This is Inbox Hacking, a free newsletter with Email Marketing insights, tools, & tactics sent twice per week. If someone forwarded you our Newsletter, join marketers from Hubspot, the NBA, & Realtor.com and sign up for a Free subscription. Today we look at improving calls-to-action (w/ examples & 5 key CTA stats).
My call-to-action as we hit mid-August? Enjoy the remains of summer.
Winter arrives sooner than we think (in 128 days). As for your calls-to-action, letâs look at improving them so your emails get more clicks and produce sales while growing your list too.
Big 5 CTA Facts-n-Stats
âOne CTA per email more popular among marketers. 43% use one, versus 30% who use two per email.
âSingle CTA emails also shown to increase sales by over 1,600% (older Wordstream study).
â Personalized calls-to-action perform 202% better than basic CTAs (though personalization takes more creativity in 2023).
âPost-purchase pages with calls to share get 16x more social shares.
âConventional wisdom isnât always smartâ one test showed a top-of-fold landing page CTA beaten by a CTA at the end (converted 304% better).
Source: Hubspot
3 Actions to Take
- Most email best practices should only be trusted after testing. Test CTA positioning in emails, landing pages, and sign-up forms.
- CTA personalization improves as your customer journey knowledge improves. Double-check that calls-to-action fit the customer or potential customer seeing the CTA.
- Clicks donât equal sales. Dig into why semi-successful CTAs are not generating sales. Landing page doesnât pay off the CTAâs promise or has unclear messaging?
Even genius marketing doesnât always produce. Those Energizer Bunny ads actually helped Energizerâs competitor until consumer confusion was corrected.
Read about it in Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Cliff noteâ Point-of-sale displays had to be updated to match the TV commercials since shoppers knew the Bunny but not the brand.
Not Your Average CTA Examples
Drip compiled alternatives to bland / overused CTA examples here.
My top-3 from the listâŚ
đŹBarkbox CTA: âClaim offerâ (free dog bed). Good but even better would be âClaim Free Dog Bedâ since it would mention the Free gift twice. Helpful because the CTA has a couple of stipulations to overcome in buyersâ minds.
đŹFabletics CTA: 1) âShop Womenâsâ. 2) Shop âMenâsâ. Automatic list segmentation opportunity, plus no worrying about a dude clicking a general CTA then abandoning because he doesnât need hot pink high-heels or has 7 pair alreadyđ.
đŹBobbi Brown Cosmetics CTA: âCreate Your Setâ. Empowers shoppers with agency and choice. Even better is the build-up with multiple benefits that overshadow the single stipulation.
*Mobile pop-ups can outperform desktop pop-ups by as much as 46.37% (Drip)
Finally: 3 Easy Ways to Improve CTAs
- Remind yourself a human sees calls-to-action, not a soulless bot
- Remove all friction from the final step you want readers to take (i.e. consider guest checkout vs. mandatory accountsâ Â Shopify lists benefits. Even ebay offers guest checkout)
Best Subject Line in My Inbox (+why it worked)
Uses âYouâ twice and asks a question about an action I was maybe supposed to take. A lil sneaky but not underhanded.
Read on for sketchy email clicks, new studies on social proof, & âsustainableâ sales.
đŽTrashed
Landfills contain megatons of flyers, postcards, and sales letters. Most trashed before people read the business name.
Same with marketing emails. A giant waste.
Protect your email campaigns from being trashed before readers even read your subject line.
You can get up to 7 out of 10 emails opened and read with Inbox Mailers.
Yep, up to 70% open rates. Not only that. Click volume increases too.
*sponsored
Knowledge Base
đĄKnowledge is power, but first, NFL sticky fingers
Yahoo Postmaster tips for when campaigns land in spam folders
âTips & 3 tools (incl. Neuroflash) for AI SEO help
Getting sketchy email clicks? Action steps to takeÂ
đHow to deal w/ data overload (5 quickie tips)
Empathy helps w/ sales so read fiction to increase yours
Follow Inbox MailersâŚ
Self Help
WTH! Study shows over half of men dealing with hair loss are âextremely self-consciousâ about socializing.
I thought we solved this non-problem when Michael Jordan made shaved heads cool.
Sure, LeBronâs insecure and narcissistic so he needs hair plugs butâŚ
Fellas. Shave that dome. And move on. Youâll save money and time by shaving your head at homeâ so you can go out.
*Shout-out to Inbox Hackers:
đŁVarshit at BlackBoardRadio (communication mentors)
đ˘Antonia at UNC (edu)
Facts and Stats
- Of 7 different signs, only Authority & Social Proof signs significantly increased hand washing versus no sign (CopyHackers)
- Nearly half of healthcare digital marketers say theyâve used black hat SEO tactics (MarketingProfs)
- Facebook fundraisers created by individuals raise nearly 3.7x amount non-profit organizations do (Constant Contact)
Bonus: âSustainableâ helps sales but only ifâŚ.?  You prioritize the brand benefit. Leverage relevant sustainability messaging to strengthen brand positioning.
Send emails when people are in their inbox đŹ
Imagine you pop open Gmail, and you have a long list of emails to go through. Classic.
A few seconds later, a new email pops into your inbox. Exciting.
You’re more likely to immediately open it rather than the long list of stale emails.
Inbox Mailers does just thatâ Pops a triggered email into the inbox when your subscriber is actually looking at their inbox!
This strategy is leading to open rates of 50% – 70% and improving overall deliverability for users of this platform. And, with better deliverability, your sender score rises along with inbox placement rates. Itâs easy to test Inbox Mailers for yourselfâŚ
*sponsored
Get Hacking
Add more social proof that subscribers should be clicking on your CTAs.
Need proof social proof is still going strong? K. 5 new studies.
*Friendly with other email marketers? Tap the forward button to sling Inbox Hacking their way so I can keep my pups in Scooby Snacks.
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