5 Ways to Create Urgency

Urgency is a staple for anyone who sells anything, anywhere. As anyone who follows this blog knows, my career started in door to door sales. In that environment, you learn immediately that the time to make the sale is NOW. Not later. Later never comes. No one ever calls you back when you’re selling stuff door to door, so you have to make the sale on the spot or just move on to the next appointment. So the ability to create urgency is mandatory.

Selling online is very much the same, but the approach is very different. If you try hard selling people online, you will be wasting your time in a big way! You will turn them away and you’ll never see them again. Yet at the same time, you need to sell things in order to make money, so what’s the solution? How can you create urgency to buy your product or service now?

How to Create Urgency

Here are the ways to get prospects to buy your product now, as opposed to later…or never:

1. Limited Supply – This needs to be used very cautiously. In other words, be truthful. Honesty is absolutely essential with internet marketing. If you expect people to trust you that is. And remember what we’ve said about trust. If you’re product is a digital product, how can it possibly be “only available to the next 100 people?” It is this type of claim that will make your buyer leave immediately, thinking poorly of you and your brand. This type of urgency is easier to use well when you apply it to a service. For example, I do consulting for business owners who want to get better results marketing themselves online, and it’s easy enough to say at any given time that I can “only take on 3 more clients”, because it’s true. My time is very limited, so I really can only take on a few clients at a time. If it’s true, make sure your buyers understand the supply is limited. It creates urgency.
2. Limited Time – Placing a time limit is one of the more common and effective methods of creating urgency with both products and services. Placing a time limit on a valuable asset (like an ebook or a service you’re offering) is very reasonable, especially if you back it up with detailed information as to why you’re doing it this way. People respect authentic boundaries and expect you to charge for valuable things. They understand you need to make money. But keep one key point in mind: make sure to follow through. Stick to your word. If you’re offering an introductory price for an information product for a specific time frame, when that time frame closes, it closes. If people catch you going back on your word just to make another sale, you’ll regret it. Remember, everything you do has a ripple effect!
3. Reduced Price – Price is always one of the first things people want to do to entice sales. I’m including it because it works, but it’s not one I recommend. I usually avoid it and prefer to do business at full price. I always offer full value and then some, and I expect to earn what I’m worth. I feel that if someone is only buying something from me because it’s cheap, then they’re really not an ideal customer. In other words, if the value is actually there, the real customer would have bought it at the higher price anyway, so why drop the price? This is a personal choice. It’s not an endorsement for over-charging, mind you. Charge what something is worth and leave it at that. That’s my take on it. Dropping the price and making it cheaper just cheapens the product. I prefer to increase the value. If your product only sells well when it’s cheap, you have a problem.
4. Added Benefits – This flows nicely out of my argument about pricing. Instead of dropping the price of something you’re selling, add more to it. And leave the price the same. I’ve always believed that people are not nearly as cheap as Wal-Mart makes them out to be. Of course if you put two pairs of jeans together and one costs $150 while the other is priced at $20, most people are going to go the $20 route. But that’s just where your business differs, right? You’re offering a unique service that no one else can compete with, right? If someone wants to get what you’re offering, they pretty much need to go to you, right? So why cheapen it? Instead, add MORE value. Constantly add to your products and services. And of course, blog about the improvements you’ve made. Tell the world. And leave your prices alone. People want value, and they are willing to pay for it, because they know it’s what enables you to keep working your tail off.
5. Create an Overwhelmingly Compelling Value – This is the holy grail of urgency. Create a product or service that speaks directly to your buyers’ needs in a powerful way. Create massive value, and show them in detail how you can help them create huge pleasure or avoid pain in their lives. Do this, and market it with passion, and you will create urgency by default. We’ve all experienced it…when a marketing piece connects with us in just the right way, at just the right time…it’s almost magical, and we have no choice but to pull out our credit card. Any time this happens, it is not luck. Behind that sales copy and product that reeled you in at that unexpected time is an entrepreneur who was up very late for days or weeks…or months, researching and planning, writing and rewriting, getting every detail right. And then it all came together.

Creating urgency is an art that balances reason and emotion. The successful internet marketer understands that people buy because of emotional reasons, but they back up their decision with analytical data. The successful internet marketer uses both of these elements in sales copy to make sure that the buyer has everything necessary to make a buying decision…now.