The secret to getting people to take action

To take action, people need a why AND a why now.

Did you know: 

84% of Americans live in areas that have experienced some form of a natural disaster in the past three years, and 71% still don’t have an emergency plan.

But why?

When we see natural disasters on the news, our hearts are moved:

• ✅ We donate money, supplies, and clothing

• ✅ We send thoughts and prayers to those affected

• ✅ We think how terrible it must feel to suddenly lose your home

But when it comes to preparing ourselves and our families for the day natural disaster strikes…

• ❌ We aren’t motivated to prepare because 99% of the time there’s no urgency

• ❌ We don’t have a connection to our future selves so the stakes feel low

• ❌ We don’t know where to start so we don’t do anything at all

That’s why Perci, a US-based disaster preparedness app, came to me for help.

They wanted to get people better prepared for natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, and tornados using marketing psychology and behavioral science.

So I started by talking to people who had lived through real-life disasters.

The most impactful moment was talking to a woman who had failed to create a go-bag when her family home was threatened by wildfires in Colorado. 

When the fire swept in at nearly 100 miles per hour, she only had time to grab her kids and the pets before losing her home.

That night in the hotel, her young daughter started to cry because her favorite stuffed animal was lost in the fire. 

It was a moment this mother told me she would never forget. 

But when spoke (years after the disaster), she still didn’t have a go-bag ready.

For the same reason she didn’t have one before her home had burned down - 

She thought, “What are the chances it would happen again?”

And that mental model - “What are the chances?” - was the number one reason people I spoke with didn’t prepare, evacuate, or stock-up on supplies.

It’s a totally understandable mental model, because it keeps us from becoming psychologically overwhelmed by everything that could go wrong in the world at any given moment.

Ignoring a potential issue or event can be a coping mechanism.

And that’s why many disaster preparedness campaigns and apps rely on urgency messages to get people moving.

But urgency messages often don’t work until the literal last minute or are sometimes not taken seriously until it’s too late. All because of that mental model many people have about natural disasters - “What are the chances?”

The solution?

Identity. 

Instead of relying only on urgency, we used the app to change how people saw themselves. 

We created psychological rewards for taking on the role of “defender” and creating a “circle of trust.” 

And that’s important because in major disasters 90% of rescues are performed by family and neighbors due local conditions and demands on first responders.

We gamified learning modules, used the Habit Loop to make education effortless, and used path-based learning to drive engagement. 

Not just preparing them to help their family and neighbors, but transforming the way they saw themselves. 

Now It didn’t matter that the odds of a disaster seemed small, because the “defender” role helped people create an identity around community support, status, and importance - in normal times and during emergencies.

The urgency to prepare for “what if” was now more powerful, because we combined “why now?” with a powerful, personal, immediate “why?”

If you have a business that needs people to do something that seems like a lot of work for not much benefit - like working out, meditating, eating well, or keeping the house clean - identity-based strategies like these can be powerful motivators.

Until next time,
Jen

PS. If you want to understand and break through your buyer’s mental models, I show you how in my Choice Hacking Academy courses.

Next week, I’m putting Lifetime Unlimited Course Access on sale for 24 hours.

So you can get access to all of my current and future courses plus my most popular workshops, and use psychology and behavioral science to 2x your marketing effectiveness (so sales and profit can 2x too).

The flash sale starts Monday.

And just for this sale, I’m adding a sweetener to the deal:

When you sign up for Lifetime Unlimited Course Access, I’ll throw in a free one-on-one session with me to help you action what you learn in the courses.

Just buy during the sale and schedule the session whenever you’re ready.

I can only offer these one-on-one sessions to the first 3 people who sign up, so keep your eyes peeled for the Flash Sale announcement on Monday.