Getting New Home Buyer Leads Online Requires a Call To Action

Your website is beautiful. You have excellent professional photography of your projects, the design, color and fonts are exceptional, and your written content highlights your firm's core capabilities succinctly and thoroughly. So, why won't people use your contact us page? Where are the leads?

What Is Website A Call To Action?

A call to action (CTA) is a graphic element designed to encourage website visitors to click a link that opens a landing page where they can fill out a form and download a content offer.

CTA ➔➔➔ Landing Page ➔➔➔ Form with Content Offer ➔➔➔ Interested Prospect

The content offer should help potential clients better understand how to work with an architectural firm. The goal is to get a prospect's name and email information and build a contact list. This will allow you to reach out to them regularly, and it will help you sell your residential design services to prospects who have expressed an interest in your firm.

Residential architectural companies that use CTA's to convert visitors into leads or blog subscribers will find that they can more easily nurture these prospects. This is because they've already expressed an interest in your firm by signing up for something. CTA's are used on website pages and blogs, are an important part of an inbound marketing strategy and are used as a first step in a lead nurturing campaign. Architects who learn to utilize a call to action properly can be assured of successfully increasing sales.

What's An Example of a Bad Call to Action?

There are many built environment companies that use poorly created calls to action. In many cases it is because they do not understand that like with anything else, the tone and words used in the call to action are just as important as all content used within a message. Here are some of the most typical poorly labeled calls to action:

• Contact us
• Click Here
• Animated CTA's - those call to actions that are constantly changing position or words.

If your firm seeks to achieve better results from online traffic visiting their website, then they need to move away from these poor performing CTA's and create ones that resonate with their target audience.

A Good Call to Action Has The Following

There are several aspects an architect should consider when creating a good CTA. These include:

• Your button or graphic should have a specific, clear and concise message
• The CTA should have an urgent tone without sounding like a sales pitch
• The location of the CTA should be visible and above the fold
• Your CTA should provide the next logical step for further information
• It should be obvious what action needs to be undertaken by the reader
• The CTA's graphic design should include a motivational image
• Make certain the CTA is relevant to the landing page
• A/B Testing Your Calls to Action May Make a Difference

Architecture firm Modative saw a 6X increase in website visitors and significantly increased click through rates and lead conversions by following an inbound marketing methodology.

Through the use of analytics, they know when CTA's are not effective and they can update them to see if changes make a difference. We've seen users massage the language of CTA's through A/B testing and increase email subscription rates by 254%.

When the web-based company, Unbounce, ran a campaign they experimented with A/B testing. They held two pages, one page with the possessive determiner “my” on one page and “your” on another page. They found that the page with “my” had a 90% higher click through rate.

How to Measure the effectiveness of Calls to Action

Calls to action can be measured in three ways. Each method can tell businesses different behaviors which your CTA is initiating with visitors:

1. Click Through Rate
CTR is the most important metric to measure. It is certainly the number of people who are viewing a CTA and then clicking through. This is measured as a percentage.
2. Clicks to Submission
This is the next metric that can aid you. This informs businesses how many people who clicked through, completed the next section of the sales process and generated a lead. This can be critical in informing business owners how lucky their landing page is and how relevant the CTA is to that landing page.
3. Views to Submission
The final metric is a combination of the two above. It informs the business owner how many people have seen the call to action and completed the submission process on the next page. This figure is likely to be low, but it is an excellent indicator of how your overall campaign is faring.

A set of the call to action buttons will contribute to the growth of your firm and help you find better clients. Residential architects should consider the value of a few small changes to their website. Be thoughtful when creating, locating and measuring the effectiveness of their call to action results. Lastly, think through what your ideal client wants from your website. Images, sure but they have many questions you could answer that would encourage them to use your design services.

About Michael Conway

I'm the owner and strategist at Means-of-Production. My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one marketing tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition.