Quick Info:
| Why care? | Asking your customer to take multiple actions induces decision fatigue and increases your chances of them taking none. Avoid this. |
| Cost: | FREE |
| Who should do this: | All Businesses with an email list |
| Platform: | Email Service Provider |
| How? | Read on… |
Imagine we’re on a road trip together. 🚙
You’re behind the wheel and I’m holding the map, giving you directions. (It’s a road trip in the 00s, before Google Maps 😂)
You ask me where to go next, and I tell you, “Well, at the next light, we need to turn…”
“We could turn right at this light and then at the next light, turn left…”
“Or, we could turn left at this light, and then we’d need to make a right at the next light —-“
💥 CRASH 💥 You miss the turn and cause a 10-car pileup in the middle of the intersection.
Why? Because as soon as you had to make a decision, your stress levels increased and you didn’t know which way to go, so you made no turn at all and ended up in a pickle.
🤦♀️ Oops. My bad.
When you send your mailing list an email, you’re acting like the navigator. You’re showing them what their next move is and you don’t want to get ahead of yourself and give them too many options. They are trusting you to get them where they want to go easily and stress-free.
So how do you do that? You give them one direction at a time. 💡
What is a Call To Action?
When you send an email to your list, it should have 1 main action that you want someone to take from that email.
In order to take that action, you’re going to create a prominent Call To Action (CTA) that will prompt, or encourage your reader to take the action YOU want them to take.
If you’re sending an email with a new release announcement, your CTA might be: “Shop Now”
If you’re sending an email with a story about an award you just won, your CTA might be “learn more” and direct people to a news article or specific page on your website that goes into further detail.
Why only one per email?
Generally, you want to have 1 main purpose for sending out each email. You don’t want it to be full of CTAs and other actionable items, because if you give too many options, then people face making a decision – which most likely leads to NO action. (because we all have too many decisions to make already. An email is probably bottom of the decision-making priority list).
If you find that you want to say more things, then it’s probably time to increase your email frequency and break those things down into separate emails, each with its own goal.
By trimming it down to one CTA per email, you can lead your readers down the best path that you’ve laid out for them. No decisions to make, and a much better chance of arriving at the destination that you want them to reach.
This also enforces a sense of direction, clarity, trust, and support from your subscribers, which leads to higher levels of brand loyalty over time.
Today’s task
✅ Take a look at the last email that you sent. Did it contain more than one CTA?
Use your findings to sculpt future mailings and help you decide when to increase your email frequency.
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