2 Unique Ways to Use a Call to Action

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2 Unique Ways to Use a Call to Action

  
  
  

Your business needs to generate leads, and you hopefully know how to use calls to action. Calls to action exist to help you generate the ever elusive qualified lead. You incorporate calls to action into every website page, piece of content, and in all of your marketing channels.  But, have you ever added a call to action to your website menu?

That’s right, your website’s menu. Think about it, your website’s menu is one of the most clicked elements on your site. Everyone reads the menu and it’s the starting point for most visitors.

I recommend we start making website menus more actionable and effective. There are two ways we can achieve this goal.  

The first way is to add a call to action to your top-level menu. This will allow anyone that’s visiting one of your website pages to see the call to action in the menu.  HubSpot does this in our menu. We include a “free trial” call to action in our top-level menu. It’s always there, and it’s a relevant call to action for most of our visitors.

Here are some examples of top-level menu calls to action:

  • Product Tour
  • Buy Now
  • Free Consultation
call to action in menu

The second way to make your menus more effective is to create calls to action in the secondary-menu, or sometimes known as child pages. For example, say you have a Resource or Education Center - something I recommend every business create. Under the menu item “Resource Center,” you could create five secondary-menu items that are set up like calls to action. Meaning, they start with a verb and explain what content a visitor would be downloading. Here are some examples of the secondary-menu calls to action:

  1. Download Whitepapers
  2. Watch Product Videos
  3. Download Industry Guide
  4. Read Case Studies
  5. Subscribe to Newsletter

Your goal is to make it clear what action visitors should take as early as possible in their visit. This strategy can prevent visitors from looking through your website and possibly not finding the call to action that resonates with them. Implementing this strategy allows you to be much more proactive in helping guide the visitor to consume the content they want to consume.

Are you going to add calls to action to your menus? What do you think about this idea?

Comments

@Al: Thanks Al! Glad you liked it. 
 
@Kari: Thanks and let me know how it turns out. 
 
@Taline: This is something I would test. You might realize that you can generate qualified leads by putting one or all of your case studies behind a landing page.
Posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:13 AM by Mark Kilens
These are great ideas, but in terms of the secondary menu - how realistic is it that people would submit their info to read a case study? Right now, all our case studies are open to the public. Should we be putting a form in front of them?
Posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:13 AM by Taline
These are great ideas! I'm going to use it tomorrow, as we are updating our site. Thank you!
Posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:13 AM by Kari
This is an incredibly good idea and an easy one to implement! Can't think of an easier way to increase the ratio of sign-ups or other positive actions. Thanks for the tip! I'm going to use it on my Web Marketing website. Thanks!
Posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:13 AM by Al Robezzoli
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