You are busy, and so is everyone else. So why should they stop what they are doing and respond to your call to action (like donate!) now?
There are several ways that you can make something feel more timely and therefore urgent. As you work through your campaign’s messaging, give these questions some thought and see if they will help you add more urgency to your content.
- Is there a real, natural deadline? It could be a deadline you self-impose or one the world is imposing on your organization.
- Is something timely happening right now in the news that you can connect your work to?
- Is there any kind of emergency happening behind the scenes that you can reveal?
- Are you preparing now for something that absolutely will happen at a certain time in the future?
- What can you predict will and/or won’t happen without the funding you seek?
- Is there a specific goal that feels like a bit of stretch but that is also doable and concrete so that people can see or feel how they can help reach it?
- Is there some short-lived opportunity that you need to jump on now, because if you miss this window, things will be harder, drawn-out or more expensive later?
Here’s more that might help:
Building Blocks of Effective Creative: Urgency by M+R
How to Harness the Super Power of Urgency in Your Fundraising on Future Fundraising Now, quoting the late-great John Haydon
How to Create Urgency in Your Fundraising Appeal by DonorBox
How Visually Increasing Urgency in an Email Increased Response Rate by 51.1% by NextAfter
