OK, let’s be honest, how many of us have found ourselves scrambling to file our tax returns at the eleventh hour? (Guilty as charged.) But even with all the stress and panic, we *somehow* always manage to get it done on time. Why? Urgency.

Unless there is an external reason to take action (like a looming tax deadline and the prospect of a steep penalty), human beings will happily stay at rest. It’s even backed up by science…

Newton’s First Law (or the “law of inertia”) states that:

“If a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force.”

Unless we are given an incentive to take action—even for things that we want—we don’t do it.

Just think how many tabs you have open right now for things you’re *thinking* about (but probably won’t) purchase. (Or am I the only tab hoarder around here?)

But when there’s no urgency, there’s no reason for us to buy any time soon. In fact, that’s one of the main problems with the evergreen model: When people can buy any time, they just don’t. And so urgency is always going to improve your sales.

Here, we’re exploring why it’s so important to add urgency to your offer and the different ways you can create an authentic reason for customers to buy now (or at least very soon), without making them feel uncomfortable.

Implementing Deadlines

One of the most effective ways to create urgency is by implementing deadlines on your offers. And we’re talking real deadlines here, not fake deadlines (they’re a big no no).

There can be a tendency to create deadlines and then, once it passes, to say, “Hey, you can still get the offer!” But then your previous deadline becomes disingenuous. That means people learn not to trust what you’re saying, which can become damaging for many aspects of your business, not just deadlines. If you’ve already demonstrated that you don’t have integrity in your sales process, what does that say about what’s within the program that you’re selling?

Plus, it also negates the urgency that you were trying to create with the original deadline. For example, there’s a program that I’m *kind of* interested in purchasing at the moment. I haven’t made a decision yet and guess what? I don’t have to. Because even though this woman keeps sending me emails saying, “This is your last chance tonight to get this offer!”, when I open her sales page the next day, that offer is still available.

And so as the purchaser, I feel like I don’t have to make the decision when she wants me to—I get to make the decision when I feel like it. And the longer this tab is open and I’m not forced to make a decision, the lower the chances are that I’m actually going to purchase it. At some point, especially with my temperamental computer, the tab will inevitably shut down and I’ll forget that I was even interested in it to begin with.

So absolutely give customers a deadline! But make sure that it is a real deadline. And our Circuit Sales System students know that there are ways to give people deadlines and enforce those deadlines, while still making them individual to each person that gets into your Circuit.

Countdown Timers

In the Circuit, everyone has their own individual countdown clock. It’s real, it’s functional, and it changes as you’d expect. If you look at it today and you look at it tomorrow, the time is not going to be the same. And eventually, it will run out and expire.

Countdown clocks be a really effective tactic to use to create urgency—but only if the timer is actually working! There’s nothing more embarrassing than clicking through an ad to a page which says you’ve got 20 minutes to get this offer…every single time you check. That kind of false urgency just leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth and shows a lack of integrity.

Yes, there will be some people who are interested in purchasing, try to click through the day after, and then see a page that says, “Oops, sorry, you’ve missed this offer.” But what they learn from that is that they need to take action the next time your offer is available to them.

It’s an important lesson for them about you and the way that you run your company. When you say “You’ll never see this offer again”, you have to *truly* never show them that offer again.

Offering a Fast Action Price

You can also add urgency by offering a price that is only available for a limited period of time, like a fast action price. But, again, it’s crucial to keep to your word if you say “You will only ever see this price once.” That *has* to be true. You can’t offer that price and then later on run some kind of promotion and bring it back.

I think there’s a temptation, especially if your sales process isn’t going as intended, to go back on what you said so that you can try and hit your numbers. But if you do that, your audience just learns that you will go back on your word. It has to truly be the only time that they can get that price.

Extra Resources and Bonuses

Price isn’t the *only* way to create urgency. You could also offer something valuable as an incentive for purchasing at that moment such as an extra bonus or another resource that you’ve created. This way, you’re not changing the price, you’re just offering materials that you can use over and over again with people.

You could even offer a coaching call with you for an hour—just be careful how much time you offer and to how many people. It might be that the first X number of people get a coaching call with you so that you can put a boundary on your time, if that’s what you’re giving away.

If you have truly a limited amount of something, for example, if you are offering a program and you only have five spots, make sure you let people know—especially as those spots go down. If they know it is filling up fast, it helps to support that urgency. Whenever there is a limited amount of something, be sure to highlight that.

However, you do have to be careful that you don’t end up incentivizing people to wait, especially if you offer bonuses later on that people didn’t get earlier. The people who purchased straight away are the ones who should get the best of you. They should get everything. It could be that you offer a bonus with the earlier purchases, which you take away as you go. So the longer they wait, the fewer bonuses they get. This way, they’re still incentivized, but you’re also not penalizing anybody for purchasing earlier.

Number of Payment Installments

On our copywriting course, for example, we generally offer a one-time payment or a three-time payment. And then in our third or fourth sales sequence, we offer people a six-part payment. Being able to extend it to twice as long and pay a little bit less per month, helps to incentivize people to buy. But, again, we tell them they will only ever see it once and they *do* only ever see it once. And that gets people to take action.

Student-Only Events

Similarly, on our copywriting brand, we have certain student-only events. We have a couple that take place in December and one that takes place in January. And so on that brand, we run a special Black Friday promotion, but we don’t discount anything. And we call that out clearly too, because people know we don’t offer discounts.

We want people to feel good about getting the best price when they purchase so that people aren’t second guessing. They’re not waiting to see if there’s a better price. And because we open a special enrollment period during that time, that’s their opportunity to get in before those free student-only events.

It’s a bonus that everybody gets access to, but they’re incentivized to take action in that period of time so that they can get in on those events. We’re not creating anything new or different for them. We’re just calling out different elements of what we’re already doing.

From what we’ve shown you here, it’s clear there are lots of ways to experiment with adding urgency to your offers. But it’s crucial to remember:

Do not go back on things that you’ve said before, like re-offering a price you said they would never get again or re-opening your sales cart after you said the sales period had ended.
Don’t penalize anybody for making a purchase earlier, because they should be getting the very best of you. And frankly, that’s just not a cool way to do business.

We’d always recommend starting with deadlines and then moving beyond that to get creative with some other ways you can add urgency. Can you make your sales periods a little bit more sophisticated and enticing? Remember nothing is set in stone—if it doesn’t work, you can always experiment with something different!

Creating urgency is not just a good thing for our businesses, it’s also a good thing for our audiences. Don’t forget that we are selling things that will benefit them and that will positively change their lives. And so when we prompt them to make the decision, it’s giving them the opportunity to decide if they are ready to deal with this problem. And that decision is the first step and the first commitment to improving their lives.

In this blog post, we dig deeper into why providing a deadline helps to make your offer a priority for your customers.

Watch More

Humans NEED urgency to take action. And in this Energize Your Online Business podcast episode, Nicki and Kate talk through the different ways you can create an authentic reason for customers to purchase right now without alienating customers.

Your Turn!

How do you plan on adding urgency to your offer? Let us know in the comments below!

Getting Your Customers to Buy Now—Without Being Pushy