Your online booking software is up and running and you’re ready for clients to slot themselves into your soon-to-be-much-busier calendar. Time for an all-platforms push to get customers to click the “Book Now!” button or link that takes them to the calendar page. Try these tactics:

Website

You need a button on every page, big enough to display “Book Now”, “Schedule Your Appointment” or another “call to action”. Good design principles say the button should be in a contrasting color to the rest of the page, set apart from other elements for good visibility and placed as the logical conclusion of an enticing offer in text or an image that shows your awesome work or how your service will make the customer smarter, richer, healthier, thinner or all four. Other ideas:

• A little calendar icon as a navigation element on the pages
• A widget that lives off to the side of the pages – click it and a box with a link to the calendar appears.
• An overlay that appears on top of the web page after the user has visited the site for a while or just before leaving the site.

Facebook and Twitter

Facebook offers a choice of pre-fab buttons with “Book Now”, “Sign Up” and other messages that you can place under the main image on your Facebook page (get the details) to link to your website booking page. Or you can run the buttons on your Facebook ads (details). And you’ll want to link to your booking page from your ongoing Facebook posts to grab the attention of clients in their News Feeds. Some post ideas: special offers or last minute appointments available. You can also pay Facebook to “boost” a post, giving it more prominence in the News Feed for your targeted audiences.

Advice is pretty much ditto for Twitter – ongoing tweeting plus advertising. Twitter offers the Website Card as an ad unit (details), with room for text with a special offer, an image and a call to action button.

Text Messaging and Email

You’re likely already using texting (or SMS) and email for appointment reminders but, for clients who have also opted in to receive your marketing messages, these two pushy channels can also get the word out about specials or appointment availability, with a Book Now button or links to your calendar. If you regularly send an email newsletter, you’ll want make the appointments call to action a standard feature.

Yelp

The big reviews site offers a call to action button linked to your site, as part of a paid package.  You can target the button just to mobile viewers (details).

Messaging Apps

As apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp grow in popularity, so too will the expectation that businesses are available for live chat 24/7 – and that includes appointment booking. Facebook offers a version of the call to action button, “Request Time”, that launches a conversation in Messenger with the customer to set an appointment.

Check out Thryv, a powerful, integrated platform that brings all of your digital marketing efforts together in one place–including appointments.