How to Create a Sense of Urgency in Digital Marketing

November 25, 2014

“Fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain.”

For any business, customers are the focal point. The faster you convert your potential customers, the sooner you grow. But to convert a possible customer into a real one, there lies the main task. You also can call it an art and you need to master it as a digital marketer.

The challenge is creating the genuine lead out of a prospective. And when it comes to customer conversion, nothing works better than an urgent sales situation. You can call it ‘creating a sense of urgency’ in digital marketing. Interested to dig deeper?

There are 2 major weak-points of a customer: Greed and Fear. You just need to identify them and create your content accordingly.

The bottom line is, don’t wait for a customer to feel the requirement, rather create it.

Here are some factors to consider:

Using urgent Calls-to-Action: Call-to-Action is the most important aspect of any marketing message. Choose the right words and keep it clutter free. Use words that suggest immediacy or emergency. Some of the best calls-to-action are “Call Now”, “Sign up today”, “Book now”, “Subscribe now”, “Hurry, offer ends in 2 days” and the list is on.

Make the offer scarce: If you tell your future customers that the product is available for unlimited period, they will not feel the push to buy it now. Remember, most of the purchase decisions are made on the spot. If you let your customers think for too long, they may not end up buying anything. There should always be a fear of losing.

How to Create a Sense of Urgency in Digital Marketing image neilpatel
Only 1 spot is available! Anyone would fall for it, even if he is the cunningest of all.

Use colors to bring the emergency in: While creating your marketing content, make sure to use bold colors that would invoke a feeling of urgency. According to a Hubspot study, changing a green CTA button to a red one increased a website’s conversion rate by 21%. So, red is a good color for CTA. Other good colors for creating emergency are orange and yellow.

How to Create a Sense of Urgency in Digital Marketing image crazyegg orange cta button
Look at CrazyEgg’s CTA button. It’s orange!

Making it user-friendly: As you build a sense of urgency, you want your customers to act faster. So, your webpages should work according. Mase sure there is no technical hitch on the way from the landing page to the final conversion page. Make the journey as shorter as possible; as easier as possible.

Play with human psychology: It’s seen that when brands reduce their price, sales go higher. You also can play a reverse psychology. Suppose, you have increased your products’ prices recently. Now create a campaign with the old price for a one-day sale. People will be interested to buy at the lower price, even if they don’t have any requirement, just to make sure they don’t miss the offer.

Another way to do it is, show your customers how much they are going to save if they opt for the deal right now. One superb example is Neil Patel’s “83% off” offer.

How to Create a Sense of Urgency in Digital Marketing image niel patel offer 900x134

83% discount is really high and when you get Neil Patel’s service at that discounted price, you surely will not want to miss it.

Making the offer exclusive: Sometimes you need to make your customers feel privileged so much so that they feel the offer is just for them. The moment you do it, make sure you also specify a limited time brachet with the offer.

Follow the above-mentioned example. The discount is valid till midnight. So, why would you wait?

Don’t miss any occasion: Occasions sell well all the time. And digital media is no exception. Find as many festivals and special occasions as possible over a year. Online transactions reach the zenith during these times of year, as there is always a limited stock and limited time associated.

Offer best deals on delivery: “If you buy today, we will deliver by tomorrow” or “Buy a product today and the delivery will be free”. This is something that would allure many eyes at once. People love fast delivery so cash it on.

Offer for everyone: When you will run an offer, make sure you have something for each of your customers. You can experiment with multiple CTA buttons, so that your customers can choose from different options.

How to Create a Sense of Urgency in Digital Marketing image harvest pricing 900x518
Harvest is a time-tracking and invoicing software. They have multiple plans including a free version. The idea is not to lose any of their customers, even if they are using their service for free. And don’t miss their green CTA button.

Conclusion – Work on the urgency and scarcity factors of your marketing campaigns. Remember a thumb rule. If they fail to excite you, it will fail to excite your customers as well.


Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community

(350)