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What emotions will such run-of-the-mill, downright salesy phrases instill in you?

None, right? A tinge of annoyance perhaps? An urge to flick by without a second glance? Or may haps, a second glance to delete them?

This is because they are so clichéd. They are so proliferate across the internet that our brain has become hardwired to overlook them completely, like they don’t exist. Aimed to drive traffic to your website or even make some sales, we – the consumers – normally filter them out by labeling them as spam in our emails. Unless you’re planning to hold people captive at gun point, and coax them into buying from you, people won’t even bother to open your email, let alone react to it. And even if they do, accidentally, they won’t bother to click your calls-to-action (CTAs), unless it is standing out and triggers a familiar emotion.

86% of business personals choose email as their medium of communication for business purposes. According to a survey, 74% of customers expect welcome emails right after they sign-up.

So, here is the catch. Today, I will be sharing some tips on how you can create compelling CTAs for your emails? (with examples) of course. It is the right time to break the silence and draw some eyes to your emails, enticing them to consider doing business with you.

But before I start rambling about how good I am, let me differentiate a website CTA from an email call-to-action. Firstly…. The CTA in your email is confined by a limited space to leave an impact. Every word that you write in your email becomes your CTA. So, there is no chance of getting sidetracked.

Akin to a blog post, you can start your email with a stimulating question, or a recent exhilarating experience that you have had; something to keep them riveted and hooked to read more. This condition is valid as long as it encourages the user to take action. In a blog post, there is enough room to tell a story and engage your user, before going in for the actual kill with your call-to-action. On the other hand, in an email, you need to do everything fast. You need to engage the users with visual cues or GIFs which are potent enough to drive the users into action.

Since CTAs are not part of the SERPS, there is no keyword stuffing required for them. The attention of your user will be limited, so you need to design emails in such a way as to maximize the reading time that you can have with your users.

Do not treat CTAs as a simple button or a sentence that appears at the end of your email. A sign of a good CTA is that it starts with the email subject line and follows all the way until the end. There is this misconception among people that a CTA is something that drives people to take action.

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It is not as simple as it sounds.

Your button is just a part of a CTA. Your Email has to make up their minds, complete the funnel until the very end. So, the question you should be asking is “How to create a great email call-to-action?”

There are three elements of penning down a powerful Email CTA.

• Define your goal

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” ~Sylvia Plath

If you don’t know where you want to go, the destination won’t matter. But, when it comes to designing persuasive emails, you need to start with keeping the end in mind.

What is the one thing that you want your users to do?

Do you want to welcome the new users?

Do you want to drive traffic to your website?

Are you in the throes of a product launch?

Do you want to re-engage your existing users?

Just before you brainstorm the content of your email, you need to define the goal that you’re willing to achieve with your email.

Here is a great example:

As you can see, the goal of the email is to sell. One tagline. Some features, and simple call-to-action button. That is all that it takes to succeed!

• Write the copy

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” ~Robert Frost

If your writing is not absorbing the user, what is the point of creating a boring copy that drones on and on, without actually making an impact? The goal of your CTA is to compel the user to take action. If you want to convert the users, you need to start with a killer value proposition.

And as per Dale Carnegie, “The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”

With every CTA, you need to trigger some emotion among your users. They need to feel something and take action on your email. This doesn’t mean that you need to pepper a deluge of CTAs throughout the email. Use CTAs when you want to trigger some emotions in your user or make them ponder.

• Design your CTA

Once the copy of your CTA is completed, you need to start designing your email. This means that you need to design an email which can ring well with your CTA. You need to keep the theme of the email consistent throughout the email. Be it your links, buttons, or even your products, you need to design everything centering on your bottom-line CTA.

Here, you need to consider the “skim readers”. These readers don’t really go through the email, they just riffle through until they find a working link from where they can take action. If they like what you’re selling or they think that you’re fulfilling some need, they will go to your landing page and go straight for the purchase. No frills attached!

Let’s just end the debate on a Happy note!

Writing CTAs for your email is tough, but not impossible. You must keep your CTAs creative, succinct, and unique. Steer clear of generic phrases that users will be bound to ignore. By following the tactics mentioned in this email, you might be able to come-up with some creative CTAs for your email.

If you know some, feel free to share with us in the comment section below.