CTA

Persuading others to act, buy, click, respond, or give to solve their problem is the goal of our writing.

Most of us who write for a living don’t get paid to just amuse or entertain, we get paid when we prompt actions.

So if this is so clear, so obvious – why do we fail so badly, so often?

How can we accomplish more of what we want in our writing?

Here's Part One of a solution...

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first – writing is difficult, and good writing is rare – but that’s what you want to be – and it takes work…

And no one is born a writer, just like we're not born knowing how to use a toilet or drive a car (but we learn).

Good writing – persuasively communicating in our writing – is our goal.

And to get an answer we have to ask a question – and that means a CTA – a call-to-action that is clear, singular, and repeated.

That is, we have to actually, plainly ask (but sometimes we get so tied-up in explaining and justifying what we want to ask we forget to actually make the ask).

Why? Most of the time it’s because we’re insecure and we’re afraid we’ll lose them. (It’s why so many obsess and worry about unsubscribes – we don’t like rejection so we avoid asking.)

A good ask is also singular – just one ask, repeated 3 times, changing-up the lead-in – beginning, middle, and end.

And it all happens at the beginning - not the glorious end we've built with our compelling argument, case, or storytelling.

Yes, at the beginning – even when our reader or audience doesn’t know everything we’re going to say to prove to them we’re worth the ‘ask’ – because heat-maps of top, middle, and bottom of the funnel email tell the same story – we get more engagement at the beginning and middle than at the end of our asks

And this repetition of the same ‘ask’ reinforces what the right action is but with 3 versions of it engagement increases with the perception of agency.

It also avoids decision fatigue – when we give people more than one choice it takes calories for the brain to act, to decide, and offering different choices like click here for more info, buy something blue, or buy something green, or maybe you want to buy something yellow, and follow us on social media, sign-up for our newsletter, and here are a few links to other businesses, articles, newsletters outside and away from this channel

Once you’ve got them, you don’t give them ways to leave your store, email, or webpage.

So start at the beginning...