What Is Call-To-Action in Videos and How to Make One That Is Hard to Ignore

In the universe of video marketing, there’s a simple, yet factor aspect that is often invisible to the target viewers. This factor is called a call-to-action (CTA).

I’m sure you have encountered one of these, but perhaps you don’t exactly know what to make of it. Call to actions are the inviting bit that you hear at the end of a promotional content, in this case a video.

Let’s put it this way.

Imagine your company is a party you’re planning to throw this weekend. You send the invitation to everyone in your contact list, but you don’t include the address to your place.

Sure, some of people you invited might go out of their way and find out themselves where your party will be held because they need some fun. However, many will just stay put because they don’t know where to go.

This is why any kind of video that is meant for brand-building and marketing must have call to action.

Your viewers don’t know what to do next if you don’t include a call to action in your video(s). They won’t bother finding out because most of the times, it’s you who needs them, not the other way around.

It’s important for you to know what you want to achieve by making a marketing video content — an advertising, an explainer video, a tutorial, or anything.

Deciding what kind of call to action to use in a video is a little bit tricky. Using a pure sales line such as “Try It For Free” might work for some people, but some other might prefer more subtle, more tempting trigger like “How to Learn X in Less Than 2 Minutes”.

Working in the same office with a team that’s made thousands of explainer videos (among the most popular video format for marketing), and consulted with many marketing experts from companies around the world, I’d like to share some of the insights on making a call to action that’s hard to resist.

Know Your Audience’s Preference.

Knowing the target market you are making a video for is the prerequisite of success. Think about your audience’s preferred learning method.

Does your audience prefer learning by watching, or reading?

If it’s by watching, then a smart move would be to make a CTA that will direct your potential clients to a tutorial video.

If it’s by reading, make a CTA that directs them to a blog post in your website straight away. If you have the time and resources to spend, make both — there will always be exception in your audience who prefers both video and text.

Know Your Goal

Set the goal that you want to achieve with a marketing video. You can do a quick learn by take a look at this infographic:

At Breadnbeyond, before we start any project with our client, there’s a phase where we would ask detailed questions to our client about what they want to achieve with their explainer video.

This will help to speed up the process, and eventually the outcome because there is a strong guideline to work with.

Video marketing is like building a house — you need to carefully plan out everything before you start building. How will the plumbing go? Where will the cables go through? Where will the rooms be?

Once you have the plan laid out and ready to execute, everything will be much faster and less confusing.

The same principle goes for video marketing. What is the goal of this video? To get more traffic, or simply raise awareness?

Where will viewers go after watching your video? To a contact page, your company’s website or another one of your video?

Put on something extra for each and every purpose. if you want more traffic to your website, give an interesting offer — like an infographic or ebook to download.

Cut To The Chase

A call to action has to be compact, and straight to the point. A long and overblown call to action like “Visit our website to get the best product in like nothing before” will only look like an oversell.

A good call to action is 3–5 word phrase that summarize what you have to offer.

This example from VidMail is what your call to action should sound like

The call to action is “Sign up free to VidMail and start using now”

Being short and precise not only applies to your call to action, but also to your video in general. Longer video will bore people midway, causing them to never even see your call to action.

This case study list how much of a video people will watch according to the duration. The answer bears no surprise since short videos (60–90 second) tend to get watched until the end whereas longer videos will no longer be watched midway through.

Check it out, you’ll find the case study useful for your future videos.

To wrap it all up, making an irresistible call to action is sometimes tricky — but the takeaway is not being too salesy and braggy about yourself. Instead, tempt people into finding out what lies beyond that call to action.

Cheers!