“Procrastination is an enemy of the sale! Urgency kills it.” – Victor Schwab
Just recently, I was looking for a new hunting knife that I would be able to use in nature. I really like survival, the army, and all this stuff connected to it. And because my previous knife has broken, I needed a new one.
And after a few minutes of searching on google, I found one that absolutely amazed me. And I was absolutely determined to buy it. But I also wanted to take a look at other knives, so that I would be able to compare them.
But suddenly a notification popped out on the website. It was saying, “Just one knife left in the stock!”
At that moment, I knocked the feeling of finding other knives to compare with this one out of the window. And I immediately bought it.
Why did I end up buying it?
Because if I would wait for just another second, I would never see this knife again. I was afraid of losing the opportunity to buy it. There was a massive sense of urgency.
And this is exactly how urgency works.
People love to procrastinate. They want to put things away. But putting things away is a one-way ticket to kill the sale.
You want to make your sales message, banner ads, and whole marketing as urgent as possible.
When a task is urgent, people are more likely to act on it. Interestingly, this is even the case when the sense of urgency is artificially created.
Five experiments in a 2018 study showed when unimportant tasks are characterized by a spurious sense of urgency (e.g. an illusion of expiration) people are more likely to perform them over more important tasks.
This is what generates marketing language like:
- Limited Time Offer!
- Limited Availability!
- Just______Left!
- Get these bonuses if you will respond within______hours!
As master copywriter Dan S. Kennedy said, “Imagine your message being read by a guy in an apartment in Cleveland, amid a ferocious winter storm, with gusting winds and snow outside at thigh height.
You’ve got to get him so excited that he’ll get out of the chair in front of the fireplace, bundle up, slog through the snow, go out to his cold car, and drive down to the post office to get a money order and a stamp to send his order in – rather than taking the risk of waiting until tomorrow.”
Of course, the job is never that tough now, because we have Internet and we can easily pay with our credit cards.
But you got the point.
To help you build an extreme sense of urgency, here are five head-turning ways to make your sales message so urgent that the reader would run towards gunfire just to get what you have to offer:
1. Limited Availability Offer
Limited availability is a great way to make your message urgent.
This is one of the easiest ways to convey this message to the reader’s mind. When you will show them that your offer is limited, they will think, “If I won’t buy right away, maybe I will never have another opportunity to use this product or service.”
It also makes your offer exclusive because, if it is limited, only a few people will ever use the product or service.
It is a great way to create an extreme sense of urgency and make them buy right now!
2. Bonuses For Fast Response
It is rare for a normal offer to spark immediate action by itself.
But it is definitely not rare for a normal offer that includes bonuses for fast response to spark immediate action.
You see, humans have a basic instinct – greed. The moment you will offer them something for free if they will act right away…
They will crush the order button!
These bonuses don’t have to cost you anything. This can be something like an ebook or a five-minute video explaining something or just a free report.
It depends on you.
3. Deadline
The deadline is the most common and basic urgency-builder.
It is used across all industries. And it works like this…
You offer them something of value like a discount (maybe the whole product or service is time-limited – that builds the biggest sense of urgency) and then you will put a time limit on that offer.
It can be done in many ways.
You can use a timer. You can tell them how much time is left and then craft a piece of copy that will make it even more urgent than it actually is.
Again, this depends on you.
4. Penalties For Slow Response
This one is often used in the seminar business. What you want to do is this…
First, you want to show them a normal price. And then after some time, you want to scale it up.
This means that, for example, somebody offers a seminar for $50.99. And you will tell them that after 4 days you will have to pay $67.99 for a seat. Then you will tell them that if they will want to buy a ticket right at the seminar, they will have to pay $99.99.
When the reader reads this, he or she will immediately want to buy it at the current price.
And this is exactly how you want to apply this technique. Extreme sense of urgency.
5. Notification That The Price Will Go Up Soon
This one is pretty simple.
Tell them that the price will go up soon, and they will do everything to get what you’re selling at the current price.
Again, greed plays its role here, but the statement above describes exactly how this works.
I Hope These Techniques Will Generate You Tons Of Sales
These techniques are very powerful.
And you can use them wherever you want. No kidding.
If you write a sales page, use them. If you write a message for banner ads, use them. If you write a print ad, use them.
But most importantly USE THEM! A sense of urgency is more important than you ever thought in your life.
Filip Konecny 