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Does size matter? Well, it does! Does appearance and look matter? YES it does too!

Ah! If you are thinking about the glamour industry and casting a “super hero� in Hollywood’s next - You missed it out slightly!

To be specific, we are talking about casting Calls to action in your next email.

Calls to action can be a huge conversion driver & superhero for email - often it may be the email’s only purpose, to get readers to perform a task.

Right fit cast can make the movie hit

And, so does a good CTA make your email win!
Enticing CTAs can increase the click-through rates drastically Crisp and clear CTA offer can in turn increase the lead conversion
Some CTAs generate curiosity leading to action on other related products CTAs are clear differentiators from rest of the content in your email

Characteristics of a good CTA

  • Persuasive and compelling offer
  • Right placement
  • Snazzy button styles
  • Sense of urgency
  • Legible and Tappable
  • Hierarchy
There is a lot of psychology and science applied to the superhero CTA before casting it in your next email campaign.

Psychology and CTA

WHAT DO FANS EXPECT ON THE SCREEN?

According to perceptual set theory, subscribers pay attention to sensory input only selectively. Once the inputs are triggered, it follows inferring with the collection of stored past experiences. Moving further, the mind engages in interpretation which usually involves fitting the present experience into a previous schema.

Human mind expects a CTA in email through this process.

There is an innate Sense of Curiosity in the minds of subscribers once they see the CTA. This is because of the drive theory that curiosity leads to satisfaction.

A good story-telling will ease the decision making and quick climax (CTA)

Also, the CTA reinforces psychological sense of reward through classical conditioning. When it comes to the CTA, subscribers have an operant conditioning response to the reward leading them to easily click and convert

Copy of the CTA increase click-through for the same reason especially with words like “Guaranteed�, “Superior�, “Secrets�, and “Unmatched� etc.

The CTA also leads the subscribers anticipating bigger, better, rewarding, and positive experience.

Promising reward or incentives can help strengthening subscribers’ psychological sense.

Human brain recognizes and acts quickly when there is an incentive or reward attached to an action.

Casting without audition

Ending up with a flop movie? Email is no different. CTA in email best practices!

Human mind expects a CTA in email through this process.

CTAs are overwhelmingly powerful, but only when used as buttons. Don’t take up CTAs as text, hyperlinks, memes, gifs or anything else except for buttons.

Human brains relate to familiarity. Use buttons that your audience can relate to and consider clicking on. Imagine casting a new face who isn’t a good actor as lead - No familiarity - No acceptance.

Copy that sells

The irresistibly compelling CTA copy is the backbone of every email campaign. That said; to instigate your subscribers and tell them to act now, you need to think beyond “Buy, Shop, Visit, and Download�

To write a great offer, ask:

What is my prospect’s motivation for clicking this button?What is my prospect going to get when (s)he clicks this button?

CTA doesn’t provide much room to play, so consider the space and keep the cliff notes to the minimum.

Focus on the benefit with a clear online value proposition and be specific.

Increase the usage of active words and eliminate the computer couch potatoes.

Personalize the CTA, as one of the recently conducted study revealed personalized CTAs to be 90% better in increasing the conversion rates.

Create a sense of urgency. Offer ending soon attains more click-through than the one without specific timeline.

Instead of saying half price, try 50% off, as numbers speak louder than text.

Unambiguous copy with fewer prepositions works better.

Make sure your CTA clearly shouts what it’s about.

Verbiage should be short and ideally should be kept up to five words.

Match it with the proposition on the landing page.

Keep it in sync with the buying cycle.

Size & shape that matters

Where Apple recommends the 44x44 px. CTA button size, many email marketers like to test their CTA size and shape. Appropriate size matching the email’s overall look is crucial. CTA’s size should not overpower your entire email.
Following best practices might help you:
Rectangular:

By far this kind of CTA is the most popular and prominent in the industry. Our eyes don’t like to see the edgy corners that’s why round corners in CTA works best. The width and corners matters much.

Radioactive Buttons:

Radioactive CTAs can be the next big thing. By merging CSS animation with your CTA, you can come up with a radioactive CTA button that looks absolutely fantabulous and glows extremely well on hover.

Bulletproof Buttons:

Give your CTA extra little something by making it
bulletproof, so that the image in button is also visible in Outlook.

Colors that converts

According to a survey, color of the CTA helped 85% of customers in deciding over the product quickly.
Vibrant or juxtaposed colors can be used to make your CTA stand out.
Try using monochromatic colors for your non-CTA buttons and let your main CTA be the shining star.

BOB (big orange button) is the the most popular button in the industry
and instigates prompt action

Green is easy to process for eyes.
It means GO. Green relaxes mind and promotes growth

Black is powerful and normally
used by email marketers promoting
luxury goods

Blue creates trust and security and normally used in banking emails

Some other colors email marketers use are red, pink, yellow, and purple.

Fonts are your CTA’s wardrobe

Fonts and typography in CTA is at times trendy, but at times this comes with roaring perils of renderability. Check the available space and email client compatibility for using fonts in CTA.

Bold font is great to fetch the attention and to decrease the chances of subscribers to pause

Don’t play with different fonts as they may seem fancy, but can also confuse the subscribers

Avoid using large fonts as it can distract the consumers

Mismatching the fonts isn’t a clever thing to do, especially when you are trying to woo your consumers

Remember, if fonts aren’t fitting well, there are higher chances of wardrobe malfunction.

Placement - Does the fold exist?

CTAs are the gold, but the big question is about placing them rightly. Does the fold exist?
Is it mandatory to provide two CTAs?

Well, the answers are relative and debatable, but here are some best practices to follow and
grab attention as an average email is read in as less as 51 seconds.

Fold partially exists and above the fold placement has always been preferable. However, against this, good
content gets read and subscribers do scroll; so having a CTA at the bottom is also perfectly fine.

To place a CTA, use eye tracking device to track the portion of email that’s most noticed.
Monitor the consumers’ behavior to ensure the right CTA placement.

Placing a CTA right below the image gets maximum visibility.

Don’t place CTA in the form of text or hyperlink with different color as that might go unnoticed.
Negative space gives your call to action button room to stand out among your other
content and sets it apart.

Testing your CTAs

Every group of audiences is different, thus, it becomes tremendously vital to
test before you stuff your email with multiple CTAs.

Ensure that every CTA is properly linked and working correctly

Make sure all of your placed CTAs are tappable and designed for small screen users with
mobile first mentality

Make sure fold isn’t hampering your design goals

Test the tone of the offer Passive vs. active language, value based vs. action based

Test the placement of CTA

Test whether single or multiple CTA generates better results

Have you turned out to be a casting director from email marketer? If yes, you could surely cast
awesome CTAs in your next email campaigns and make your email movie a big hit.