Crafting Effective Calls-to-Action: A Branding Power Move
Unleash the full potential of your brand with strategic calls-to-action. Learn how effective CTAs can amplify your brand’s voice and drive meaningful engagement.
Calls-to-action (CTAs) have become a staple of digital marketing. Those prominent buttons inviting visitors to “Sign Up,” “Start Free Trial,” or “Buy Now” can be found on almost every website and advertisement.
When executed effectively, CTAs can drive conversions, landing page views, and sales for your business. However, many companies fail to realize the branding potential of these small but mighty elements.
Far from just directing traffic, CTAs are invaluable touchpoints for conveying your brand’s persona. From the language to the visual presentation, you can infuse CTAs with your brand's look, feel, and voice. Doing so creates a cohesive experience that engages visitors and motivates them to convert.
Let’s explore how to craft branding-focused CTAs that capture attention while strengthening brand perception.
CTAs as Brand Ambassadors
Your CTAs should serve as micro representations of your brand, conveying the personality your company wants to get across. Just as you train employees to deliver messaging on-brand, ensure your CTAs follow the same guidelines.
Playful Brand Voice
For a playful, approachable brand like Mailchimp, CTAs adopt a fun, conversational tone fitting that image:
“Send Better Email”
“Try the App”
Luxury Brand Voice
Meanwhile, the CTAs for an elite fashion brand like Gucci adopt polished, ultra-sophisticated messaging:
“Indulge in New Arrivals”
“Experience the Collection”
When visitors click Gucci’s CTAs, they expect a luxe environment reflecting the upscale edge teased in the button copy. Failure to deliver that promised experience diminishes brand consistency.
Tone is equally essential in written CTAs. Whether friendly or formal, embrace the voice that makes your brand unique.
Visual Branding in CTAs
Beyond rhetoric, CTA design elements like colour, shape, size, and typography establish instant visual recognition tied back to your brand.
Logos often inspire the colour choices and fonts used in CTAs.
For example, Whole Foods’s Green integrates seamlessly into the health food retailer’s site CTAs.
Text-heavy CTAs may incorporate brand fonts for added consistency:
Consistency in visual touchpoints like CTAs trains visitors to recognize your brand anywhere. You want website visitors to instantly identify a CTA as belonging to your company without reading it.
Strategic CTA Placement for Brand Experience
CTA placement should funnel visitors into an experience mirroring brand messaging at every touchpoint.
For example, eco-friendly fashion line Reformation likely wants CTAs guiding visitors into shopping flows promoting sustainability:
Homepage CTA: Shop New Arrivals
Product Page CTA: Add Item to Sustainable Cart
Cart Page CTA: Proceed to Eco-Checkout
This experience stays on message while meeting conversion goals.
Here are some CTA placement tips for common brand pages:
Homepage: Highlight your brand’s purpose or popular entry points into your ecosystem.
Product Pages: Entice visitors to learn more or purchase an item.
Service Pages: Guide visitors to working with you or trying a demo.
Blog Posts: Promote related content or free downloads.
Emails: Link to specific on-site destinations based on customer data.
Examine visitor journeys to determine optimal pages for conversion-focused CTAs. Branding CTAs can fill gaps along the way.
CTAs for Brand Engagement
Thus far, we’ve discussed CTAs driving direct conversions via clicks. However, CTAs also enable meaningful engagement with your brand community.
Conversational CTAs like “Join the Discussion” on blog posts generate excitement and camaraderie:
Labels like “Over 500 People Viewed This Item” leverage FOMO by displaying social proof:
Reviews and testimonials also leverage engagement CTAs:
While subtle, these CTAs collectively empower visitors to engage with your brand in ways beyond merely transacting.
Case Study: Gymshark’s Brand Community Cultivated by CTAs
Fitness apparel brand Gymshark has cultivated an enormous online community thanks in part to strategically branded CTAs.
Gymshark’s ethos is based on a peer-to-peer mentality. Its CTAs reinforce a sense of community, from motivational messaging to emphasizing user-generated content.
For example, this CTA driving to an online community hub adopts an inspirational, supportive tone:
The click leads to an image-heavy destination showcasing real customers and influencers:
Blog post CTAs consistently encourage visitors to engage with user content:
Email CTAs drive traffic to a hub filled with user reviews:
Product CTAs even incorporate community-focused messaging:
By maintaining an empowering, peer-focused mentality in its CTAs, Gymshark effectively nurtures its engaged social community.
These creatively branded CTAs allow Gymshark to highlight UGC while staying true to its core identity. Consistent branding strengthens affinity and trust in the brand by matching the tight-knit Gymshark community ethos.
This case study shows how, even in fitness, an ultra-competitive industry, branding CTAs with a peer focus can set a brand apart while powering engagement.
Takeaways for Branding Powerhouse CTAs
Approaching CTAs as microcosms of your brand creates a unified visitor experience that delights, converts, and engages. Use these takeaways when evaluating your current CTAs:
• Audit CTAs for appropriate language and tone that fits brand voice guidelines
• Assess visual touchpoints like colour, fonts, and icons for alignment with logo and style guides
• Map CTA placements to visitor journeys, ensuring they guide users into on-brand experiences
• Brainstorm conversational CTAs that facilitate visitor engagement with brand communities
• Monitor performance to identify high-performing CTAs for A/B testing variations
By dedicating focus to optimizing CTAs for branding, you transform these small but critical touchpoints into vital brand ambassadors. Visitors instantly recognize your CTAs as belonging to your company, feel immersed in an experience reflective of your purpose and values, and eagerly convert or engage.
Take your CTAs to the next level by leveraging them for long-term brand building beyond solely driving conversions. Turn CTAs into an invaluable asset for strengthening brand affinity and community.