The Best CTAs for B2B Sales (and When to Use Them)
Another cold email hits your inbox that feels irrelevant to you. You have no idea who the company is, what they offer, or what they want from you. You’re being asked to book a demo for a tool you’ve never even seen before. So you shut your emails down and think about throwing your laptop from a window. Sound familiar?
You’ve fallen victim to a B2B sales team with no idea about effective CTAs, how to use them and when to send them.
But how can you ensure that your own sales outreach doesn’t inspire someone to smash their screen and block your email address forever? Today, we’re tackling CTAs, and offering you some vital tips and tricks to help your message land better with your prospects and make more sales.
In a rush? Skip ahead:
What are CTAs and Why Should I Use Them?
What is a CTA?
A Call to Action (CTA) in B2B sales is a strategic prompt that encourages your prospects to take a specific next step, such as scheduling a demo, downloading a whitepaper, or responding to an email. Think of it like an invitation to get to know your product or service better. And you need to get the wording just right to really resonate with your prospect’s pain points at the time you send it.
Why should I use CTAs?
Wouldn’t it be nice if prospects just made their own way through the sales funnel without any help from you? Unfortunately, most customers need a helping hand in knowing what to do next to buy your product or service. CTAs are essential in guiding prospects to the next stage of the sales cycle, turning them from passive readers of your emails to active participants in your sales campaigns. By clearly defining what action your prospects need to take, CTAs help maintain momentum in the buyer journey by increasing engagement and ultimately driving conversions. So it’s time to get clued up on how to use them properly!
Types of CTAs in B2B Sales
- Download for free
If your marketing team has produced a piece of high quality, long-form content such as a whitepaper, an e-book, or a report that can’t be viewed on a browser, or you want to acquire contact data by gating the content, use ‘download for free’ as your CTA.
Example: Download our Summer 2024 Influencer Trends report for free.
When to use: This can be an ideal CTA for initial outreach as it builds trust in your prospect’s mind that you are a valuable partner for their business. If you have identified a specific pain point that your content addresses in a discovery call, you can also use download for free to share insights that might nudge your prospect closer to conversion.
- Learn more
Do you want to direct your prospect to a specific landing page or blog post to highlight the benefits of your products or services? Using learn more can be a great way to economize on space in your email or message and direct prospects to your content for a deeper dive on a topic.
Example: Learn more about how content marketing delivers 30% increased engagement in professional services.
When to use: As above, learn more can be a great CTA to use on a fresh lead, or a prospect who has already shown some interest in your business.
- Join our webinar
When you’re hosting an in-depth, educational discussion on a specific industry topic, you will want to invite prospects to cement your position as a thought leader in the space.
Example: Join our webinar on 18th August about how to hack your paid social team’s productivity.
When to use: If you have potential leads who you’ve already engaged with and they need more information on how you can help, inviting them to a webinar can be an effective way of moving them along the sales funnel and pushing them one step closer to buying from you.
- Book a demo
Ready to show off exactly why your product delivers better value than your competitors? Asking your prospects to book a demo can give them hands-on experience with your offering to understand how you can help them solve their business challenges.
Example: Request a demo to see how Slack can revolutionize your team’s communication channels.
When to use: Demos should be reserved for warm customers only, who have shown genuine interest in buying from you and are primed to make a purchase with some more information at hand. Be conscious of your team’s resource. Not everyone you prospect can book a demo, so be strategic in aligning demo CTAs with prospects who are genuinely ready to commit to buying from you.
- Sign up for a free trial
Offer a free trial to give your prospects hands-on experience of your product.
Example: Sign up for a free trial to see how you can connect with new clients quicker for yourself.
When to use: If your prospect has already engaged with your outreach and shown some intent, offering a free trial can be a useful way of allowing them to evaluate the benefits of your product on their own terms, in their own time.
- Contact us
Want to give your prospects the opportunity to get in touch with you directly to discuss your product or service? Use the contact us CTA to land more inbound enquiries.
Example: Keen to hear more about how we can help you streamline your sales funnel? Contact us for a tailored solution.
When to use: If you have a large volume of high-interest leads looking for specific answers to their queries, using a contact us CTA gives them a direct channel to your team.
Top tip: If you’re reading this article to help build your cold email campaign, enrich your contact data with this email finder for LinkedIn to find the verified contact details of your LinkedIn contacts in one click.
Timing Your CTAs: Best Practice
Timing your CTAs effectively can make all the difference in B2B sales. Here are some best practices to ensure your CTAs hit the mark:
Warm Up Leads First
Avoid aggressive CTAs in the initial outreach. Begin with value-driven CTAs, such as offering free resources. For instance, in your first email, you might say, “Download our free report on optimizing your sales process.”
Build Trust Gradually
In the early stages, focus on CTAs that educate and inform to build credibility. A follow-up email could include, “Learn more about how our solutions can address your challenges.”
Match CTA to Buyer’s Journey
Align your CTAs with where the lead is in their buyer’s journey—whether they’re in the awareness, consideration, or decision stage. For example, in a decision-stage email, you might prompt, “request a demo to see our solution in action.”
Use Personalized CTAs
Tailor CTAs to the specific needs and interests of your prospect for higher engagement. For instance, “Based on your interest in [topic], join our webinar on [related topic].” Need a hand on building tailored outreach messages? Surfe’s personalized message templates for LinkedIn and InMail can supercharge your productivity and help you customize your outreach at scale.
Test and Optimize
Continuously test different CTAs and timings to find what resonates best with your audience. This could involve A/B testing different subject lines and CTAs to pinpoint the most effective approach. With Surfe’s message analytics, you can see which of your templates has the best response rate, so you can refine your outreach to be better and better with every campaign.
Putting CTAs Into Practice
So, now we know how CTAs need to be timed just right, and tailored to our prospect’s pain points, let’s dive into some practical examples of using them in action effectively.
Cold email scenario
Hi Jane,
We’re Inigo, the one-stop-shop content production agency for professional services firms just like yours.
We know that budgets are tighter than ever this year with mass redundancies for marketing teams across the entire accountancy industry, and with generative AI on everyone’s lips it’s harder to cut through than ever with your thought leadership content. That’s why we’ve written a whitepaper on the truth about content marketing and why in today’s social-first world it delivers more value to stakeholders than ever before.
Download our whitepaper ‘Mapping Content Marketing’s ROI in 2024’ for free today to find out more.
Follow-up email scenario
Hi Dave,
It was really great to catch up with you and the wider commercial team on Thursday. Excited to hear more about how the conference in Naples goes!
I know you mentioned that you’re struggling to tap into prospects in the Australian market given the higher trade tariffs now in place. Our content team has produced an article covering the latest strategies and insights into entering high-tariff markets that I thought would be of interest to you.
Learn more about how to negotiate better shipping rates in international markets.
Engaged lead scenario
Hi Sandy,
Are you struggling to track the ROI of your webinars? We know how much hard work goes into managing events, and it can be frustrating when senior stakeholders don’t grasp the value of your efforts.
At HopIn, we’re helping events professionals like you prove how webinars are generating and converting more leads for marketing departments across the UK. In fact, our detailed analytics dashboards are already in use by over 2,200 professional services firms in England alone.
Want to see for yourself how HopIn can arm you with the data you need to demonstrate the value of your webinars? Request a demo to see how HopIn’s AI-powered dashboards work in action.
Let’s Wrap it Up!
Crafting effective CTAs in B2B sales is all about timing, relevance, and personalization. By avoiding aggressive CTAs initially and focusing on value-driven prompts, you can build trust and credibility with your prospects. Align your CTAs with each stage of the buyer’s journey to guide them smoothly from awareness to conversion. Personalize your CTAs based on the prospect’s specific interests and needs to boost engagement. Finally, continuously test and optimize your CTAs to discover what resonates best with your audience. Simple!
Ready to streamline your CTAs and land more sales?
Surfe’s personalized message templates allow you to tailor your sales outreach so you can address your buyer’s pain points at exactly the right time.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a CTA in sales?
A Call to Action (CTA) is a prompt used in sales to encourage a prospect to take the next step in the sales cycle.
What tools can I use to tailor my CTAs on LinkedIn?
Surfe’s message templates allow you to create personalized sales outreach content in LinkedIn messages and InMail.
How should I time my CTAs to match my buyer’s journey?
Start by warming your leads up by offering a free download of high quality content, then build trust gradually and encourage your prospect to learn more about your products or services, and only offer demos to engaged leads who are seriously evaluating whether to buy from you.