Don't be Subtle

Asking people to buy your stuff, or donate to your cause can be difficult.  There's that whole "fear of rejection" thing.

So to deal with that fear, we try being subtle.

We don't really ask people to donate money, we just sort of imply that it would be really nice if they would consider donating a dollar or two at a time of their choosing.

We don't really tell people to buy tickets to our work, we just tell them how awesome it is and hope the implied message to buy is clear.

The problem is subtle doesn't always work.  People have far too many messages flung at them on a daily basis to have much room for subtle.

Sometimes, you need to break out a clear, loud, bold BUY NOW message.

Case in point, at my day job we are having a ticket sale.  It's a good sale.  A lot of thought went into the planning and exexcution of it.

Now it's time to make some noise about the offer.  Which is why the homepage of the website looks like this.

Is it too much?  Who cares?  We need the offer to work and being subtle isn't the way to make that happen.

If you have something to say, SAY IT, because sometimes being subtle is the same as being invisible.