If there is one thing common to all great advertising and marketing, it is this: an effective call to action, a great hook that tells them what you want them to do, and convinces them to do it. It’s no different for marketing and promotional videos. Your video may be a slick professional production or an interesting homemade shoot with great content that attracts a million views or even gets people laughing, singing or dancing. But if they all turn away after watching it, it’s practically worthless to your business. Whether you want them to buy a product or service, visit your store, sign up for promotions or special offers, subscribe to your list or visit your social media pages, if you don’t tell them clearly what you want them to do, they won’t.

5 simple elements that can help turn your video into a great call to action tool:

Strong and clear verbs. Use action words such as Visit, Subscribe, Download, Click, or Call to begin phrases to clearly instruct viewers what to do.

Repeating the call of action. Throughout the video, repeating the call to action helps viewers remember what it is they must do and boosts your chances of conversion. YouTube annotations can also be used effectively as calls of action.

A call to action that entertains or appeals to emotion is more memorable and more likely to convince viewers to do what you ask of them.

Interactivity. A video that redirects viewers to your landing page when they click on it is a great way to convert them into customers.

Include the call to action in the written meta-description for the video to give viewers who miss clicking on the video a chance to do so.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what medium you use to boost your business or how powerful your message is, if you don’t tell people what they need to do, they won’t.