Every piece of content you put out is part of a customer journey. You’re building brand awareness with blog posts, educating with slides decks, persuading to buy with how-to videos, and retaining clients with nurturing emails. But none of this is worth its salt if you’re not incorporating calls to action that convert.

Conversion means a lot of different things depending on what your ultimate goal is; it doesn’t necessarily mean “sale.” It could be a sign-up to your email list, downloading a piece of content, or a free webinar registration. Or, yes, plunking down a credit card number to buy something.

When your desired conversion is a sale, that call to action is even more important. After all, your audience needs to know what you want them to do next. If you’re not asking for the sale, are they really going to sign on the dotted line?

Build Your Argument

Regardless of the type of conversion you’re seeking, you need to convince your audience to take that final step. Your content should be well-designed and thoughtfully written to explain the solution you are offering. If you are offering downloadable content (like these Presentation Covers), it’s not the time to deep-dive into everything your product can do. You are guiding the customer on their journey and the first step is to convince them to hit “Download” button.

Make It Easy

It shouldn’t be difficult for prospects to hit “go” and buy (or opt-in or sign up). Think of this process just like you would with any website user experience: The more you ask your audience to do, and the more clicks they need to make to get there, the more likely they are to quit in frustration before completing the conversion.

Don’t make it difficult for your audience to find the call to action—and don’t over complicate it with fancy words and jargon. Simple CTAs like “Buy now”, “Get started”, and “Get it now” are time-tested winners.

End Strong

If your CTA is on a sales page, you’ll want to include it several times in your copy. But no matter where your convertible content appears, always end with a CTA too. Make sure you’re actually asking your audience to do something, whether that’s to pick up the phone and call, create an account, make a purchase, or sign up for a course. Whatever it is, there must be an action associated with the call to...action.

Selling isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. These days, customers expect to be part of a larger conversation. You can start that journey by providing relevant convertible content. Just make sure you include that call to action so they’ll take that final step with you.

(see what we did there?)