DesignBiz Rx Weblog

One of the most basic principles of marketing is often overlooked when trying to develop a unique, personal marketing message: You’ve got to get people to do something. Any ad, brochure, website or other promotion that doesn’t include some type of “call to action” makes it difficult to measure the effectiveness of the promotion. And without knowing for sure what’s working for you and what isn’t, what you can perhaps tweak or what you just might need to scrap…that’s tossing away a portion of your marketing budget. 

So if you want your audience to respond to your promotions, you have to ask for a response. Call Now. Stop In Today. Limited Time Offer. It sounds hokey, but the thing is, if you don’t ask, you’re expecting your audience to do your marketing work for you. People are too busy and the media landscape is too cluttered for them to spend more than a few seconds with your message figuring out what to do next.

Yes, you may think it’s obvious: “Why else would I be running this ad, if I didn’t want them to buy something,” but with service category like custom window treatments, the audience might not even know what the next step should be. Do they need to call for appointment? Check out your website for measurement instructions? Visit your store or studio?

The next promotion you work on, step back and think about why you’re doing this. Is it to introduce yourself to a new market? Generate leads? Tout a new product or service? Whatever the purpose of the promotion, a specific call to action for that purpose should be included.

It’s also true that a strong marketing campaign needs to be more than just a call to action, but we can save that for later post! But we’d like to know: What types of “Call to Action” promotions have worked for you?