Empower Your Audience to Satisfaction

We have spent the past couple of weeks looking at the Audience Journey, exploring both the logical and the emotional journey we are taking our audience on when communicating a message to them. Today, we will explore the completion of that journey. The Call to Action or CTA.

When I mention the call to action, many people immediately think of the “Buy now” or “Wait, there’s more” at the end of an infomercial. And while that is a call to action, your call to action need not be like that. In fact, it will probably work far more effectively if it isn’t like that! But before we look at the What and How, let’s look at the Why.

Why use a CTA?

The obvious answer is that our talk or pitch has a specific tactical and strategic outcome where we want our audience to take a certain action. Therefore, our message from the stage leads to the point where we can ask the audience to take that action.

Again, this is obvious, and this is what most of us think when asked about a CTA. And it isn’t wrong. It is just that this sort of blatant CTA should only be used 5-10% of the time. Because thinking solely about your own tactical and strategic objectives is not the main reason for your CTA.

The main reason for your CTA should be to satisfy your audience by closing out the Audience Journey. Occasionally, this conclusion of the journey will require them to take a buying action, but more often, it will take a different form altogether.

For example, I talked to all of my TEDx speakers about the call to action they wanted to use at the end of their talk. In most cases, they were sharing their story and passion. Their strategic objective for doing the TEDx talk was around their profile. They didn’t want to ‘sell’ anything.

However, I explained the psychological necessity of completing the audience journey with a CTA. “If you have spent 15 minutes explaining to your audience a problem you see in the world, and you tell them what you are doing to resolve that issue. But you don’t tell them what they can do to help you solve that issue. You have relegated them to the position of spectator.”

“You have taken their power away from them. You have made them impotent. And the passion you may have stirred up within them is now bereft of an outlet. They will feel frustrated, and it is you that made them feel this way. Subconsciously, it is you they will blame.”

“But if you show them a way to take some simple action to help them be part of the solution, you are putting them back in charge. You are giving them the power to take action, should they choose to.”

After delivering this speech to my TEDx speakers, we would talk about the action that the audience may find satisfying to take, which will make some difference on the issue. Sometimes, that was as simple as “Next time you witness this behaviour in another, don’t react like you normally would; think about what we discussed here and employ some empathy”.

Or it may be a call to volunteer time, money or expertise to the cause. Often it may be a range of actions that they can choose between. “If what I shared with you today resonates, then next time you are in this position, do this. Or, if you want to help us further, you can donate here. If you would like to feel great, you can volunteer to help us on our next event by reaching out here.”

A call to action is an important conclusion to the Audience Journey that empowers the audience to take some action on what they have just learned.

What’s next?

Quite honestly, I think if most speakers fully grasped what I have just shared here, I believe that their talks or pitches from the stage will be significantly improved.

But there are a few things that can improve things or make for a smoother conclusion. Let’s start with the difference between a Hard CTA and a Soft CTA.

A Hard CTA gives very specific instructions to be followed; there is no other choice, and the speaker is quite forceful in recommending this course of action.

A Soft CTA gives a suggestion of a course of action without any pressure at all. Often, a soft CTA may suggest multiple courses of action without any pressure or bias for the audience to take any specific action or any action at all.

If you are familiar with what I teach on speaking, you will realise that the majority of your talks will be introductory. That is, you are talking to many people who have never heard from you before, and your primary goal is to intrigue them to find out more about you and your company or offer and connect again in the future.

A Soft CTA is a great sorting tool. Giving a no-pressure suggestion as a CTA, which will lead to a future connection, you are, in effect, getting members of the audience to self-select as part of your target audience. If you were to try to do this as a Hard CTA, you might get additional people to self-select from pressure, but they don’t want to be there and will drop out earlier.

A Hard CTA should only be used with your target audience. You have a clear understanding of the audience, their needs and desires, and an offer tailored to satisfy them.

This might be because you are speaking at an industry conference where the audience is your target audience who are facing the problem you are solving. Or it may be that you have spoken to many introductory audiences and given them a Soft CTA to join your Facebook group, and now you are addressing that targeted group with an offer as a Hard CTA.

Note: I would usually expect that a Hard CTA would be used after your audience has responded to a series of Soft CTA’s from a series of interactions. Sorting and concentrating your audience so that you are certain who you are talking to and what they actually need.

Emotion and Logic in your CTA

It is often said, and I believe it to be true, that people buy for emotional reasons and then justify their decision with logic. This applies to your CTA whether you are “selling” anything. Emotion should be present at the conclusion of your talk or pitch.

But the emotion does not have to be overbearing or “on the nose,” as we often say in film. By this, I mean you don’t have to push the emotion of your topic directly. You should have already built up emotion around your topic through your presentation, so pushing hard on it at the end can often be seen as manipulative or off-putting.

Instead, consider the advice given by Dan Henry. He will often make the logical conclusion to the Audience's Journey, then tell an emotional story unrelated to the problem he is solving. His go-to story is how he was introduced to his wife and was reluctant to go on a date with her. But because he took that action, he is now happily married with a couple of kids. (of course, this is told in an engaging and emotional manner.)

The moral of that story is that if he didn’t take action back then, he wouldn’t be enjoying what he has now. He doesn’t need to spell out that the same applies to the offer (Hard CTA) he just made to the audience. The emotion does that work.

Conclusion

I hope you now realise the importance of a CTA in every presentation you give to empower your audience and create a feeling of satisfaction at the end of their journey.

You also realise that there are different flavours of CTA on a spectrum from soft to hard, and you will use far more Soft CTAs to sort and concentrate your audience before you make a Hard CTA or offer to your audience.

You realise that a logical and emotional conclusion is needed for your audience to be satisfied, but the emotion need not be on the same focus to achieve that satisfaction. And sometimes, if it is on the same focus, it can feel manipulative or over the top.

So next time you are writing a presentation, I encourage you to re-read this and see how you can craft an appropriate CTA to empower your audience.

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

This quote ties in neatly with the feature article of this issue.

Normally, we would look at this quote from the point of us actually taking action on what we know, which is a perfectly valid approach. But today, let’s flip that to see what our responsibilities may be as the communicator of knowledge to others.

The purpose of your presentation should be to instigate some action from the audience. Without action taking place, you have changed nothing in the world. So, it is incumbent upon you to first determine what action should be taken and then to present the information and emotion to lead your audience to the decision to take this action.

Often our excitement in sharing what we know, or what new information we have uncovered, means we forget to share the Why or How. We forget to share why this information is important and how the use of it can transform our world.

Without the why and the how no real action will be taken.

Keep this in mind, and you can create real transformation in the world.

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

Delving into another Assessment Assignment for the Australian Construction Industry

Recreationally:

Busy week with my documentary script writing, performance at Improv Combat, practising for my stand-up comedy debut in a couple of weeks, and the 24 hour Movie Marathon.

What I am watching:

Spent a day in Auckland watching Show Me Shorts festival short films. I highly recommend Stag Hunt, Lao Lao Lao Le, Daughter of God and Basri & Salma in a never-ending comedy