The Myth Of The Call To Action
Thursday, December 7th, 2006 by Mark | Posted in Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing, Unconventional Thinking | Comments
Every day, in conference rooms around the world, marketers and their clients are asking: So what’s the call to action?
One problem: there is no such thing as a call to action. Nothing that really works. None of the cheap stunts that may have worked in a simpler, bygone time. Back in the day.
What are you going to say? “Free Starbucks card to the first 100 people to buy a Volvo no one wants?” Wow, that will move those dated looking boxes on wheels. Not!
And yet the marketing folks who gorge on cliches as if they are wolfing down ice cream, don’t recognize that the only real call to action is a tremendously appealing product or service. An iPod. A PlayStation. A Honda Accord. A Starbucks cappuccino .
Which drives us to the key issue: Marketers must be concerned with what they are marketing, not just how they are marketing it. They need to impress their clients- admit to their clients- that no set of words from a hack copywriter is going to serve as a call to action. Is going to get people to open their wallets and buy. They have to do what they almost never do: Lobby to make the products better, cooler, more effective. To help their clients imagine and create products and services people will fall in love with. Does Manolo Blahnik need a call to action to sell his shoes to women? I can hear him laughing now. The shoes are the call to action, squared. Can you say the same about your product?
Mark Stevens
CEO
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December 10th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Mark,
Many good points! A call to action is that which compels the buyer to buy. The combination of product and follow through. A shoe is a shoe is a shoe….unless it is a Manolo….the setter of the style and producer of a fine product for which price is not the object. In fact…if those shoes were sold cheap there would probably be no market.
Jim
December 10th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Mark,
Who is the handsome gentlemen in the photograph. Is this what happens when one achieve success?
Be well!
Felix Nater
“I show business executives how they can stop worrying about workplace security so that they can worry about running their businesses.”
Please click on this link:
http://www.naterassociates.com/media/video/nater.html
to launch my video.
Contact information:
Felix P. Nater
President
December 10th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Jim,
Yes you are right. It’s all in the marketing. A shoe is a shoe unless it a Manolo.
Thanks for contributing.
Mark Stevens
CEO
December 12th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Felix,
It’s better to worry about the right stuff.
Good video, too.
Thanks for reading.
Mark Stevens
CEO
January 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Nice post! Very complete and detail information. That