Get People to Take Action - In Two Minutes or Less

Get People to Take Action – In Two Minutes or Less

in connect, consume, social media by faryl on January 19th, 20096 Comments

I received an email today with a subject line: HUGE FAVOR: PLEASE Help Make Independent MUSIC HISTORY! (In 5 minutes or LESS) — FORWARD THIS!

I like indy music (and musicians). I’d like to help make history (music or otherwise). And I can do it in five minutes (or less)!

I opened the email.

The email shared the story of an indy band (The Eastern Gate), with a limited budget, who recently released their first album on Amazon.com’s MP3 site and were “flabbergasted” to watch it climb to number 200 on the Amazon MP3 top selling albums. They found themselves in the #1 spot on the Movers and Shakers.

bomb Emboldened by the success of word-of-mouth, the band has now set its sites on iTunes. This email was a “call to action” to lend support to spreading the word.

The part of the email that motivated me to take action was not in its body. (I’ve posted a full copy of the email here, with Alex’s permission.) What grabbed my attention was in the footer. It read: 2- MINUTES OR LESS: 10 Ways YOU Can Help MAKE HISTORY!

I’m including the list below and I encourage you to help The Eastern Gate in their mission. However, that’s not what motivated me to write this post.

Before you read further, take a moment to consider:

Do you want your readers/customers/audience/[fill in the blank] to take some action?
Do you clearly outline action(s) they can take?
Better yet, do you give them tools (e.g., links) to easily, effortlessly and quickly take action?
Best of all, do you tell them how quickly they can get it done?

Alex can answer “yes” to all four. At the time of this posting, I’ve done eight of the ten suggestions and spent the time to blog about it.

What can you use a “Two-Minutes-or-Less List” for?

photo credit: felix42 on Flickr

The Eastern Gate’s “Two-Minutes-or-Less List“

2- MINUTES OR LESS: 10 Ways YOU Can Help MAKE HISTORY!

Hey everybody —We need your HELP, and NOW! And we know you’re super busy, so here are 10 ways you can help MAKE HISTORY in TWO MINUTES OR LESS :::(BTW — if you don’t know what our mission is yet, check it out HERE: http://bit.ly/15wOM )

~45 SECONDS: Go to http://theeasterngate.net and become a member with your Facebook login (on the sidebar). Then, invite your friends! Invites are limited, so only invite people who aren’t already members :)
~1 MINUTE, 35 SECONDS: If you haven’t yet, accept your “MAKE HISTORY” event invitation @http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=58847846008 AND INVITE FRIENDS! ( A few hundred would only take a minute — and you know EVERYONE will like our music :) )
~1 MINUTE, 35 SECONDS: Become our FAN on FACEBOOK! And invite a BUNCH of Friends to do the same :) NOTE: this is the NEW Page — http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Eastern-Gate/21899712407
< 1 MINUTE: Stumble US! You can help send THOUSANDS of web-surfers our way just by signing up for an account at http://www.stumbleupon.com and “Stumbling” our pages. Especially THESE: http://bit.ly/S7Hx and http://bit.ly/3LZ9YZ )
< 30 SECONDS: Reddit US! Reddit is another BIG source for traffic online. Help us get to the front page! Vote for us HERE: http://bit.ly/TsRS
< 30 SECONDS: DIGG US! Are you a DIGG member? If not, become one! It takes 15 seconds, and popular sites on DIGG will be seen by HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of visitors! http://bit.ly/xDsZ
~2 MINUTES: POST about us on some forums you’re a member on! Link to our site -http://theeasterngate.net – or to our story directly: http://bit.ly/15wOM . Remember, word-of-mouth REIGNS!
~2 MINUTES: TELL your music loving friends! Send out an e-mail, write a blog post, or make a phone call and tell people about the mission! Tell them to check out our music @http://theeasterngate.net , and spread the word! IF you’d like to post our music anywhere, e-mail us for a free sample track.
~2 MINUTES: Write some reviews! We’re already up on iTunes ( http://bit.ly/1SOtAv ), Amazon ( http://bit.ly/F1b7 ), LaLa ( http://bit.ly/jL1Gc ), Napster ( http://bit.ly/fOP ), and ShockHOUND (http://bit.ly/6nY5 ). Write some reviews to tell people what you think!
~30 SECONDS: Don’t forget to buy the album TOMORROW! And PLEASE, leave a review :)http://bit.ly/1SOtAv

The Eastern Gate

And PLEASE! Feel free to be creative in any other way you can think up. Got a story about something awesome you did to help promote? Drop us a line @ stories@theeasterngate.netand we’ll write a post about it for everyone to see! And PLEASE: if you can get people mobilized on Monday, don’t fret. We’re going to have quite a bit of press and links coming Monday and Tuesday, so the momentum should hold for at least the week. ANYTHING helps!

THANK YOU. This is more about YOU proving word-of-mouth beats out ANY advertising campaign than it is about us. YOU truly are the most powerful force when it comes to spreading an idea.

-Alex & The Eastern Gate