The sense of urgency is one of the most powerful motivators humans experience. It’s wired deep within our brains—so deep that psychologists say it can cause us to temporarily ignore common sense and act with fairly reckless abandon. While we don’t recommend overusing it, the urgency principle is one that every marketer should understand.
When it comes to creating a desired action in a prospect, or in other words, getting them to “convert,” marketers must overcome another universal human trait: paralysis by analysis. We tend to overthink things. “Should I submit this request for information form? I do want more information, but will they then start spamming me, or, worse, will they call me right now? I’m really not ready to talk to anyone about this yet!” Urgency helps silence this internal dialogue and get the person to take action.
There are a number of ways to trigger a person’s sense of urgency, and boost your conversions. Here are some of the techniques most commonly used in marketing:
- Countdown. While we know that the sale that “won’t last long” will surely be repeated soon, we nevertheless feel more compelled to act because of the deadline. Giving prospects a shorter timeframe in which to take action—which intuitively seems like it might lead to fewer responses—actually tends to generate more of them.
- Loss aversion. Humans hate to lose things. In fact, studies have shown that the fear of losing something is a far stronger motivator than the chance to gain something. And, interestingly, it doesn’t even have to be something you actually have. Ads that make you feel like you have something and are about to lose it can be very effective at triggering urgency. “We’ve set aside an [insert item name] for you. Call now before we release it to someone else.”
- Scarcity. If you did any online holiday shopping, you probably saw warnings like this (with various numbers) all over the internet: “Only 3 left!” Were there really only three left? Maybe. But more likely, it was simply a way to stoke your sense of urgency and get you to place your order rather than shopping around for a better deal.
- Challenge. Making someone solve a riddle, complete a puzzle, or tackle some other task before they can take a conversion-related acton is another way to hit the hurry-up button. A word of caution here, however. Make things too challenging and you’ll start seeing people bail out of the process.
- Competition. Games and contests where we face opposition, focus our attention, and create the desire to “finish” ahead of our opponents, invoke an emotion that can easily be channeled into a conversion activity.
So, don’t wait! You only have a limited number of prospects and your competitors are probably contacting them even as you read this post. Review your marketing strategy NOW to see how urgency can help. And, by the way, as a leading Colorado Springs conversion-focused, content marketing agency, we can only handle so many inquiries per day, so don’t miss your opportunity to get in touch. ;-)
