Advertising industry legend John Caples, who created one of the most famous advertisements ever, once wrote: “Don’t make ads simple because you think people are low in intelligence. Some are smart and some are not smart. The point is that people are thinking about other things when they see your ad. Your ad does not get their full attention or intelligence. Your ad gets only a fraction of their intelligence. …People won’t study your ad carefully. They can’t be bothered. And so you have to make your ads simple.”
You may have just authored the best explanation ever on the application of blue widgets, but your efforts are wasted if people don’t do something. And if John Caples is right, your instructions on what to do need to be simple. Very simple.
Don’t leave any questions in your readers’ minds. Let them know exactly what’s going to happen when they click that link. Never be afraid of writing something too obvious. Think through the process exactly, then try to distill that down. So what happens when they click the link? Perhaps they’re taken to a form, where they have to fill in their contact details to show their interest, and in return they’ll be posted a catalogue and called by a salesperson. Your link can easily say: “Send for our catalogue here and we’ll call to see how we can help”. Or perhaps the next step you want them to take is to call you, in which case your link could say: “Find out the number of your nearest office here and let’s chat about what we can do for you”.
A button saying: “More Information”? You can do better than that.