Naomi Explains... Urgency

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In a recent episode we discussed AIDA, the four stages a prospect goes through from “who are you?” to “here’s my Visa”. We said that the action phase is trickiest because, well, getting people off their asses can be tricky. We mentioned three traditional approaches to spurring action, and those were scarcity, urgency, and objection reversal. In our last episode, we tackled scarcity, and there were kittens. Today, urgency. No kittens, but I do have blueberries.

Just click play, and I’ll meet you there.

Transcript & Shownotes

Welcome back to Naomi Explains Marketing, the show where I help coaches, consultants, experts, authors, and other associated nerds, geeks and misfits sell the contents of their brains for cash money. I am your host, Naomi, and today we’re talking about urgency. We’re going to cover the difference between scarcity and urgency, some guidelines, some out and out rules, and a couple of exceptions just to keep things interesting.

Let’s do this.

Let’s take it from the top.

If scarcity is saying “there’s not enough to go around”, urgency is saying “there’s a deadline”. Scarcity taps into our natural understanding of quantity – is there enough or is there not enough? Urgency taps into our natural understanding of time.

If you are out in the meadow gathering berries for your tribe, at some point, the sun will go down. Get your blueberries now or you won’t be able to see your way home. At some point the mosquitoes will come out. Get your blueberries now, or you’ll come back looking like you have the pox. At some point, blueberries are no longer in season. Get your blueberries now, or they’ll have gone bad.

The passing of time is a fundamental concept that we understand from early childhood. We viscerally experience repetitions of natural cycles. Over time, those repetitions become patterns, and those patterns become instinct. As we get older, our teacher gives us deadlines. Our landlord gives us deadlines. Our boss gives us deadlines. Even the word deadline is very evocative – after this line, it’s dead. Line. Dead. Got it.

Urgency is the most commonly used marketing tactic by a landslide.

There is no close second. It is perfectly reasonable and actually quite common for urgency to be the only major promotional angle you ever use for the entirety of your business career. You could literally never do anything more creative than that, ever, and your grandkids can still go to a good college. Now, if you happen to like marketing and communication, you may not want to restrict yourself in this way because /you/ may get bored of it after a while. But your customers will be fine. Your stuff will still sell.

An interesting and lesser known secondary benefit of urgency is that they subtly – and sometimes not so subtly – communicate and convey authority. Your teacher, your landlord, your boss – these are all authoritative people. Notice how your little brother didn’t give you deadlines for when you had to play blocks with him by. It wouldn’t occur to him, because he’s not in a position of authority.

So if you’re in a position where you think the dynamic between you and your prospects might be a little too skewed to “you’re a nice person who sends helpful free content but I don’t exactly /buy/ from you ha ha ha”, incorporating deadlines can be helpful in shifting that dynamic over time. It won’t do much on the first attempt – human dynamics don’t work like that – but it can be helpful in shifting your reputation from “helper mouse” to “person I listen to”.

Now, how do we do urgency and deadlines well so our promotional communications don’t sound like emails from the IRS?

I’ve got some thoughts for you.

First and foremost, if you want to retain any credibility whatsoever, your deadline must be an actual deadline. You can’t be saying the sale ends on Friday and then playfully say, “Psych! I’m extending it!” or you’re the boy who cried urgency. The exception to this – and it is a real exception worth considering – is if you’ve got a lot of promotions with this audience under your belt and you are not known for deadline extensions. Then you can VERY rarely extend your deadline, and you look like you’re giving them a rare opportunity, not like you’re a flake whose launch flopped. When we lie, we damage trust. It was true with your high school boyfriend and it’s true now.

Next, the biggest risk you run in an urgency-based promotion is complication. We want to keep things very straightforward and easy to understand. Always assume your audience is drunk, high, and has ADHD. The urgency angle is naturally very simple, and when we abandon that simplicity, we lose its power. Because we’re knee-deep in our own business, our offer, our product, our promotion, we think that multiple deadlines makes sense. You have an early bird deadline, and then the bonuses go away, and then there’s the swear to god, “get it or regret it” deadline. Simple, right? Makes sense?

No. Not simple. Does not make sense. My eyes are glazing over. I’m a very busy person. There’s an Angry Birds Match tournament on tonight and it’s taking a lot of my attention. You’re going to have to be simple with me – I have things on my mind.

Next, try to match your deadline to your medium. If you’re running a two-week launch, everyone who isn’t on vacation has a chance to hear about your offer, so no matter how you communicate it, they’ll find out. But! If you’re running, say, a one-day flash sale, you’ll want to make sure you give people a chance to find out about it before it’s gone. This is something that comes up a lot when people are starting to sell on social media for the first time. They’re used to email, which people check pretty religiously and isn’t usually dictated by algorithms. I can tell you my sale is today only and there’s a pretty decent chance you’ll hear about it today. That is not reasonable to assume on social media, video, or podcasts, so if you’re selling on those platforms, allow for some extra time. (The exception to this is if you want to condition your audience to pay attention fast or you want them to sign up for push notifications. In that case, you may actually want to do this a lot. Just don’t expect to make much money, and have staff on hand to deal with the “I missed it” emails. You’re gonna need it.)

Alright, last thing. The last thing you want to be aware of with urgency promotions is that you are allowed to be direct. In fact, you have to be. You don’t have to be coy, you don’t have to be creative, and you don’t have to find the best, most perfectly branded way to say something. Your brand is brash and bold? Sale ends at midnight. Your brand is nerdy and academic? Sale ends at midnight. Your brand is soft and gentle? Sale ends at midnight. Feel free to be as creative or articulate as your heart desires in the rest of your copy, but when it comes to the core message – this is the time you must do the thing by – you must be direct. Big letters. Countdown timers. Hit people over the head.

With that, you may go back to your Angry Birds. I’ll see you soon with Objection Reversal. Until then, be very, very good to yourself. There’s a lot of assholes out there.