#79: How to Add Urgency to Your Next Promotion

It's a fact.  Sometimes people are reluctant to buy from you.
Even when they want your product, even when they’re smitten with your brand, there will be some prospective buyers that seem to have a built-in pause command that holds a their finger poised above the “purchase” button on your website. It's just par for the course when we are doing business online.
There’s nothing wrong with this, until it stands in the way of you making a sale to someone who truly needs what you’re offering.
There is one thing that can overcome this buyers’ reluctance.
The most successful marketers know what it is, and I’m going to share it with you today.
It’s all about adding urgency.
This is something I had to learn for myself, through plenty of trial and error, so I’m thrilled to be able to pass it on to you. It’s going to put you way ahead of your competition.
It starts with recognizing that it’s simply human nature to take our time and stay on the fence as long as we can, until we are pushed one way or the other. That push comes from learning that we must act.
That’s what urgency is: making sure that your audience knows they need to act now.
You want to build urgency into every promotion you create. There are lots of ways to do this, but the best way I’ve found to build it in is with a one-two punch: a combination of bonuses and deadlines.
I'm going to share several of my favorite strategies in this blog post, but this week's free PDF has even more urgency tactics from some of the biggest names in online marketing. Click here to download it now!
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Bonuses Believe it or not, I’ve actually had people buy my programs just for the bonuses! While you definitely want to spend the bulk of your time crafting a great core offer, bonuses can sometimes make or break the offer by pushing people just a little bit further to finally say, “Yes, I want this.”
Now, it’s important to note that not all bonus offers have urgency attached. Sometimes you’ll create a bonus add-on to your core offer just to sweeten the deal.
Urgency bonuses are the ones that show up later in the promotion. They come in different “flavors. You do not need to do them all. You can mix and match them, based on what feels best for your offer.
1. Timely bonus
During your promotion, you pick a time where for a certain period—say 48 hours—you offer a specific add-on to your program. You email your promo list explaining quickly and thoroughly what the bonus is, why it’s valuable, and what’s in it for them. You paint the picture and tell them on what date and what time the bonus will go away.
When I do a timely bonus, I always email my list at least one more time, usually 24 hours before the bonus is going to end, to let them know that time is running out.
Let me tell you, it works really, really well. When you’ve got a really good, juicy bonus, especially one that addresses a pain point. The main thing here, is to be very clear when it expires.
2. Fast action bonus
This is a bonus that you give away during a live situation. For me, it’s when I’m live on a webinar that I’m using as part of my promotion. If you attend the webinar and respond to the offer at the end, right then and there, you get the special bonus I’m offering.
I’ve been doing these fast-action bonuses for a long time. But that didn’t stop me from making a big, fat flub during my recent “Webinars That Convert” promo! Click here to listen to the episode where I explain all about it…and how you can make sure to avoid it!
3. The sweeten-the-pot bonus
This kind of bonus doesn’t have a timeline. Everybody who buys your product gets it. But this style of bonus allows you to add something during your promotion…which means you get another reason to email.
Finding really good reasons to email is an essential part of the puzzle in a successful promotion. The more opportunities you have to communicate to your audience, the better shot you have at winning them over…but you have to have a good reason to email! And what better reason is there than offering them something amazing for free?
I usually introduce this bonus four or five days into my promotion. I send out an email saying that I’ve created this special new bonus, explain why it’s great, give them the link and tell them to sign up.
Yes, they could still wait until the very end of your promotion, but having something new on the table immediately creates a sense of urgency.
It also creates some very valuable buzz for your offer, especially if you sprinkle a lot of hints about this new bonus of yours all over social media.
There are a lot more kinds of bonuses that you can create to add urgency to your promotion. Click here to listen to the full episode to learn about more ways to add urgent action opportunities to your offer.
Other Ways to Create Urgency Early-bird pricing is a favorite of mine. Again, it creates lots of opportunities to email my audience, as I warn them of the approaching change in price.
The main thing with this is to make sure the price increase is compelling enough to create urgency. My programs go up by $100 when my early-bird window closes. I know that sounds like a lot, but that’s the point! If people are on the fence, a $100 price increase is definitely going to push them over.
Cart closing is a natural urgency creator. This is when the time frame ends for all buying opportunities, the last day when people can buy your product/sign up for your program/etc.
The key with this is to be true to your word. It’s really bad form, not to mention bad for your business long-term, to announce cart closing but then make all kinds of exceptions, or keep the cart open longer than you said you would.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the main places to showcase urgency is in your emails. Once I attract people to a webinar, I follow up that webinar with some really strategic email marketing. I work really hard on those emails to craft not just a compelling sales message, but to help my new audience to understand why this program is so valuable and why they need it.
But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why I love using the countdown timer.
As you are reading my email, the timer at the very top of the email is actively ticking away. When it comes to human instincts, the only thing strong enough to beat the buyer's resistance is being able to see time running out, second by second!
Finally, there is the “limited spots available” tactic. If you have a more exclusive version of your product (a special edition, a higher tier, etc.), it creates the perfect opportunity to email your list about the short supply of opportunities. Even if they weren't planning to buy in at this level, hearing the words "limited availability" again creates the urgency that you're looking for.
These are my favorite tools to create urgency. You'll learn about so many more when you download my free PDF for this week! Click here to get it now.
EPISODE FREEBIE Get Amy's Bonus "How It's Done: Genius Bonus Ideas from 11 of My Favorite Online Marketers FREE DOWNLOAD