If the call to action is underlined copy, visitors realize it’s a text link. If the call to action is a button, it’s obvious that this is click-able. Don’t tell the visitor to “click here” in order to engage them to click. Instead, persuade the visitor to click with the use of keywords or “trigger words” that speak directly to the visitor’s motivations and needs within the link, based on what they came searching for in the first place.

A great link uses an imperative verb that calls the visitor to take action, and it absolutely needs to clearly describe what the visitor will experience when they click.

Here is RelationshipHeadquarters.com’s homepage. Let’s look at some of their calls to action.

There is a big button in the active window of their homepage (the Primary call to action) that says “Are you a woman that men adore? Take free quiz.”  The first portion of this language engages the visitor by speaking to their interests and motivations, and the second portion is the action that you’re recommending they take which is “…take free quiz.”

The links in the active window (the Secondary calls to action) each engage the visitor to help them find solutions to their problems:

• “Understand men”
• “How to get him back”
• “Be the woman men adore”

There are many things you should consider when optimizing and testing your calls to action, but first and foremost, remove all of the “click here” language that might currently exist in your links and buttons.  A quick audit of your site to write better calls to action will provide a great return on your investment in terms of persuading more prospects to take the action you want them to take.  Don’t believe me?  Run some tests and see for yourself

Editor’s Note: No mannequins were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.

Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had to have highest priority. Everything else – creativity, design, layout – should be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. In print, this took the form of what has come to be known as “The Ogilvy Layout.”

Understanding Ogilvy’s Layout and Why it Still Works

There are three main parts to the Ogilvy Layout, with a corresponding and crucial quality for each element:

1. The picture, which should have “story appeal”
2. The headline, which should tie into the “story appeal” of the picture
3. And the body copy, which most be placed in the right relationship to both the picture and the headline as to anticipate the reader’s visual preferences and enhance readability.

I’ve dealt with Story Appeal in previous posts, but let’s talk about headlines before diving into why Ogilvy’s favorite arrangement continues to stand the test of time.

What I’ve Noticed About Ogilvy’s Headlines

In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about the importance of captions no less than 4 times, urging the reader to include captions underneath all of their photographs each and ever time.  According to the research Ogilvy cites, 4 times as many readers read captions as body copy and 10 times as many people read headlines as body copy.

So while it may seem obvious that the headline and the main picture (or “hero shot” in today’s lingo) should be related, it also seems that you can grab even more reader-grabbing power for your headlines if you make use of some of the compelling “what’s this picture all about” draw of captions.  Here’s a perfect example of this:

Pretty difficult not to read a bit more about that story, isn’t it?

Let’s Talk Layout and Arrangement

Here’s the thing: because of his attention to research, Ogilvy knew what many online copywriters are still learning:

**People scan and skim first and read second

and they only read IF their scan turns up something worthwhile.**

Now, in magazines, which are mostly read as a diversion, the first thing to get scanned are pictures.  We are visual creatures and pictures typically convey a lot of information (and emotion) fast, so a strong visual is almost always going to be the first thing the eye fixes on when the reader is engaging in general browsing for interest.  Please note, though, that this scanning order changes for task oriented individuals interacting with a website.  People scanning a web page redefine “worthwhile” by relevance to their task, and therefore focus on the headlines first.

Getting back to magazine ads, if the picture is intriguing, the next thing a person will scan is the headline and possibly the caption.  After that, and only after that, the person in question will skim (or read) the body copy.

For emphasis, this is THE order in which an audience will scan a magazine ad/page:

1. Picture first,
2. Headline second,
3. Copy last.

To quote Ogilvy himself:

“Readers look first at the illustration, then at the headline, then at the copy. So put these elements in that order – illustration at the top, headline under the illustration, copy under the headline. If you put the headline above the illustration, you are asking people to scan in an order which does not fit their habit.”

And to paraphrase Steve Krug, don’t make the reader think; it’s just as easy to stop reading or engaging with the ad as it is to expend the extra effort navigating an oh-so-creative-but-against-the-grain layout.

Eye Tracking Heat Maps Prove the Power of Ogilvy’s Layout

The brilliant people over at Think Eye Tracking recently put three different car ads to the test: one Ogilvy-inspired 1-page layout compared to 2 new-school double-trucks (aka 2-page spreads). You can see their blog post about  their tests here, but I’ve also posted the Ogilvy-inspired heat map below. Check it out:

Notice how the headline and body copy receive most of the attention.  The picture draws the eye, but the messaging gets the most time and attention from the viewer/reader.

Unfortunately, a direct comparison of heat maps isn’t possible, because Think Eye Tracking only posted the heat map from the Porsche add and not the ones from the Mercedes and BMW ads.  But they DID give percentages of each ad’s ability to create reader retention of various elements within the ad, including the  call to action.  Assuming that the call to action was made within or at the end of the body copy (a fairly safe assumption), we can see how the ads stack up in terms of getting people to read the copy/pay attention to the messaging:

• Ogilvy Layout/Porsche Ad: 59% of readers noted the call to action
• Mercedes Ad: 29%
• BMW Ad: 11%

The Ogilvy Layout doubled readership of the copy while using half the ad space!

Incidentally, the use of a 1-pager instead of a double-spread was also recommended by Ogilvy, as the double-spread cost much more but didn’t increase readership in proportion to its cost.

And for those of you who read this far, or who doubted Ogivly’s performance-based bias, enjoy this short video of Ogilvy addressing the Direct Marketers of his day:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just for the record, while I DO draw some distinctions between the online world and old-school direct marketing, I also think that online “marketers” who stray too far from direct marketing principles end up producing websites like this:

www.porsche.co.uk/innerstrength

In case you’re wondering, yes, that is the URL used in the Porsche ad’s call to action.  Just the sort of thing you’d remember after flipping through the ad isn’t it?  Not.

Anyway, go ahead and frustrate yourself by interacting with that “piece of work” for awhile.  You’ll undoubtedly find yourself wishing that the same, sane approach to design and layout had been used in creating the website as had been used in designing the ad.

P.S. I’m not advocating a literal use of the Ogilvy layout to a digital format, but rather an intelligent application of Ogilvy’s subordination of design, creativity, and layout to messaging. More about that in a follow up post…

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

But I just felt I had to call out an example of how poor copywriting and writing for search engine robots can ruin a decent Unique Value Proposition.

I was referred to a site to look at their homepage design (see screenshot, highlighting is mine), and immediately noticed that they had a prominent Unique Value Proposition (UVP) statement, which was promising.

The UVP statement wasn’t the best I’ve read, but at least it was an attempt that could be tested and refined. But the sub-text under the UVP was what irked me enough to write this post.

Someone decided to “we-we” all over the UVP! And it looks like they also tried to write for search engine robots instead of humans with credit cards:

“We specialize in custom ties, custom bow ties, bowtie / cummerbund / handkerchief sets, custom cufflinks, matching gift boxes, women ’s scarves, and much more. We can custom make your neckwear any way you desire. We have both standard ties and clip on ties as well as extra long ties for your custom ties. We even have custom ties for boys as young as 6 months. Our products are great for corporations, organizations, churches, choirs, schools, uniforms, athletic teams, fraternities, formal and special events, and many more.”

Notice that by focusing on SEO only, they end up with copy that will resonate with no one.

Here’s the official tally from our free We We Calculator:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 37.50% (3 customer-focused words)

Your Self Focus Rate: 62.50% (5 self-focused words, and 0 mentions of the Company Name)

You speak about yourself about 2 times as often as you speak about your customers. Might that have an impact on your effectiveness?

I’m not a Search Engine Optimization guru, but I’d wager that any SEO prowess you lost by fixing that kind of copy could be made up by 1 or 2 quality, keyw0rd-rich inbound links from reputable, related sites, don’t you?

• The rating system is too clunky. Most people get stuck between 3 and 4, usually with 4 sounding too good and 3 too wishy-washy, meaning that the results are often more indicative of a temporary mood than an honest difference.

• Written answers are almost always more informative than raw numbers and everyone knows it, but they’re rarely asked for.  The words people chose, the way they phrase things, what they actually comment on, what details are mentioned, all add up to a much richer insight into the psychology behind the responses.  They provide context.  But Likert scales are rarely asked in conjunction with written responses and the overwhelming preference is for Likert scales over full responses.

• Numbers are preferred over written answers because they’re easy – and easily averaged.  The reason organizations like Likert surveys is that the results are easily totaled and averaged.  You can express the results with mathematical certainty.  That’s harder to do with written responses.  So most organizations somehow decide that it’s better to be precisely wrong than approximately right.

• The mind provides misleading answers to questions of the heart. Ever noticed how most respectable psychological research “tricks” the participants.  Participants are always told the experimenter is studying or looking for one thing, when it’s really something entirely different.  This indirection is considered necessary so that the participants self-conscious desires and biases don’t taint the results.  Likert-scaled surveys almost never use this technique.  Instead they ask direct questions about participants feelings, actions, and future actions.  And as Coke’s misstep with New Coke proves, the results of these surveys simply can’t be trusted.

• No one bothers to write questions (and answers) in a psychologically astute manner. It usually helps to write questions and the attendant answers so that an honest response will not seem self-incriminating to the participant.  Ask a mom if she feeds her kids a lot of fast food, and you’ll probably get a false answer.  What kind of mom would answer yes?  Ask her if she frequently finds herself strapped for time and looking for food preparation and mealtime shortcuts and then follow that up with a question about the mom’s most used go-to solutions to food prep shortcuts, and you’ll get an entirely different outlook.*  Yet almost no one takes the time to do this with Likert-scaled surveys.  And so they get bullshit answers.  Go figure.

• The results are almost always abused.  Surveys are as easily used to bolster a prejudice or further an agenda as they are to actually shed light on a subject.  Of course, any study can fall prey to this manipulation – if you torture the data long enough, you can get it to confess to anything – but the doubly abstracted nature of Likert survey results are far more easily abused than a compilation of written survey answers.  Want an example of this and most of the previous concerns?

Check out this little work of horror from Marketing Sherpa.  Let’s start with their interpretation of the survey and work backwards from there.  So here’s what they think their survey indicated:

“Two-thirds of marketers who work for organizations that have not used any form of social media marketing or PR consider themselves “very knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable” about this emerging strategy.  Their overconfidence in unproven ability can doom social media initiatives to failure.”

And what do they base this interpretation on?  A worse-than-normal Likert-scaled survey with only 4 badly worded answers.  Marketing Sherpa didn’t provide the exact question in the post, but it was centered on the respondents’ knowledge of social media marketing for organizations.  At any rate, here are the possible answers:

1. Not knowledgeable at all
2. Not very knowledgeable
3. Somewhat knowledgeable
4. Very knowledgeable

So think about it: you’re a marketer, maybe even specializing in interactive/internet marketing.  You’ve played around enough with social media to be comfortable with its dynamics and to know that most so-called social media experts aren’t, mostly because it’s an emerging field and few can claim legitimately successful social media marketing campaigns for non-entertainment or cutting-edge/sexy companies.  Then again, you know you’re no expert either.  So what do you select?

Not surprisingly 58% of the respondents selected “Somewhat knowledgeable.”  The survey basically forces you into that response unless you want to admit that you’re all but clueless about a rather important and emerging element of online marketing.  Even still, 28% of participants selected “Not very knowledgeable.” My guess is that if Marketing Sherpa had worded the choices more intelligently, avoiding the perception of self-incriminating answers, they would have had even more people falling between “not knowledgeable at all” and “somewhat knowledgeable.”

At any rate, the numbers show that 86% of respondents basically indicated that they are not totally clueless, but they aint all that, either.  Not exactly shocking answers given the question and possible answers.  And yet, this is the basis for Marketing Sherpa’s conclusion that the respondents were dangerously “overconfident.”  Give me a freakin’ break!

The real lessons of this?

Stay away from Likert-scales.  And especially avoid them when you’re trying to gauge people’s perceptions, feelings, ambivalencies, etc.  Do the real intellectual work of crafting intelligent and nuanced essay questions.  Invite open ended responses.  Comb through the answers with eye towards being approximately right rather than precisely wrong.

* Special thanks to the talented Holly Buchanon for sharing the McDonald’s survey example with me.

If you enjoyed this post please consider Tweeting it please.

I’ve noticed from many of my marketing colleagues that money for nothing is the order of the day; maybe it’s the hard times. Seth Godin blogged yesterday about getting rich quickly, Brian Clark blogged about making money from blogs, and just this week I saw and replied to Mary Schmidt’s status on Facebook say “Mary is working on a fun client project – how to grow/get the word out without spending any money? Hmmm…”

The common thread is that some companies are just begging marketers/ vendors / consultants etc. to lie to them. We get that too, demands we guarantee 100%+ increases in conversion rates without them having to invest hardly any time, resources or money.

There are NO magic bullets. When things come fast and easy they leave even easier more quickly.

Isn’t word of mouth (”WOM”) free? WOM isn’t exactly free, but it can be. If you want to generate WOM do something remarkable for your customers. After all, WOM is driven by things people can remark on, hence the term remarkable. Focusing on how your businesses can be remarkable rather than creating remarkable marketing campaigns is way harder but it produces permanent long-term results.

There will always be new shiny object peddlers and marketing guru charlatans who entice desperate, greedy or ignorant people with happy talk. I wish that wasn’t so, but it is. Please take my advice; if something sounds too good to be true then it is.

=======

P.S. Would you like to know what I tell potential customers?  You might consider it self promotional so stop right here if you don’t care to read it.

I’m going on record to say that if you want to increase your conversion rates There will be no gimmicks, no empty promises, no broken budgets and no illusions.

 I won’t guarantee a thing. I won’t blow smoke.

 I won’t even try to convince you. FutureNow has the track record, the skills and the experience but it could be useless to you, unless you commit your time, money and resources.

That may sound harsh but if you are still determined to improve your conversion rates then you can set the pace, the budget and your goals. FutureNow will help you stay on target.