5 Easy Ways To Instantly Create Urgency With Your Lead Pages

The time to create urgency is now! Studies have shown that creating urgency can improve clicks by three times or more. Time, scarcity and similar tactics as a call-to-action build urgency to respond for your audience.This creates more clicks and encourages full conversions at a faster rate. Follow these simple tips to create urgency on your website.

1. Do an assessment of your lead page as is.

Look closely at your lead page to verify the information is clear. Is your offer presented concisely without unnecessary distractions? A messy or unprofessional looking webpage will render urgency worthless.

Then you should assess the relevance and importance of your product to your audience. Lead pages should be tailored to your expected audience. Think about which demographics want your product or service, then use appropriate language and visuals for your demographics to engage your target group. Finally, ask yourself if what you’re offering is important and relevant to this demographic.

Urgency is worthless without an otherwise effective lead page and product. Adding urgency to a cluttered or ambiguous lead page can even be a detriment to sales.

2. Pick a deadline.

Deadlines are one of the ways that time comes into play to create urgency. It doesn’t matter what the deadline is or what will happen at that date. But the deadline should be soon; preferably today.

The is effective because of the casual nature of online commerce. In other words, consumers feel it is easy to browse through web pages and see countless offers that are interesting to them, but they can put off making a decision. Of course, if they have to decide later, they rarely go back and complete the transaction. Giving consumers a reason to act as soon as they see the offer greatly increases the effectiveness of your lead page.

Consider the difference between the following two prompts, from an experiment by entrepreneur and marketing expert Marcus Taylor:

Notice how Variation B gives the feeling of a limited time, special offer. Consumers see offers like this and feel that the time to act is now.  In Taylor’s experiment, conversions from Variation B tripled those of Variation A – 10 minutes of work for three times the conversions.

3. Use visual cues.

There is another major difference between Variation A and Variation B from the above experiment – the red text. Colored text (particularly red), exclamation points, circled or underlined words are all subtle visual cues that will direct consumer’s short attention span to the important information: this offer is limited! ACT NOW! Even subtle cues can be very effective and not make your lead page look untrustworthy or unprofessional: consider Amazon’s shipping form:

Notice the bolded and colored text? The discounted price, FREE shipping, and one-day shipping offer. An important note about the one day shipping offer is that they give you a specific day. Urgency is created by displaying tangible, instant gratification.

Large download, order, and buy buttons with bright colors are a must and will not only contribute to urgency but will probably declutter your lead page.

4. Get specific.

The most important aspects of urgency are time and scarcity, and the easiest way to emphasize these is to define them in specific terms. Audiences have been hearing the phrase “a limited time offer!” for their entire lives and aren’t buying it (so to speak) anymore. 9 hours and 32 minutes? Much more believable. A tangible time is proven to stimulate the brain and cause a reaction more so than vague terms like “limited” or “offer ends soon.”

Don’t be afraid to get specific about your inventory as well. Consider the model of Threadless, a popular user-driven clothing site:

Only 4 Medium left! Threadless operates by printing a limited supply, much less than their demand, which encourages viewers who may be only browsing casually to order a shirt they might otherwise forget about. This is an example of the psychological effect of scarcity. The more scarce something is, the more people want it, no matter what the product is. Creating the illusion of rarity will make a big difference in whether customers feel compelled to buy your product.

5. Use the right language.

One of the most important aspects of urgency is the language you use. Remember – urgency is a feeling or a mood, something subconscious. The easiest way to achieve this feeling is with language. Don’t just tell your audience that they can do something. Tell them they can do it TODAY. Tell them they can do it NOW. Using words like today, now, instant, immediately, easy, and free will appeal not only to a person’s sense of urgency but also to their desire for immediate satisfaction and short attention span while web browsing.

Did you notice the title of this article? You might have clicked because you are interested in urgency. You may have been compelled to click because I used words like “Easy” and “Instantly” in the title. Urgency-promoting words need to be featured in big and bold places – preferably in the title, in bold and brightly colored text, or on clickable buttons like the following Mother’s Day advertisement:

Don’t just shop for your mom, but – do it NOW. It may seem simplistic, but data has shown that simple changes like adding “NOW” to all calls to action will greatly increase clicks and conversions.

Hurry! Create urgency on your lead pages now and improve your lead page conversion rate today!