A lot of podiatrists find it easy to attract website traffic with their marketing. Conversion, though, is often a different story. Without a little prompting or direction, most people won’t schedule an appointment until their symptoms become unbearable. In the meantime, they may find your website helpful. They may read your email and direct mail and think about addressing their foot problems. They may even see your ads and recognize your name.
However, if they don’t know what to do next, they probably won’t do anything at all for as long as possible.
So, how do you get the “perfect patients” and referral sources you’ve attracted to your website and marketing materials to convert into real business for your practice? The answer is simple: just ask them with a great call to action!
What Is a Call to Action (CTA)?
In marketing terms, a call to action (CTA) is what we call any kind of invitation for your visitor to take the next step. You might say it out loud in a video or write it into your content—if it asks your reader, viewer, or visitor to do something, then it’s a call to action.
The whole idea of the CTA is to encourage visitors, readers, or viewers to make a move toward building a relationship with your practice. That can be as simple as “click here for more information,” “let us hear from you,” or posting your office phone number. It can also be as direct as “schedule an appointment” or “fill out our contact form.”
Hard or soft, there are all kinds of CTAs out there. But, if you really want to push that conversion power, you’ll find that how you choose and handle your CTAs is a big part of it.
What Does an Effective CTA Look Like?
The best calls to action are tailored to the goal you want to accomplish and what will be most relevant to readers or viewers. For example, depending on your goals, an effective CTA might ask people to:
- Call your office
- Schedule an appointment
- Fill out a contact form on your website
- Subscribe to your newsletter
- Share a story or leave a comment
- Download your free book
- Follow you on social media
- Chat with an online representative
- Click through to a relevant landing page on your website
- Sign up for an event
- Take a quiz
- Enter a contest
- Rate or review your business
And the list goes on! Essentially, a good CTA matches your goals and message, while giving people a clear idea of what the next step is and how to get there.
Keep in mind that an effective CTA needs to make sense where and when people see it. For example, it probably doesn’t make the most sense to ask people to visit your diabetic footcare page in a video about teen sports injuries. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense to ask people to attend your webinar about plantar fasciitis in a blog about toenail fungus.
If you want people to convert and become patients, you need to draw a clear connection between the content that attracted them to you and the step you’re asking them to take.
Where Should I Use Calls to Action in My Marketing Materials?
You should include a call to action in nearly all your marketing materials, including:
Your homepage and landing pages.
Your website design should include prominent contact information, contact forms, and other ways to skip straight to the action. However, you should reinforce your CTAs in the text on the page, too. Remember, this isn’t about shouting, “Buy, buy, buy!” You should naturally connect each CTA with potential patients’ needs and concerns.
Individual content pages on your website.
For your blogs, FAQs, and other written content, you don’t have to always stick the CTA at the end. Try to incorporate a CTA where it makes natural sense in the text, then reinforce it again at the end. And stick to one CTA per piece! You don’t want to confuse people with too many options. Instead, you want to guide them logically to one target goal per page.
Videos.
Videos are great because you can just ask out loud for viewers to contact you or take advantage of an offer. This works even better when you reinforce it with overlay text on the screen that can show your name, phone number, landing page URL, and/or QR code.
Emails and newsletters.
Your contact list might love your emails and email newsletters. However, the work you put into them is going to waste if you don’t tell your readers how to learn more, what to do now, or how to contact you. These are perfect places to promote limited-time offers, book downloads, and new services that people might not know about yet with a strong CTA.
Books, guides, and other print materials.
People often get around to reading print materials days or weeks after they request or receive them. This is why it’s so important to include your contact information, remind readers of what you do, and invite them to reach out to you, even in print books and direct mail. You can’t know when they might read your book, but you can know that they will have all the information they need to take the next step with you.
Ads.
This should be a no-brainer! You always want to get the very most out of your paid advertising, so calls to action are essential. CTAs in your ads need to be extra focused on your goals and highly compelling to your target audience, whether they see them online, on tv, or in print. You want to be very clear what you’re asking them to do and why.
Directories and profiles.
Some directories and local profiles allow you to link back to your website or include text or video about your practice. So, take advantage of that opportunity by including a CTA. This is great for driving people from those outside sites back into your ecosystem, and it can be a good source for building new referral partnerships. You just want to make sure that you’re following the profile rules for each site and using those platforms appropriately.
Contact forms and stylized buttons.
Built-in elements, like customized contact forms and stylized buttons, can really catch the eye, so try to include customized text that makes it extra enticing to take action. These kinds of graphical elements give your CTAs extra “oomph” and make them stand out on the page, especially when people are quickly glancing over the page.
Vary Your CTAs So They Don’t Become Repetitive
It’s also very important that you don’t use the exact same CTA all the time. While it’s easy to just add your phone number and ask people to call, it’s so much better to mix it up with invitations to download your book, use your contact form, subscribe to your newsletter, etc.
You should never cut and paste CTAs from old content into your new content, either. Instead, try to phrase what you’re asking readers to do a little differently each time. CTAs work best when they’re fresh, not stale and repetitive.
While getting tons of web traffic is great, the real, final purpose of your website is to connect with great new patients and referral sources. Does your practice’s website lack strong calls to action? Are you having trouble turning visitors and viewers into contacts and patients? Foster Web Marketing can help. Book an appointment with our team or call 888.886.0939 to address those problems and start strategizing a path to better patients and profits for your practice.