What is a call to action (CTA)?
The call to action (CTA) is a marketing term that describes the next step a marketer wants their audience or recipients to take.
CTAs can lead directly to sales. The reader may be instructed to click the buy button in order to complete a sale, or the audience may be moved further along towards becoming a customer of that company’s goods or services.
A Call to action is a piece of text in a cold email that encourages the recipient to take action. Typically, the recipient responds with some type of answer to your email.
Why Do You Need to Use A Call To Action?
Cold emails now have an average click-through rate of 20-25%. Other statistics show that with a well-written, fully customized call-to-action, you can increase your click-through rate to 30-35%.
Here are the reasons why you need to use a call to action in your cold email.
- Generate Leads
Your CTA will convince the prospect to take specific action in an easy way. The prospects you are targeting through cold email are mostly the busiest people. Always give them an option to respond easily. This is one of the best cold email marketing strategies to increase lead generation.
- Generate Sales
Cold sales prospects may be intrigued by your product if you use a compelling call to action. Scarcity, urgency, and curiosity can trigger emotional responses that make people more likely to check out your product.
- Builds Relationships
You’re more likely to start a conversation and build stronger relationships by including a relevant and persuasive call to action.
- Increase Conversion Rate
The CTA should guide your recipients through the next step you want them to take because it creates a better user experience. This way, you are able to get more conversion rate.
- Build Links
If you want to build links to your website through cold email outreach, an effective CTA is a must to ace that.
By having an effective CTA, you show your recipient a good opportunity to link to quality content.
This way, an effective CTA helps you earn links from influential websites in your industry.
- Collaboration Opportunities
Sometimes, the goal of your cold email outreach is to create strong marketing partnerships to boost your brand’s awareness.
A collaboration-oriented CTA will help you to get collaboration on projects like guest posting, podcasts, webinars, etc.
What Makes a Good CTA?
The attributes of an effective cold email outreach CTA include the following:
- Clear CTA
- Person to perform an action.
- Unique
- Easy to complete.
Where Should You Include Call To Action in Email
The best spot for your CTA in cold email is at the end of your emails. Putting CTA at the end will give a clear direction/next step to the recipient or reader.
As a thumb rule if your email does not end with a CTA you are doing something wrong.
How to Write the best Cold Email Call To Action?
1. Provide Two Different Times and Date
What will be the best call to action at the end of a cold email if your ultimate goal is to get the prospect to book a meeting or to call.
You should offer two different options in the call to action. Therefore, they can choose the time slot they want to come for a meeting easily. Having this information will make their job easier and allow them to respond to your email as soon as possible.
Example – “Are you available to discuss on either [Day 1 and Time 1] or [Day 2 and Time 2]?”
2. Provide a Calendar Link
We can say this tip is an advanced tip for the previous tactics. This is also a better alternative to the previous tactic.
Image source – calendly.com
By doing this, you remove all the guesswork and make it easier for them to find a time that suits both of you. The advent of new technology has made it easier than ever to schedule a mutually convenient time to talk. Appointment scheduling is easy with apps like Calendly, Sprintful, Doodle, and others. You will no longer need to exchange emails back and forth to find a time that works!
Example – “Here is my calendar link so you can pick a time that’s convenient for you.”
3. Write a Benefit-Oriented CTA
what will your prospect get out of replying to your CTA?
You need to highlight the value they will be getting if they take the next step in the journey. The call to action in email is another chance to reiterate the value proposition. You can gently persuade the audience with the reason why they should speak to you.
Example – “Does your team have experience using [Type of solution] to solve [Business Pain]?”
4. Ask a Simple Yes/ No Confirmation Question
Provide your prospect with a solution to a pain point and then ask a question to confirm if it is a problem they are currently experiencing. You can also provide a solution to a problem & then ask a question to confirm whether fixing it is a priority.
There is no attempt to sell anything in this method. Neither a call nor a demo is requested. The simple yes or no option allows you to begin a conversation with your prospect right away.
Example – “Is fixing this issue your highest priority right now?”
5. Ask an Open-Ended Question
Besides yes or no confirmation inquiry, you can also ask an open-ended question that requires more than a yes or no answer. When you ask an open-ended question to your prospects, you can encourage them to share more about their company.
But why should they open up to a stranger?
To establish yourself as an expert on a topic, you might start by establishing yourself as a source of information. You might then ask them what challenges they face related to that topic.
Example – “What is the greatest obstacle preventing you from reaching your revenue goals?”
6. Provide a Multiple Choice Option in Your CTA
In cold email outreach, you are supposed to send drip messages. Let’s say you have sent 4 to 5 email drips. But the prospect hasn’t responded to any of the email drips you have sent. Now, this is the correct time to send an email drip with a complete call to action.
Some people find no bandwidth to think and reply to your emails. Here comes the multiple-choice CTA that helps the recipient to reply easily.
Example –
“I just want you to let me know which of the following best describes you.
Just reply with a 1 or 2 or 3.
- You are not interested
- This sounds interesting, but now is not the right time
- Interested. Let’s talk now!”
7. Request a Connection
If you are unsure of the contact you are contacting it’s better to ask whether it’s the right point of contact or not. In this way, you can make sure you are not contacting the wrong person or a random contact.
This can be done by requesting a connection. If you ask for a connection with a decision-maker, you will undoubtedly be contacted as soon as possible!
Imagine you sell a marketing automation tool. Instead of writing directly to the marketing manager, you can write to the CEO/ Head of Marketing. While it is unlikely that the CEO will take any action on this matter, it is likely that the CEO is aware of the problems/ challenges faced by the marketing team.
It costs the CEO almost nothing to forward your request to the right person, especially if the organization is facing a challenge. The CEO doesn’t need to schedule a demo or call with you. You have gotten your foot in the door now that the baton has been passed to the more appropriate person.
In addition, you are more likely to succeed in turning the prospect into a customer if you have been introduced by someone senior.
Example – “Are you the right person to discuss this? If not, Can you please point me to the right point of contact?”
The Best Call To Action Examples for Cold Email
- Do you mind sharing the criteria for including a blog/resource in your article?
- Please let me know if you are interested in returning the favor in any way. I look forward to hearing from you.
- Is collaboration something you’d be interested in? If so, we’re open to the following;
- Exchanging backlinks
- (Both ways) Guest blogs
- Are there any other possibilities?
Please, Let me know what you think!
- I have some ideas that might help if this is something you’re challenged with. Let’s set up a quick call.
- Are you available for a brief call at [Time]?
- I would like to share more. Are you open to a call at [Date & Time]?
- Would you have 20 min next week for a quick chat on how I might save you [X hrs] per project to get [Company] more [Clients, users, revenue, growth, etc]?
- I won’t reach out again, but please feel free to get in touch if you need help with [Your Service].
- I know you must be super busy, is there someone else that might be a better fit for me to reach out to discuss [Value Proposition]?
- Could you direct me to the right person to talk to about this at [Company] so we can know if this would be something valuable to incorporate into [Company Name]
- Are you interested in learning how [Competitor X] & [Competitor Y] are achieving [Desired Outcome]?
- What’s your reaction to solving [Pain Point]?
- If you find it interesting, I would love to tell you more about it. Would you please pick a time from my calendar [Calendar link] that is convenient for you?
- I can briefly explain how we achieve [Business Benifit]. When are you free for a 15-min demo call? Here are some of my availabilities:
Aug 6th 1pm – 3pm
Aug 15th 1pm – 3pm
Aug 23rd 1pm – 3pm
Wrapping up
CTAs (Call To Action) is as important as the subject line. Subject lines make the person open the email while CTAs make the reader reply to your emails. It helps you to build a strong relationship with the customers. If you don’t create the CTA correctly your total efforts will go into veins. I hope you got a clear picture to write a perfect CTA. If you want to know end-to-end about cold email marketing, try our cold email marketing mastery course.
