I'm sure you've heard this phrase before:

 "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Your websites, blogs and email campaigns are tools you use every day to encourage potential clients to engage with you.  It's true, you can't make them call you but you certainly have every opportunity to engage with them and encourage them to make contact with you by providing great, relevant content and having calls to action that will help you build trust, credibility and shows you care about what they need.

In addition to great content, your call to action is one of the most important components on your email campaign.

Calls to Action should answer the following questions:

1. What you want your recipients to do (Examples: buy something, make an appointment, visit your website or blog, fill out contact information or a form, get more information)
2. Why they should click on your call to action (WIIFM)

To get the results that you desire, while at the same time appealing to your readers, make sure your calls to action are:

Visible - For best results your calls to action should be throughout your email (beginning, middle and end.)  With all the emails people receive each day, many are simply skimming the email quickly to see if there's anything of value to them to make them want to continue reading and taking action.

Clear - Don't crowd your email with so many calls to action, graphics and words that it's so busy and visually unappealing.  KISS ( Simple: keywords and phrases, bullet points and short paragraphs work best.)  Be sure to write in the present as a passive voice weakens your message.

Compelling - You want your calls to action to encourage them to take action.  Some key phrases to consider "Buy now", "Read more", "Call today", etc. 

Some persuasive words to consider using in your email campaigns:

You, your, discover, free, easy, introducing, gain, new, advice, no obligation, call today, results, proven, benefits, effective, save, value, now, win, right, why, guaranteed.

Rewarding - You've heard of WIIFM - what's in it for your readers to click on your call to action?  If they click here what will they receive?  Stick to incentives that make sense and offer value to your readers.  Perhaps you've teamed up with another service provider, such as a stager, who can help you by offering your clients a consultation or maybe you have giveaways or are having a raffle.  Get creative and tap into what your readers want and are interested in by conducting polls and asking them for feedback in another email campaign.

Direct - Your calls-to-action should link directly to your website or blog or should provide a phone number where they can contact you.  This is a perfect opportunity to invite your readers to your blog to further engage with them and find out topics that they are interested in for future email campaigns.

As I stated in my previous post, remember it's important to have specific email mailing lists setup so that your calls to action appeal to those specific contacts.  Emails to current and previous clients can be a bit more direct and an email to a potential client might need to start off softer.  An example of a softer approach might be having a call to action that encourages them to visit your website or blog or "learn more."

Now that you have ideas for putting together your next campaign with calls to action what should you do next?

Review your reports to see the click throughs (A click through rate refers to the percentage of recipients that click on a URL that you provide in your email) and determine which calls to action worked best for each group.  Yes, it takes time and you won't get perfect results the first, second or third time you send your campaigns.

It will be a work in progress but this becomes your formula for success and will ensure more of your emails are not only read but that you are receiving the results you set out to achieve.

Since I like sharing, here are some creative examples of calls to action that you might consider using in your next campaign:

• Watch this video on how to declutter your home.
• See how we helped this seller get the results they were looking for
• Listen to our client's testimonial of our services
• Download our guide to getting your home ready to place on the market

What are some of your creative calls to action that have yielded you great results?