Activating audiences to take ACTION.
Welcome back to the Behavior Change Trio. In this series, I define three different types of behavior and describe how our messages and engagement strategies should be tailored for each. Today, we are starting with actions.
Actions are steps in the behavior journey that can be completed as a single task.
Typically, actions are time-bound, meaning they must be completed by a specific date or before the next step in the behavior change process.
Once the action has been completed, the audience doesn’t have to spend much time thinking about that task until it needs to happen again – which is usually a year or more away.
Examples of actions in our everyday lives include voting, getting annual flu and COVID shots, renewing your driver’s license or passport, and registering for a conference.
These tasks are all important actions to take. And once you’ve completed them, you get to move on to something else. Box checked, done.
How to spot actions in your project.
Here are indications that you have one or more actions in your project.
The audience needs to complete a pre-requisite step before they can proceed with the rest of the process. In the sustainable fishing example from the series introduction, fishers must get a license and register their boats as prerequisites for joining the association and fishing legally in the area.
The audience should complete a series of set-up steps to create a foundation for getting more involved. Some projects require a bunch of actions at the start to get audiences prepped for a longer behavior change process, like providing restaurant owners with everything they need to implement a composting system. After the initial set-up, actions may not appear again in the project.
The audience must complete a task by a deadline so the project can proceed to the next phase. Examples include signing a petition by a specific date, registering for a webinar before it goes live, or attending an in-person discussion or event.
Actions frequently appear in the early stages of the behavior change process but can occur at any point in the journey. In fact, inserting and adding actions at various points in the project can keep the audience engaged and motivated.
If you can’t spot any actions in your project, you may need to create some!
Early actions can be used as invitations to pique the audience’s interest and make them want to learn more about the initiative. This blog post about creating invitations can help you brainstorm actions to add.
Common barriers to completing actions.
The top three challenges audience members face with completing actions are:
→ Forgetfulness. “Wasn’t there something I was supposed to do today???”
Since actions don’t come around very often, it’s easy for audience members to forget that they signed up for something or that they’re supposed to be somewhere.
→ Uncertainty. “Are there going to be breakout rooms in this webinar???”
If the instructions for completing the action are unclear or the expectations are ambiguous, audience members may feel uncertain, uncomfortable, or insecure about following through with the task.
→ Status Quo Bias. “Whatever, man. I don’t feel like going to this event today.”
While we, as project leaders, believe each action is critical for the audience to do, they may not feel the same way. When the audience doesn’t perceive the value, benefits, or importance of completing the task, they may decide to skip it when the time comes.
What audiences need from us to complete actions.
Messages about actions should be kept short and get straight to the point, and outreach plans should include plenty of repetition to stay top-of-mind for the audience.
Audiences need to receive these three elements to make actions happen.
Clarity.
Keep the call to action focused on the single task you want the audience to complete at that moment.
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Instructions and deadlines must be crystal clear to reduce the barrier of uncertainty.
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If the action is new to your audience, consider creating infographics to demonstrate how the steps should be completed.
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Install signage and markers to provide clear directions to the audience when they arrive at a physical location.
This visual from MISS (Minorities in Shark Sciences) is a great example of providing clear instructions for donating to the organization on Instagram, which some members of their audience may not know how to do.
Value.
We should reinforce the benefits, purpose, and desired outcomes of taking action to overcome status quo bias.
- Share what the audience gets out of taking action – make it personal and meaningful to them (They’ll receive free compost bins if they call their hauler by a specific date).
- Showcase how their action adds to a bigger impact or contributes to a larger goal (“Your signature brings us one step closer to securing wildlife protections”).
The Banned Books Book Club invites us to read a great book in community with others AND provides a learning opportunity about defending banned books. That’s like three benefits in one short email promo!
Reminder, reminders, reminders.
Emphasize the deadline and urgency of completing the task to help the audience prioritize it. This is an area where the scarcity tactic can be leveraged since actions are time-limited.
- Recommend ways the audience can remember to complete the step. You can suggest they save it to their calendar, write it on a sticky note, save the postcard you sent (voting notices do this), or ask a friend to remind them.
- Utilize multiple outreach touchpoints (email, social media, text messages, etc.) to keep the task top-of-mind.
As the deadline approaches, ramp up the frequency of your messages. I wrote about building excitement for an event previously, and the diagram featured below is included in the post.
The combination of clarity, value, and reminders will help audiences check the action box when the time comes.
→ Coming up next: Routines!
Do you want to create a detailed behavior journey for your project, like the ones shown above? Then join the Making Moves course! We start designing journeys in lesson 1 and refine them throughout the 8-week course, so you walk away with a clear, structured plan for motivating audiences to protect the planet.