If you're marketing a technology product or service, chances are your campaign is directed at some pretty smart people. But there's one area of your campaign in which it's best to pretend you're actually writing to a three year-old: the call to action.

Simply put, your campaign needs to be idiot-proof. In writing the ideal call to action, you simply cannot overestimate the intelligence of your audience. Is this because your readers are stupid? No. It's because if any one of those readers is distracted, confused, or otherwise hesitates in responding to your campaign because your instructions weren't absolutely crystal clear, you just lost a response.

An example of what I mean: number the steps on your Web landing page. As in: 1. Fill out your name and contact information here. 2. Answer these 3 simple questions. 3. Click "submit".

Sound ridiculous? Sure. But remember, you've just spent days (maybe weeks) creating that landing page so you're intimately familiar with it. Is the average lay person going to immediately and intuitively know what's expected of him or her? (A good way to test - send a sample to someone outside the company.)

The same applies to reply forms in direct mail. Or 800 numbers (please don't expect someone to navigate your company's voice prompts). Calls to action need to be clear, specific, and simple. You need all the leads you can get. Don't make the reader's job any harder than it needs to be.