There are so many articles on “CTAs”- AKA Call to Actions. A call to action is when you are calling the client to do something. Recently, I had to change my way of thinking in our marketing material. I had just 10 days earlier stated to our team “We need to go through all of our blogs and add a CTA to the bottom of them. We are not in the business of providing Public Service Announcements (PCAs).” It sounded like a good idea, but not anymore. Just put the content out.
Content, Content, Content. You don’t need to ask for something all the time. Just putting out the content puts you in the category of becoming an industry thought leader. People that have the content out there without always asking for something in return will succeed. Today we are in the world of YouTube where people can get any question they want answered for free. The content is out there without call to actions. People get annoyed and will stop reading in today’s world with a ton of CTAs.
The Oxford dictionary defines a Call to Action: “In advertising materials, a piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to perform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive (e.g. buy now or click here) “all spam has some call to action that typically urges the user to visit a website.”
This is not saying that CTAs are bad. They have their time and place. I’ll write a future blog about the best Call To Actions that we use. The goal is to hold out as long as we can today before dropping “the right hook.” GaryVee says jab, jab, jab, then right hook. The jab, jab, jab is providing content, content providing true value to the client.
The Right Hook in marketing is “the Ask” or Call to Action. Asking someone to subscribe, or asking people to check out your specials, or even “Call Now” is a right hook. Gary explains, “Jabs are the lightweight pieces of content that benefit your customers by making them laugh, snicker, ponder, play a game, feel appreciated, or escape; right hooks are calls to action that benefit your business.”
The right hook in marketing must be ONLY used when you know it will end successfully. “Whatever your Jab is, it doesn’t entitle you to land the right hook. It just allows you to have the audacity to ask,” says Gary. Again, hold out as long as possible before applying the right hook. Just enjoy being the giver for a minute.
