When I bought my car a couple of years ago, I was on a test drive with the nice car salesman when he suddenly got a call.

He had a quick convo, put the phone down, then turned back round to me and said:

“Someone just came to view this car.”

I looked at him (but also tried to keep my eyes on the road).

I was quietly panicking.

I relaxed. This was a done deal now. I had to buy the car, which was fine with me because I really did want it.

When I got home, I told my husband how extremely lucky I was to have got there 10 minutes before the next buyer.

What?!

No way.

There’s no way that lovely guy…

Hmmm 🤔

Two years later, I still think about this.

I don’t know whether the other buyer was real or not, but I do know the impact the potentially real/potentially fake buyer had on me.

Whether he meant to or not, the car salesman immediately created a sense of urgency and FOMO in me.

Urgency because I suddenly had a reason to buy the car right now. I couldn’t go home and think about whether I wanted it because that other buyer would steal my (not-quite-my) car from under me!

And FOMO because I suddenly couldn’t bear the idea of being without this particular car. I didn’t want anyone else to have it. I wanted it. I needed it.

Whether the other buyer was real or not, it worked.

I bought the car.

And that, Reader, is the power of “Why NOW?”

The power of “why now” applies to email marketing too.

You will not sell (many of) your products or services in emails if you don’t give your subscribers a reason they should buy right now – as opposed to a month or a year from now.

Your emails and your launches need urgency. Or they just won’t work.

This is a hill I’m willing to die on.

(Side note. Let’s define “urgency”. Urgency is a marketing strategy designed to encourage immediate action or engagement from a potential buyer)

Don’t believe urgency is necessary?

Well, I conducted a little experiment with my client, Melissa Oleson, to prove it totally is.

Melissa (a pelvic floor therapist & course creator) had an evergreen funnel that funnelled people in from her Instagram to her emails.

They’d go through her free or paid challenge, then immediately be given the chance to buy her mid-ticket on-demand course.

She did already have an offer set up to create urgency so people could save some money on her course if they bought it in the funnel – but the timeline wasn’t clear and it wasn’t presented in the best way.

Because of that, Melissa was only getting 1 or 2 sales every couple of months when she hired me.

We worked together for a few months and in that time me and my team redid her challenge emails, her sales sequence, and her sales page.

But the biggest change to her funnel was the added (and clear presentation of) urgency.

We added countdown timers to the emails and made it super clear that there was:

• A limited discount (save $100)
• And limited time (7 days)

Today, Melissa is now getting anything from 5 to 10 passive sales a WEEK just from email. (That’s up from one or two sales every couple of months).

And no, Melissa was not using paid ads.

It’s just her, an engaged audience, and the right amount of urgency in her marketing.

That’s the power of “why now?”

Whenever you’re selling something, give your subscribers a valid question to the answer “why now?” and you’ll see an uptick in sales.

Some people say urgency is an unethical marketing practice – and yes, it can be.

But it doesn’t have to be when you make the conscious effort to stay away from pressuring people into making bad (and big) money decisions.

You can make sales and not be like the car salesman who makes up fake reasons to get you to buy.

We can talk more about how to make your urgency not feel icky next week if you’d like? 🙂

Eman

PS. We’ve got a spot open for a new email project! Want it to be yours? Get in touch here​

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