We are faced with Call to Action (CTA) messages all the time. You can’t go to a store, visit a website, or spend time on social media without seeing them. Nowadays they’re such an accepted part of doing business that people will actually wait for a CTA before “raising their hand” … even when they’ve already decided to raise it! This is why it’s important for us, as speakers, to get better acquainted with CTAs, and how to best integrate them into our talks.

What are CTAs and why are they important? A CTA is simply an invitation extended to your audience to do something. As speakers, our overall goal is to educate and/or inspire our audience members. But make no mistake, we also want them to take advantage of OUR subject matter expertise, not someone else’s. So, stated another way, a CTA is an invitation into the world of how OUR specific knowledge and expertise can help them.

Generally speaking, there are two types of CTAs speakers can use to their best advantage. The first type are the CTAs we use during our talk. These are the CTAs we use to invite our audiences to participate and interact while we’re speaking. At first glance, you might not think of a survey, poll, or asking a direct question as a CTA, but they all are. Think of them as precursors. If the CTAs you include within your talk don’t inspire people to take the actions you want them to take, they might not respond the way you want them to with your end-of-talk CTAs either.

To get you thinking about your own CTAs, here are three considerations:

  1. Employ the KISS method. As experts, it’s so easy for us to forget how much we know compared to how much our audiences know. Whether you’re creating CTAs for the inside of your talk or for the end, ask yourself: Are my CTAs actionable for this specific audience? Have I provided clear and simple instructions/directions for taking action? Have I shared enough information and reasons for them to take action?
  2. Remember that a call to action isn’t just about sales. Yes, we do want people to buy from us, but at this stage, we want them to benefit from what they walk away with too. People can smell a straight-up sale’s pitch a mile away. Gratefully, they can also tell when someone genuinely cares about them and their situation. Build your CTAs from that perspective and people are more likely to respond favorably to what you’re offering.
  3. Give them a deadline. Why? Because many people (like me) work better with a deadline. Another reason is because if someone isn’t inspired to take action within the time frame given, they probably aren’t in need of your services at that moment in time. That’s okay. They’ll have your contact info and can reach out to you when they are.

What are examples of CTAs? This is a tricky question to answer because different CTAs work for different topics. There are white papers, ebooks, newsletters, and free consultations. But my suggestion is to check out the CTAs people at the top of your field of expertise are using. Make a list and then pick two or three you’re comfortable with.

Take your time creating your CTAs for the end of your talk. Be sure you’ve dropped “breadcrumbs” throughout your talk. That way, by the time you get to your last CTA, the people in your audiences will be ready and excited to take the next step to learn more about how you can help them. Take advantage of the cell phones everyone in your audience will already have. Invite them to connect with you via a text right then and there. If you’re using a visual presentation, include a slide with both text and QR code options.

What should your CTA say? Take a look below at our Speaker Tip to learn more about that. (How about that. I ended this newsletter with a CTA! )

‘Til we speak again….
~Beth

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