This is Day 23 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers.
I’m frequently reminded of the statistic that the average person is bombarded by as many as 3,000 marketing messages a day. TV ads, radio ads, billboards, ads on websites, email messages, magazine ads, newspaper ads, direct mail, and more area all competing for our attention.
Most of these ads have been written by marketing professionals. The pros know they’re competing for our attention, so they don’t beat around the bush. They tell you exactly what they want you to do. They include a clear call to action.
Even if you’re not selling anything through your blog, you are competing with these 3,000 marketing messages to get your readers to take action, even if that action is as simple as posting a comment.
7 Tips for Calling Your Readers to Action
Today’s lesson in the 31DBBB ebook has lots of great advice. There’s also a link in it to a blog post titled 12 Tips To SNAP Readers Out of Passivity. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Here are my top seven suggestions for calling your blog readers to action.
- Make only one call to action. Asking readers to do more things will actually result in them doing less.
- Limit your big asks. Most of your calls to action should be small, requiring little time and effort and no money. Occasionally you can make a big request, but pick and choose those “big asks” carefully.
- Make your call to action at the end of the post. It’s OK to include the call to action earlier in the post, but then repeat it again at the end otherwise it’s likely by the end of the post many readers will have forgotten your request.
- Make your call to action clear and specific. Asking readers to “Spread the word about X” is vague. Asking readers to “Retweet this post and share it on Facebook” is clear and specific.
- Make most of your calls to action benefit someone other than you. If you’re always asking readers to do things for you, they will tire of it. In some posts, call readers to do things for others. Often the most effective calls to action are when you challenge readers to do something for their own benefit. For example, every day in this series one of the calls to action is to do that day’s assignment, which is a call to do something to improve your blog.
- Serve your readers first. If you want your readers to do things for you, show them that you’re blogging to serve them. Make your posts helpful, respond to comments, answer questions, promote their blogs, etc.
- Thank those who respond. Whenever possible, thank the people who respond by name, maybe even with a link to their blog or Twitter profile. When that’s not possible a general thanks shows you appreciate those who followed the call to action and don’t take them for granted.
For big asks, be strategic, focused, and varied
If you have something important you want to accomplish, consider doing a series of posts on that theme. End each post with a call to the same action but in a different way. For example, if you want to raise money for an orphanage in Kenya you might do a one week fund raising series. One post might feature a video and include a call to action to give money so the kids have a shot at a productive life. One post might feature an interview with the founders, and the call to action might be to donate to support their efforts to raise the children to know Christ. One post could focus on the various passages in the Bible that call God’s people to care for orphans, and the call to action could appeal to the readers desire to follow God.
The point is that your readers are all very different. Even for small calls to action, like asking readers to comment or subscribe, you should try to vary your approach.
Discussion
- Can you give an example of a time when you were successful at calling your readers to action? Why do you think it was successful?
- What other advice do you have for converting passive readers to active readers?
Take Action!
I’m going to break the “one call to action per post” rule, but I’m hoping to make up for it but varying my approach today. 🙂
- Post a comment responding to the discussion questions above.
- Write a call to action post and include a link to it in your comment.
- Share this post on Twitter and Facebook.
- Review Jon Reid’s blog, Blog One Another, and give him some feedback.
44 Comments
My calls to action are usually calls to stop and think. However, in this weeks post my call is to provide an answer to three questions based on prophetic words from scripture. Through 31 DBBB I have been learning to call people to tell me about their responses.
Why Don"t The Cows Get It! http://guidedreflections.blogspot.com/2010/06/why…
I'm not real sure how many times I've called my readers to do something. I've put questions at the end of posts, given good ideas on things, and encouraged them to do something a couple times, but nothing big. The times it's been successful is when my readers took action, I don't always know those times but sometimes you know it through the comments you get.
Other advice would be to make it interesting, give a reason for why they would want to act, be creative, have fun with it, and maybe put it in steps rather than just the hard thing. Having a good title helps too. (mine isn't always very good)
For today's post I had to consider my audience. I'm a volunteer at Lifechurch.tv Church Online and I decided that I'd call my readers to join the team. But then I realized that not all my readers have even been there so my message stayed mostly about joining the team but the call to action was to visit the website, check out an Experience/service, or if a regular attendee or interesting in joining the team to start volunteering.
"Want to Help Make a Global Difference through Church Online?" http://tijuanabecky.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/want…
Hmm Something to consider. I have in the past included calls to action: requesting people to contact persecuted believers in prison, asking them to tell me what they think, encouraging them to go spend time with God. Sometimes they tell me what they think. As for the others, I really have no way of knowing whether they did or didn't do anything. God knows, and it's His business in any case.
I try to do this all the time, I am an application type of guy. It doesn't matter if it's a sermon or a blog post, I always try to get people to do something.
I need to be more specific though.
Today's post that doesn't call anyone to action unfortunately: http://bit.ly/c4JSNX
Kevin, yours sort of has a call to action. Just not put straight out there.
I guess I should have mentioned my call to action post from earlier:
Get a free copy of Jesus Manifesto by @LenSweet @FrankViola
http://www.liveintentionally.org/2010/06/01/get-a…
It's a book review, but it also asks people to comment and either Tweet the post or share it on Facebook. I'll be doing a drawing later this afternoon and one person who comments and shares will win a free copy of the book.
I usually try to include a call to action at the end of my posts. Usually, what I mean is "leave a comment!" I don't always get comments, but I'm getting more since I started asking a question at the end of most of my posts. I think sometimes I should be more specific, and I'd love to have a "big ask" every once in a while, but I haven't felt led to really "plug" a specific ministry or anything like that on my blog. When the time is right, I know that God will bring it all together.
Yesterday's post included a "small ask" at the end, and I got some good responses. Here's the link. http://jenniferjanes.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/sma…
Oh! Everyone, I am bogged down with trying to redesign my blog site. I have given up and emailed a friend's son who is a web designer. I'm drained from trying to figure out the HTML–I don't speak that language. I tried to narrow the hot-pink borders. No could do. I did make the text wider but couldn't center the texting format between the borders. It just looked yuck! So, until I get a new design, I have adopted one of bloggers new experimental templates–watermark-in pink, of course.
I will try to do today's assignment tonight and get back on track with writing!!
From my heart to yours,
Janis
Janis… keep your head up! You'll get there! Over three years of blogging for me, I have literally been through over a dozen different templates. I think that it takes time sometimes finding the right fit that displays your personality AND the intent of your blog.
This was a good post. It gave me lots of good things to think about when I write these kinds of posts.
The last couple of days have been busy and my writing time has been spent writing some book reviews for TheFish.com. I didn't intend to blog today but something kept nagging at me.
I ended up writing, "Christian Zionism and the Flotilla Fiasco." I guess it fits the spirit of the assignment in that I'm asking Christians to THINK and maybe do a little more Bible study if necessary. http://captainestes.blogspot.com/2010/06/christia…
Looking forward to going back now and reading other people's posts.
I really like the idea of a call to action. I often do it in my mind but do not intentionally put it into every post. Another idea that needs to be put into place. Got to remember to make a list and start checking it off. 😉
I have not tried issuing a call to action in my blog, but it is a great idea. I appreciate the helpful hints you've included in this posting and look forward to putting them into action.
As for helping spur people out of their passivity, prayer is my best advice. While the practical things are useful, there is nothing like the power of prayer to make things begin to happen. That is a principle I too easily forget and too infrequently put into practice. When I do, however, I am always amazed at the results.