A call-to-action should always be the easiest part of your squeeze page video. Simply tell your prospect what you want them to do and how they should do it.
And since the likelihood of that call-to-action being accepted by the prospect is primarily dependent on the video material you’ve already presented in this series (see links at the end), there’s no need to overthink the final step.
But there’s still strategy to be employed at this stage of your squeeze page video that can increase your conversion rate.
Because whenever a prospect is asked to make that transition from passively watching a video, to taking action, there is always a moment of pause in the viewer’s mind. No matter how captivating your video and how well-argued your points, the audience is still going to ask that nagging question…
“Is this REALLY going to be worth my time and energy?”
Sure, you might only be asking for your prospect’s email address, but your prospect is also thinking about whether they have the time and the inclination to absorb the follow-up information that you’re promising.
The call-to-action may be a simple line to deliver, but there’s a way to do so that will give your prospects that one final nudge that some will need to get them to respond.
Go Narrow or Go Home
Before we get into the call-to-action strategy, I’m going to indulge in a brief sidebar. It’s relevant to this subject, but it’s also relevant to your entire squeeze page video, and in fact ALL of your marketing strategy.
So, listen up… because this is a truth you NEED to hear.
In the first article in this series, Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part One – The Hook we talked about how the ease with which new online businesses can be created has increased the cost of generating traffic as well as competition for market share.
The other effect is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. When everyone is offering similar solutions to the same problems, differentiating yourself can be a real challenge.
Most businesses are tackling this by following the “go big or go home” strategy. But because so many are taking this approach, entire markets are devolving into a shouting match, everyone battling to see who can make themselves heard above the noise.
But we believe in a different approach…
Burn the big tent… and go narrow
Stop trying to get everyone to like you. Revel in being an acquired taste. Because we don’t want everybody to like us. What we want is for the people who like us, to LOVE us.
Think of it like this. If you had a choice, right now, between selling 200 units of your product to people who will never buy from you again, or selling 100 units to people who will become die-hard, lifelong fans, which would you choose?
The former might gift you more short-term profits, but the latter will make you more money in the long run. Not only because those 100 people, over time, will spend more money with you than those 200 indifferent customers, but because many of those 100 people will become your advocates and help you bring in even more die-hard, lifelong fans.
Have you heard the expression, a friend to everyone is a friend to nobody?
That’s the modern marketing landscape. When you try and please everyone, you end up, at best, with a mushy, middle-of-the-road business that no one hates…
…but no one particularly cares about.
If you were going to design an ice-cream flavor that everyone loves, you’d end up creating vanilla. No one hates vanilla. But when they go to Baskin & Robbins they don’t order vanilla – they order chocolate brownie and cookie swirl, with a sprinkle of marshmallows, and a dash of pineapple.
Your personality MUST bleed through every customer interaction. And it doesn’t matter one bit if your personality is quirky and not to everyone’s taste. Because for every 2-3 people who don’t get what you’re trying to do, you’re going to gain one rabid follower.
And then it’s you and your loyal customer base against the world. We’re all in this together, and if you’re our customer and you’re on our side, we’ll bend over backwards to help you succeed.
So, stop shouting. And just do you.
You won’t get everyone’s attention, but you’ll get the attention of the people you REALLY want as customers.
What does this have to do with your squeeze page video, call-to-action?
It has to do with the fact that it’s incredibly difficult to deliver a call-to-action that doesn’t sound generic and like EVERY other squeeze page video your prospect has seen.
From a business perspective you HAVE to ask for the contact details of your prospect, but how do you do that and still have your personality shine through?
It could be that everything in your video that came before was just a riot of originality, sass, and quirk, but how do you then proceed to your call-to-action without instantly reverting to the mean and sounding like every other huckster out there?
The answer is simple…
You can’t.
So, use that to your advantage.
Jump Scare Your Viewers
One of the greatest “jump scares” in cinema history is in Danny Boyle’s horror movie, 28 Days Later. Not to be confused with the movie, 28 Days, in which Sandra Bullock goes to rehab as a washed-up mess, but somehow still manages to look gorgeous in every frame. A little hint for you, Hollywood… when you make a movie about rehab, you don’t want your viewers to wish they were there too. But I digress…
I don’t want to describe the scene and spoil the movie if you’ve never seen it (you really should) but suffice to say there’s a moment when the “infected” suddenly attack the main character and everyone in the cinema almost falls out of their seat.
What makes this “jump scare” so effective is that it comes at a moment when everything is quiet and relaxed. The movie has just gone through a period of sustained tension, and the audience is lulled into a comfort zone, thinking that the director is giving the audience a few moments to take a breather.
Which is why, when the unexpected attack comes, it catches you out and jangles every nerve in your body.
Obviously, I’m not suggest your “jump scare” your viewers during your call-to-action (although that could be quite funny and actually work?) but you can create a similar effect by drawing your audience into a comfort zone and then upturning their expectations.
When you deliver your call-to-action (to get this free video series, just enter your email address below), you’re inevitably going to sound like you’re reverting to the same marketing shtick that everyone else uses.
And in so doing, you’re drawing your audience into a comfort zone.
They’ve seen this part a hundred times before, they know how it works, and they know what you’re going to ask of them.
Which is why destroying those expectations is going to be all the more effective and all the more disruptive to their brain.
All you have to do is throw in something, anything, that they weren’t expecting. It doesn’t need to be relevant to your content, and it doesn’t even need to make sense. In fact, it’s most effective if it DOESN’T make sense.
We’ve used this a whole bunch of times. Here are a few examples…
- Andy’s call-to-action is interrupted by an oversized pelican who, Andy implied, had been sent by another marketer to intimidate him.
- The call-to-action is typed onto the screen in English while being read in Spanish (for no apparent reason)
- We pretended Andy was having some kind of spat with Eben Pagan who, I think, wanted to eat his head… or something… it wasn’t entirely clear.
What this accomplishes is to take the audience out of their comfort zone and refocus their attention.
Tip: There’s actually a secondary reason for reading the call-to-action in another language. When people hear something spoken in a language they don’t understand, their attention becomes more focused on the written text that they can interpret. Strange but true.
A call-to-action, mundane by definition, disengages the viewer’s brain from what they’re seeing and leaves them with a blank space to think about whether they can be bothered to take the requested action.
A bizarre interjection, on the other hand, wakes the viewer from their stupor, makes their brain go “huh,” and demands that they start paying attention again.
And then the video ends, and all that’s left on the screen is the call-to-action.
Think you could give this a go?
You don’t need to be a whizz with special effects to pull this off. Any unusual tweak in the editing will have the desired effect. Or you could start a recurring joke. Or reference an inside joke that will have the viewer wondering what you’re referring to. Or someone off-camera could throw something at you.
Just tap into your inner craziness.
The only rule is that it mustn’t be logical and must make the viewer do a mental double-take.
It sounds nuts, I absolutely agree. But add an interruption to your call-to-action and you’ll see the difference in your retention rate and, most importantly, your conversion rate.
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Your video squeeze page is done. Congratulations!
If you missed any of the earlier articles in this series, I encourage you to go back and read them.
LINK: Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part One – The Hook
LINK: Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Two – Vicarious Adventures
LINK: Successful Squeeze Page Videos: Part Three – The Cliffhanger
But, we’re not done with this article series yet. Still to come are three specific video squeeze page strategies that you can use individually, or combine into something truly spectacular…
…and successful!