Content Marketing With Video – Tip 11 – The Call To Action Part 2

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In the last content marketing with video tip, we started looking at The Call To Action.  In particular we looked at the placement of the call to attraction for attraction videos.  And in my opinion the best placement of the Call To Action is somewhere at the beginning of the video.

In this content marketing with video tip we’re going to look at the different components of a call to action.

So What Are The Components Of A Call To Action?

The Call To Action comprises three parts:

• 1. Telling the viewer what action to take

• 2. Telling the viewer how  they can take the action

• 3. Telling the viewer what’s in it for them

Let’s look at each part in more detail.

1. Telling The Viewer What Action To Take

If you don’t actually suggest a course of action for the viewer to take, the chances are high that the majority of your viewers will click onto another video or click onto something else.  Especially if they found your attraction video on YouTube – your video will be surrounded by ‘related videos’ that probably won’t be your videos. Plus at the end of your video YouTube will suggest a bunch more related videos – so it’s very easy for the viewer to click away from your video.

Unless you give them the idea that there is a specific action they can take.

This specific action should be related back to your overall business goals – I’ve seen the so called ‘goo-roos’ recommend that the call to action should be to get viewers to subscribe to you on YouTube.  If that furthers your business goal, then that’s fine.  If it doesn’t – and for most us it won’t – then your call to action should be something different.

The obvious call to action for most businesses with an online presence – and the goal I use for my bass guitar website – is to try and get people off YouTube, and over to my website.  And once they are there, the next goal is to get them to subscribe to my bass guitar website so they are on my email list.

In fact the primary goal of every video that I upload to the ‘Toob or elsewhere is to deliver my call to action and get people over to my website.  If they only watch the first minute or so of one of my videos and then go subscribe, I’m happy.

But you can’t be vague – let’s move on and look at the next part of the call to action.

2. Telling The Viewer How They Can Take The Action

Instructing the viewer what to do isn’t enough, the more obvious the action becomes – and the less thinking or working out that the viewer has to do -  the higher the percentage of viewers successfully completing the desired action will be.

So don’t just give them a vague action to perform, give them something concrete.  For example a vague action would be something like:

“…head over to my website and subscribe to my website.”

A more concrete version is:

“…click the link underneath the video and head over to my website at www.how-to-play-bass.com.  You’ll find the subscribe link in the right hand corner of every page.”

On YouTube you can create clickable links back to your website in the description box.  Always place the link in the first line of the description – if it’s buried with the text of your description then the viewer won’t be able to click on it without pressing the ‘SHOW MORE’ button:

Another thing you can do to make telling the video how they can take your action more concrete is to use physical actions (in live action video) or arrows (in powerpoint style videos) that point to links.  If you want people to subscribe to your YouTube channel you can use annotations to insert a ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button and point to that.

Leave the viewer in no doubt as to what they should do – and where they can start doing it.   There’s more though – the viewer needs to know what benefit they get by taking your suggested call to action.

3. Telling The Viewer What’s In It For Them

The third and last part of the Call to Action is probably the most important – giving the viewer a compelling reason why they should take the action that you want them to take.

In copywriting circles this is known as the “what’s in it for me” factor.  Attaching a benefit to the viewer to taking the action that you want will result in more viewers actually taking your suggested action.  That benefit will vary depending on what your actual goal is.

My goal with my bass guitar site is to get people over to my website and get them onto my email list – so the ‘What’s In It For Me’ that I detail in my call to action are the specific series of opt-in bonuses that people get for joining my list.

The Call To Action…In Action

So let’s dissect a Call To Action,  Here’s the kind of thing that I say in my bass guitar videos:

“…head over to my website at how-to-play-bass.com by clicking the link below the video and subscribe to my free monthly ezine.  There’s a subscribe button on the right hand side of every page of the website.  Subscribers get access to a different video and PDF song tutorial every month – and as a thank you for entrusting me with your email address there’s a sequence of five video and PDF song tutorials delivered to your inbox over the next few days which are again exclusive to subscribers.”

So let’s look at the elements one by one:

Telling The Viewer What Action To Take:  “…head over to my website at how-to-play-bass.com….and subscribe to my free monthly ezine.”

Telling The Viewer How They Can Take The Action: “…by clicking the link below the video….there’s a subscribe button on the right hand side of every page of the website.”

Telling The Viewer What’s In It For Them: “…Subscribers get access to a different video and PDF song tutorial every month – and as a thank you for entrusting me with your email address there’s a sequence of five video and PDF song tutorials delivered to your inbox over the next few days which are again exclusive to subscribers.”

Constructing Your Own Call To Action

The easiest way to create your own call to action is to turn those three constituent parts into questions and then answer them.  Here are those parts turned into questions:

1.  What action do you want your viewer to take?
2.  What specific actions do your viewers need to perform to help them take that action?
3.  What’s in it for them?  What benefits will they get as a result of taking that action?

Spend some time answering the questions – and then convert your answers into a few lines of script that you can use in your videos as a clear call to action.

Summary

In Tip 10 we looked at where the Call To Action should go in an attraction video, in this post we’ve looked at the three elements that constitute a successful Call To Action.  Those elements are:

1.  Telling the viewer what action to take.
2.  Telling the viewer specifically how to take that action.
3.  Telling the viewer what’s in it for them.

You can create a script for your call to action that you use consistently in all your videos by turning those elements into questions, answering the questions and then editing it into a few lines of script that deliver your call to action.

We’ll complete our look at the Call To Action in the next post when we look at aligning the call to action with our business goals.

Related posts:

1. Content Marketing With Video Tip 10 – The Call To Action Part 1
2. Content Marketing With Video Tip 8 – Know Your Video’s Purpose
3. Content Marketing With Video – Tip 4 – Lose the Umms And Ahhs
4. Content Marketing With Video Tip 6 – How To Upload Longer Videos To YouTube

Tagged as: call to action, content marketing, video, video marketing, video script, youtube