Once you have your paint flipping website up and running, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to engage with your business. Calls-to-action help your website visitors understand their opportunities to make purchases, attend store events, contact you, and generally get more involved with your company.
What is a Call-to-Action?
A call-to-action (CTA) is a statement which tells your customers exactly what they need to do to engage with your business. CTAs work best when they’re concise and specific.
Examples of strong CTAs include:
- Shop Now
- Buy Now
- Send an Email
- Register for This Event
- Sign Up for Email Updates
Each of these CTAs lets customers know exactly how to interact with your business, and the CTAs are concise enough to avoid confusing customers about what you want them to do.
How to Create a Strong Call-to-Action
Before you can issue a call-to-action (CTA), you must build a foundation of trust with your prospective customers. Help shoppers understand:
- Your company’s value proposition;
- Why they should trust your company; and
- The benefits they’ll enjoy once they get engaged with your company.
Once you’ve established this foundation of trust, you can issue a CTA that shoppers will want to follow.
As you craft your calls-to-action, keep the following tips in mind:
- Make every CTA concise and specific. Tell customers exactly what you want them to do so there’s no confusion, and tell them in just a few words.
- Make every CTA as easy to follow as possible. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about how to use Fusion Mineral Paint, you may want to include a CTA that says “Purchase Fusion Mineral Paint now.” You can make this CTA easier to follow by embedding a hyperlink in the sentence so shoppers can simply click the link to reach an order page. You can make the CTA even more obvious by adding a button at the end of your blog that readers can click to see your selection of Fusion Mineral Paints.
- Make your CTAs easy to spot. Don’t hide CTAs within long paragraphs of text that your website visitors may skim past. Instead, include CTAs at the very end of paragraphs, incorporate CTAs into brightly colored buttons, and turn CTAs into bold headlines so they’re impossible to miss.
- Incorporate CTAs throughout your website. It’s great to include a “Shop Now” button on your homepage, but website visitors may decide to explore your website for a little longer before they’re actually ready to shop. Place CTAs in multiple places on every page of your website so visitors have ample opportunities to get engaged.
Vary your CTAs to give visitors more than one opportunity to connect. If someone’s visiting your website for the very first time, they may not be ready to make a purchase right away. It’s important to offer website visitors multiple opportunities to get engaged with your business. You may want to issue CTAs like, “Sign up for email updates,” “Attend a painting workshop,” and “Send us a message” to keep people interested in everything your company has to offer.
Examples of Effective Calls-to-Action
Our stockists do an amazing job at incorporating CTAs throughout their websites, so we wanted to share a few stellar examples with you!
Example 1: CTAs in a blog
We love Shabby Nook’s blog because it includes lots of tutorials to help readers understand how to use their new paint products. Check out this blog post to see some examples of how CTAs are used:
- First, the blog title itself is a hint toward a CTA. The blog is called “Creating a concrete look with Milk Paint by Fusion,” so readers immediately understand what they can learn to do when they read this article.
- Next, you’ll find CTAs incorporated throughout the article. Anytime Shabby Nook references a Fusion Milk Paint product, they embed a hyperlink so readers can click to find the purchase page.
- CTAs aren’t just embedded in the text; they’re also found in the images used in the blog. One image in particular even says, “Click here to shop the full range now.”
- Finally, this blog incorporates a variety of types of CTAs in case readers aren’t quite ready to make a purchase. At the end of the blog post, there’s an opportunity to submit your contact information so you can receive a free Fusion Milk Paint guide. (As a bonus, Shabby Nook is able to use this form to collect readers’ email addresses so they can contact them later with special offers and promotions!)
What a great blog article!
Example 2: CTAs on social media
One of our stockists, Kate Clowes Holt, runs a fabulous Instagram account to give shoppers a behind-the-scenes look at all of her painting projects and products. Check out some of our favorite posts which include CTAs:
- This post talks about how customers can order a free Fusion Mineral Paint chart to help with their colour selection. Kate includes an image carousel so shoppers can see what the paint chart looks like and says, “Add one to your next order!” to let shoppers know exactly how to respond to her CTA.
- This post promotes a show where Kate demonstrated her upcycling skills. Followers not only learned about the events occurring at the show to entice them to buy tickets; they were also given the opportunity to follow a fun giveaway CTA: “If you want to be entered into a draw to win a free pair of tickets – please tag a friend below and follow me!”
- This post also promotes an event Kate attended by sharing a behind-the-scenes sneak peak of what attendees can expect to receive if they purchase tickets. Building up hype for an upcoming event or promotion is a great way to pack some punch into your CTA!
Here’s something else we love about Kate’s Instagram: She spreads out her CTAs to avoid overwhelming her followers. She intersperses posts without CTAs throughout her feed to simply showcase the beautiful artwork she’s created!
Example 3: CTAs throughout a website
Claire’s CraftHouse is one of our favorite stockist websites because it includes strong CTAs throughout. Here are some of our favorite CTAs:
- When you first visit the website, a brightly colored pop-up appears with the CTA, “Enjoy 20% Off Your First Order.” Website visitors are able to send in their email address to get a 20% discount code.
- At the top of the homepage, there are a variety of CTAs which allow visitors to choose how they engage with Claire’s CraftHouse. For example, visitors can click “See Why We’re Trusted & Recommended” to read customer reviews; “Get Free Standard Delivery To Your Door” to learn more about shipping information; and “Collect From Our New Midlands Store” to learn how to pick up orders in-person.
- We also love the Fusion Mineral Paint landing page which helps shoppers learn about Fusion with CTAs like “Get Your Colour Card” and “What Makes Fusion Unique.”
Get inspired by Claire’s CraftHouse to incorporate CTAs throughout your website!
Related content: Boost Your Sales With a Better Email Signature
Conquer YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE PAINTPRENEUR® WEEKLY DROP
Stay connected with the latest trends, inspiration, and expert insights in the decorative furniture paint industry. Our weekly emails are packed with valuable content designed to empower and support your Paintpreneur® journey. It’s more than an email—it’s your secret weapon in the furniture paint industry!