Calls to action turns visitors into customers

As I was walking through Waterloo tube station yesterday I noticed in the corner of my eye that something was different. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something new was really shouting out for my attention. Strange feeling.

Stopping to look around, my eyes immediately landed on the new signs that had been put up above the cash dispensers. Big signs, in bold red, announcing “Free cash withdrawals”.

Being the geek that I am I immediately thought “Wow, what a great real world example of a strong call to action!”

A “call to action” (see definitions) is a marketing term often used in online marketing to describe the button, image or text snippet that is intended to make a newsletter reader or website visitor perform an action of some sort. This action can be something simple like clicking a “Like” button on a Facebook fan page (check out the Red Bull fan page for a VERY obvious call to action…), or something more complex like buying an actual product.

Calls to action are typically the most prominent details on a web page, phrased and designed in such a way that the chance of getting a person to click it and perform the action is maximised. The call to action can be phrased as a leading question, or be designed in a playful way making me interested in seeing what happens when I click it, or simply promise a discount for “this limited time offer if you act now!”

In the case of the cash dispensers, it seems to me that somebody reckoned that people perhaps couldn’t see them from a distance, or people were worrying that there would be a fee charged, reducing the amount of people using them (and being exposed to the HSBC advertising…). Solution: new signs, clearly visible from a distance, shouting “Free cash!”

Good calls to action are impossible to miss...

If you take online reservations on your restaurant website, getting a visitor to make a reservation should be the most desired action. Making it obvious how to make that reservation, lowering the barriers to get it done as much as possible, however and where ever the visitor arrives to your site, should be a leading design principle.

Turning website visitors into paying customers is called “conversion”, and you want your conversion to be as high as possible. Simple math: if 100 visitors arrive at your website, and 5 of them make a booking, your conversion is 5/100 = 5%. Now, if you can increase that percentage to 10%, suddenly you have 10 bookings. Think about that. You haven’t done any expensive marketing, you haven’t increased the number of people coming to your website, you simply convinced more of the people that already browse your site to actually make a reservation. Success.

Strong calls to action are key in improving your conversion number.

By working with Livebookings you already have an industry leading booking tool, Livebookings Direct, which we constantly analyse and improve to make it as easy as possible for a visitor to your website to book. It is up to you though (or your web designer, rather) to make sure a visitor that arrives at your site can find the booking tool and be convinced to use it.

So, take a look at your website’s start page. Does it make you interested in visiting your restaurant? Is it obvious how to place a reservation? What if the visitor arrives at a different page than the start page, is it still obvious?

If the answer to any of those questions is “no”, my guess is you are missing out on business.

Check out the Strada website. Do you think they want you to book online?

Strong enough for you...?

Improving conversion is not rocket science, it is a game of trial and error. Make a theory on how conversion could be improved, change your site accordingly, evaluate based on data from your website analytics. Did you get more bookings or not? If no, theory was wrong. Make a new one. Test it.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

For a good book on the topic, look up “Call to Action” by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. It has been around a few years, but it is full of good, solid advice.

Do get in touch if you want to discuss ideas or best practice in terms of optimising restaurant websites for conversion.

Have great ideas and suggestions to share? Leave them in the comments section below!

(See, that last sentence, that’s a call to action that is. Go on. Don’t be shy.)

By Magnus Hultberg in Blog, Online Reservations, Website Design