A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about using a traditional marketing call to action in your blog, and many of the insightful comments lead me to put a little bit more thought into the subject. I’ll be honest, when I began writing that post, I wasn’t even contemplating use of a call to action in a new media way. I was thinking of it in a traditional marketing way; you know, where the end of a direct marketing campaign says “quick calls us because we’ll do good things for you and gives you free stuff” (and often sounds a little more like the furniture salesman who cornered me in the store the other day and said “hey, I’m not supposed to, but if you buy that couch today, I’ll throw in the $75 scotch guard for free” though I’d said I was only getting design ideas). Anyway, nothing against marketing professionals that use that kind of call to action, because there are some scenarios where it’s more than appropriate and necessary. But last week, what I was really getting into was whether or not that specific pitch was appropriate for a blog.
While the comments debated the subject, some saying “yes we use a call to action in our blog posts” I began to realize that the used car salesman approach is not the only thing that readers were thinking about. Bonnie nailed it with her comment that “I think it really depends on how the call is written. You can freely include them if you stay away from sounding like a stereotypical used car salesman.”
So, let’s look at some other ways that you could reasonably define a call to action with a new media twist.
