The most overlooked step in marketing: Directing your customer’s journey

By Kath Pay

Most marketers know how to grab attention. Look at all of your tools: a killer hook, a strong pitch, a product your audience wants. Sharp copy, attention-grabbing images – it’s all there.

So you send out your sure-winner campaign … and the results? Crickets.

Nobody clicks. Nobody buys, signs up, or downloads.

What went wrong? Assuming everything else looks fine – normal deliverability, appropriate segmentation, your links, images, and templates are working – you probably forgot one key step:

You didn’t give your customers enough direction in your call to action.

Did you stop marketing too soon?

Marketing isn’t just about attracting interest. It’s also about guiding action, or encouraging your customers to take the next step.

Too many email campaigns stop marketing at the most crucial step in the process: presenting a call to action that gives customers a clear path forward that tells them what to do next and what to expect when they do it.

Vague or underwhelming CTAs, like the ones below, can quell your customer’s initial interest in your offer.

“Learn more”
“Sign up now”
“Get started”
And the worst one of all: “Click here”

These aren’t calls to action. They’re half-hearted suggestions. They leave your audience wondering, “What happens if I click?”

Uncertainty is an action-killer, second only to encountering a broken link. If customers don’t trust your brand implicitly, anything in your email that raises a doubt can cause them to move on to the next one in the inbox.

You’re not just a marketer. You’re the director

Your job isn’t just to spark your customer’s interest. It’s to choreograph their next steps.

Think of your email as a big West End musical where you’re the director and the customers are your actors. You wouldn’t throw them up on stage and expect an award-winning performance. In the same way, you can’t expect customers to do what you want if you don’t show them what to do and what will happen.

Your CTA needs to answer these three critical questions:

1. What’s the first step?

2. How long will it take?

3. What happens next?

That looks like a lot of extra work, but keep reading to discover how you can answer all three questions efficiently and effectively

Build a better CTA

Here’s a common CTA: “Sign up now.” Yes, it tells customers what to do but not what’s in it for them or what they can expect next.

Now, here’s how you can strengthen it by answering the three questions we asked above:

“Sign up in 30 seconds. Start your free trial today—we’ll guide you through setup step by step.”

This CTA blends clarity, ease, and reassurance. It tells customers:

· What to do (“Sign up …”),

· How long it will take (“30 seconds”)

· What will happen next (“Start your free trial.”). As a final bonus, it removes uncertainty: “We’ll guide you …”.

Support your CTA with visual cues

No matter how great your CTA is, it won’t help you much if your customers don’t see it quickly. Your email design can direct your customers to your CTA with cues like these:

Arrows or buttons that highlight or point to your CTA
Progress indicators (such as “step 1 of 3”)
White space around the CTA to make it stand out from the rest of the email copy
Supporting statement under buttons that answers the unspoken question, “What happens after I click?”

Let’s recap: Clarity + simplicity = action

The golden rule? Never assume customers will figure it out on their own.

If your email, landing page, or ad isn’t converting, check the call to action. Does it:

Say what to do?
Show how easy it is?
Tell customers what comes next?

If not, you’re probably losing people, not because they’re uninterested but because they’re confused.

Marketing is not just about making noise. It’s about directing attention into action.

Be bold. Be specific. Never leave your audience wondering, “Now what?”

Want to learn more about high-converting email design and CTAs? Check out our Intermediate: Email Design course when it launches, inside the Holistic Email Academy Begin building stronger calls to action