5 Actionable Takeaways: Call to Action Conference 2016 Recap

Call to Action Conference 2016 gave us much to think and act on.

If you haven’t read our initial broad summary of the conference, go here. If you have, please continue reading!

Don’t have much time? Our quick actionable takeaways from Call to Action Conference 2016 Vancouver are available here (30 second read).

Otherwise, recaps of the many speakers and their key takeaways are covered in-depth below (8 minute read).

Oli Gardner’s Conversion Crusade

Our first day began with the co-founder of Unbounce, Oli Gardner, and his talk on conversion rate optimization.

Oli stressed urgency: “Click Here Now” is still a great CTA. Immediacy moves people through your material.

Additionally, Oli suggested that CTAs should be adjusted for their medium: video CTAs must be different from landing page CTAS.

Oli also cheered on the coming of automated multivariate testing, which would remove manual, data-driven work from the marketer’s plate such as:

CTAs being moved to the aptest place for conversion
Videos appearing where there is most interaction
Answering the question: What should we A/B test?

More importantly, Oli offered the concept of the “5 Second Test” for our landing pages. The test is a variable in the more complex “Clarity Equation” seen below:

Oli’s motto inspires the equation: “Attention Driven & Data-Informed Design.” Oli’s working on a calculator for everyone that will eventually be available here.

The category headings address user’s experience of the landing page, but the 5-second test offers instantaneous insight:

In 5 seconds, does the visitor know what they’re looking at? We’ll be adopting this standard for our landing page creation processes.

Andy Crestondina Gets Google Analytical

Next was Andy Crestondina’s talk on Google Analytics. Andy encouraged us to “eliminate data noise” and focus our marketing efforts.

He gave us technical advice on creating funnels and filters for cleaning up Google Analytics data.

For social media, Andy stressed doubling down on channels with high conversion rates and low bounce rates. Maintaining a blanket social media presence can detract from the success of specific channels which bring in the most interested followers.

Furthermore, Andy reminded us that knowledge of the best conversion path on your site is powerful. The stepping stones from this path can then be linked from elsewhere on your site to try to get people into the funnel.

Importantly, stepping stones that often lead to conversions, but don’t currently have CTAs, can be improved by adding more actionable prompts.

An example might be an “About Us” page that almost every lead visits having a contact form, or at least a button to one.

Andy also talked about taking advantage of the Search Console in Google Analytics. Use the console to filter for pages and posts on your website that are within ranks 11-22.

These properties are low-hanging fruit that, with a little SEO improvement, can grow exponentially in traffic.

He also suggested reviewing searches done on your site to make sure you have content available for visitors’ queries.

Anum Hussein & The Blog Subscriber Hustle

We then attended Anum Hussain’s presentation on email marketing.

Anum suggested a “best-of” content drip for blog subscribers. She took the idea of nurturing sales leads with a drip and adopted it for her content marketing needs.

Her blog drip experiment ended up being very successful. Engagement on emailed content increased. Furthermore, Anum was able to identify who did and didn’t engage, segmenting her subscribers into best readers.

Many blogs neglect their subscribers when, Anum believes, they should be treated like business prospects that need to be nurtured.

Anum also illuminated the importance of the break-up email.

This email should be the last in your drip campaign’s sequence, and it should creatively address the fact that the subscriber is cold and inactive. Offer a last chance to interact, and then unsubscribe the person shortly after.

Erin Bury Builds Beautiful Brands

Erin Bury followed with a demonstration of how to create a personable brand. She suggested that you give your brand a human face, e.g., Steve.

Just the visual cognition of a human face and name can create a more comfortable experience for prospects and potential customers (and who isn’t comforted by Steve’s handsome face).

Coupled with a personal visage, Erin also suggested meeting with clients over lunch where ambience and taste bud stimulation can loosen tongues for more natural conversation.

Additionally, Erin recommended that we look to networks that are underused to improve initial growth. Sometimes it’ll take a specific community or fringe ad network to build initial awareness of your brand.

Erin advocated for a creative, risk-taking marketing environment, where some ideas wouldn’t make it past the drawing board, but all ideas would be encouraged.

Kevan Lee’s Social Media Expertise

Kevan, after giving us a healthy dosage of memes, began to tell us how to improve our lead generation tactics for social media.

Unbeknownst to us, the memes would continue feverishly throughout the presentation. We managed to distill some cogent tips from the ocean of memes:

Create and pin a free lead generation card to your Twitter profile, like Kevan has done:
Use advanced filters in Mailchimp to create custom lists welcoming leads from specific social media sources
Facebook lead generation ads work at lower costs than AdWords
Use Sniply to add CTAs to your own content
Paid SlideShare CTAs are a little known source of leads

Those are the speakers we saw on Day 1. Refresh yourself on the actionable takeaways below.

Quick Actionable Takeaways: Call to Action Conference 2016 Recap:

1. Oli Gardner: The 5 Second Landing Page Test: In 5 seconds, does a visitor know what the heck your landing page offers them? Focus on clarity.

2. Andy Crestondina: Use the Search Console in Google Analytics to filter for pages and posts on your website that are within ranks 11-22. SEO optimize for the keywords these pages get impressions on.

3. Anum Hussein: Create a “best-of” content drip campaign for blog subscribers; nurture them like leads.

4. Erin Bury: Put a face to your brand’s materials and consider lunch meetings for more personable relationships.

5. Kevan Lee: Create a free lead generation card in Twitter Ads and then pin it to your Twitter profile for another passive source of lead generation.