10 best Ways to Add Urgency to Your Landing Pages with samples
In the first place, As the online consumer journey continues to get longer for most purchases, it’s increasingly difficult to get quick conversions. People do a lot of research before buying these days and the list of competitors fighting for their attention only grows.Which means we have to work harder to instil that sense of urgency in people; something that gives them the itch to convert now, rather than walk away and reconsider things.
10 examples of how you can add urgency to your landing pages
1: The countdown
The countdown is a classic urgency tactic – one that’s not always used to the best effect on landing pages. Essentially, there are two approaches to using a countdown timer. The first tells users they only have a certain amount of time to take action. Eg: Telling users they only have x-amount of time to sign up for your webinar.The other approach is to countdown the start of something desirable, like an event or product launch. More on that second approach later.
2: Scarcity
People don’t like missing out and this anxiety intensifies the desire to buy before it’s too late. So, if time itself isn’t running out, then limited stock can be the ideal way to push interested buyers over the edge.
Whether it’s limited stock, limited tickets or whatever else, the fear of missing out drives people to buy now rather than risk waiting. This works particularly well for events or seasonal promotions where there’s a fixed date coming up (essentially a time limit) and scarcity to double up on the dose of urgency.
3: Temporary deals
If consumers hate missing out, there’s nothing that bugs them more than missing out on a good deal. Supermarkets make an absolute mockery of us by selling us things we don’t need – and all it takes is a special offer deal.
This tactic is great for purchases that involve a lot of thinking – eg: consumer electronics. The hesitation of buying the wrong phone, laptop or TV quickly disappears when a temporary deal comes along.
4: Timing words
The obvious format is CTA + now/today but there are plenty of other approaches. In fact, our last example also uses timing words to reinforce the notion of a temporary deal: “Offers Ending Soon“.
5: Temporary free access
I’m not talking about free trials that users can sign up to at any time here. I’m talking about a set window where people get free access to your product/service. Like the free weekends Sky TV occasionally offers or this free week from Findmypast.co.uk.
The urgency comes from knowing this might be the only chance for users to try something out before potentially buying it. This is ideal for brands who don’t generally offer a free trial.
6: Promise quick results
Another subtle way to add urgency to your landing pages is to promise quick results. By making it clear things will quickly improve by using your product, you’re making it equally clear that the sooner they sign up the sooner things will change.
This is particularly effective for platforms designed to improve business performance – like the Crazy Egg example above. Just make sure you can live up to your promise, or you’ll have a bunch of unhappy customers and negative feedback on your hands.
7: Coming soon
Every major game release, new iPhone, relentless Marvel sequel and countless other products hit the market to huge demand. The coming soon phenomenon one that leaves consumers more agitated than anything, literally counting down the days until they can click that buy button.
8: Reservations, pre-orders
When you’ve got a product that drives people crazy with anticipation, offering reservations and pre-orders can keep everyone happy. You get a bunch of conversions piling up before your product even hits the shelves (so to speak) and consumers feel reassured there’ll be one with their name on it when it finally does get released.
There’s nothing worse than waiting for that all-important release date, only to find out the stocks run dry in minutes or the website crashes. Consumers won’t want to take this risk and pre-orders will be hard to resist in the build-up. This is especially true if you’re the retailer of a product rather than the manufacturer.
9: Booking phases
When you’re selling tickets for a major event, putting all your tickets up for grabs at the same time seems like the obvious choice. But Glastonbury used to sell tickets in phases and FIFA still does the same for the World Cup and other global football events.
Splitting sales into different windows does two things. First, it means there are fewer tickets on sale for each window, which means buyers feel the urge to secure one as quickly as possible. And then you have multiple rounds of that anticipation working in your favour as well.
10: Use the calendar
It’s amazing how much the calendar influences our buying decisions. We buy new clothes as the seasons change, pay double for chocolates and roses on Valentine’s Day and lose all sense completely at Christmas.
Calendar events are one of your best weapons when it comes to creating a sense of urgency with consumers. We see this in summer sales, back-to-school promotions, Black Friday and all manner of calendar events encouraging us to buy before it’s too late.
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