on those pages intriguing? Most often, if you are like me, you ignore them or even get annoyed by them. Generally, you are on these sites to accomplish certain activity, and if you noticed one of those banner
ads, and they were about something you didn't care at all about, what impact do they make on you? Think of the volume of traffic these sites may get, but how few eyeballs are interested in looking at those ads.
Banner ads, in internet marketing, are a form of interruption marketing. You aren't on these sites looking for what these ads are selling (much less looking for these ads), but they try to interrupt you anyway, wrestling you away from what you were trying to do. Think about what kind of traffic these ads are pulling in...or not.
On the other hand, you use search engines to find what you are looking for and sponsored ads on these pages can be selling exactly what you are looking for. Since you ARE looking...no interruption here.
Spending marketing dollars on what people are actively looking for will bring you more targeted traffic...people already looking for what you are selling. And most of these marketing dollars are spent only when your ad is clicked on (pay-per-click).
More and more, interruption marketing is getting less and less attention from consumers. It may be time for you to shift your marketing dollars to activity that gets attention...and not provide interruption.