You need action.
No matter what you want to accomplish, your success depends on your ability to convince others to take action.
And while every situation is unique, there are some universal tactics you can employ to increase the chances your audience will purchase, click, share, join, watch, or do.
Get people’s attention.
Awareness always precedes action.
So the first thing you must do is get people to pay attention to you and our creation.
You have to stand out from the crowd, get noticed, figure out where your audience is, and most importantly do something worthy of their most precious and limited resource – time.
Get people’s trust.
Once you capture someone’s attention, the next step is to earn their trust.
You must overcome their assumptions and convince them your promises are legitimate. They need to believe an investment of their time, effort, attention, emotion, or money into your creation won’t be something they regret.
There’s no shortcut to trust and it’s not something you can luck into – you have to earn it.
Show people what’s in it for them.
Here’s the thing about trying to get people to do what you want – they’re never going to do it for you.
People do things for themselves – even if it’s a charitable act.
This doesn’t mean they don’t genuinely want to help others (or you), but their action is actually motivated by self-interest.
We help others because it makes us feel good to help others.
To convince someone to take an action, you need to demonstrate the value it will provide to them. That’s your sales pitch.
It’s not about asking for favors or asking others to help you – it’s about showing others how this action will benefit them.
Make it easy.
The more complicated an action is for someone to take, the less likely they are to take it.
You must figure out how to make your actions as simple as possible – even if it means breaking them down into smaller, sequential actions, and presenting them to people in that way.
Ideally, your requested actions are so simple it’s almost harder NOT to do them than it is to do them.
Why do so many more people hit Like buttons than leave comments on social media?
Because it’s an easier action.
Solve a problem.
The action you want people to take has to solve a problem your audience has in order for them to do it.
That problem could be tangible (Need a new suit for work? Here’s our new suit!) or obscure (Need a laugh? Here’s our new comedy video!), but it has to exist.
If your audience doesn’t believe they have the problem your action solves, then it’s on you to convince them they do – or to find an alternate audience that does have that problem.
Start small.
Not all actions are created equal.
If you want someone to donate money to your cause, asking for money isn’t the first action you should request.
Asking someone to give you their hard-earned money (as a donation or a purchase of a product) is a much larger ask than asking them for their attention.
If your goal is fundraising, you can start with small asks and work your way up to a donation.
You can ask them to watch a quick video about your cause. Then to join an email list. Then, down the road, once you’ve developed trust and a relationship with them, you can ask for the donation.
This drastically increases the chance they take the action you want.
Experiment.
The guidelines in this post won’t guarantee people take the action you want them to, but they’ll set you on the right path.
Ultimately, you need to experiment and adapt how you frame your asks, position our products, and drive actions to learn as you go.
I hope you’ll put some time into doing so because at the end of the day, your ability to drive others to take action determines the success of your ventures.
Good luck.