{"id":16054,"date":"2020-10-13T05:31:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=16054"},"modified":"2020-10-13T12:39:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:39:03","slug":"barriers-to-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Barriers to Action: What&#8217;s Stopping You?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are the main barriers to action? What stops people from getting things done, or using a certain product?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Barriers to action are the factors that prevent someone from doing what they need or want to get done. It may be a question of ability or motivation. This is an important question for marketers when they&#8217;re trying to push customers to buy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read on for a better understanding of barriers to action and 4 exercises for reducing your customer&#8217;s barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To initiate action in a habit, doing must be easier than thinking<\/strong>. An action has three requirements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Sufficient motivation<\/li><li>Sufficient ability<\/li><li>A trigger to activate the behavior<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Make the process to use your product as simple as possible. Lay out the steps the customer takes to get the job done. Then <strong>remove steps until you reach the <em>simplest possible process<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Barriers to Action<\/strong>: Lack of Ability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ability is the capacity to do a behavior.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Make the process to use your product as simple as possible. Lay out the steps the customer takes to get the job done. Then <strong>remove steps until you reach the <\/strong><strong><em>simplest possible process<\/em><\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web technology inexorably moves toward making activities easier. The lower-friction products are usually the ones that win.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>In content generation, consider how the web was largely read-only, consisting of professional media companies.<\/li><li>Then the development of Blogger and Xanga let amateur writers publish easily, without knowledge of content management systems or servers and without going through a traditional media company.<\/li><li>Then with the advent of easy publishing tools like Twitter and Pinterest, the friction to write and create new media shrank even further.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Though critics once decried Twitter\u2019s 140-character limitation, what they missed was how this constraint lowered the barrier for participation, prompting many more to engage. (Shortform note: similarly, Snapchat\u2019s ephemeral messaging lowers the barrier for messaging, compared to a permanent high-quality medium like Instagram.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Said Ev Williams of Twitter, \u201cTake a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time&#8230;identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Reduce Your Barriers to Action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Reduce the frictions for your user to take action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Walk through how your user goes from trigger to action to reward. How many steps does the user need to take? How could you get rid of any steps?<\/li><li>Which of these 6 factors is most limiting your users\u2019 ability to take action? (Time | Money | Physical effort | Mental effort | Social deviance | Non-routine)<\/li><li>How can you reduce that factor?<\/li><li>How can you use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/cognitive-heuristics\/\">cognitive biases<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/increase-motivation\/\">increase motivation<\/a> to take action? (e.g. promote scarcity, give endowed progress.)<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the main barriers to action? What stops people from getting things done, or using a certain product? Barriers to action are the factors that prevent someone from doing what they need or want to get done. It may be a question of ability or motivation. This is an important question for marketers when they&#8217;re trying to push customers to buy. Read on for a better understanding of barriers to action and 4 exercises for reducing your customer&#8217;s barriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,42,9],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-16054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","category-motivation","category-psychology","tag-hooked","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Barriers to Action: What&#039;s Stopping You? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What&#039;s stopping your customers from using your product? Removing barriers to action is essential for success. Here are 4 exercises to help.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barriers to Action: What&#039;s Stopping You?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What&#039;s stopping your customers from using your product? Removing barriers to action is essential for success. Here are 4 exercises to help.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-10-13T09:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-13T16:39:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/good-to-great-stop-doing-list.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"762\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"466\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Barriers to Action: What&#8217;s Stopping You?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-10-13T09:31:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-13T16:39:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\"},\"wordCount\":446,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/good-to-great-stop-doing-list.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Hooked\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Marketing\",\"Motivation\",\"Psychology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/\",\"name\":\"Barriers to Action: What's Stopping You? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/barriers-to-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/good-to-great-stop-doing-list.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-10-13T09:31:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-13T16:39:03+00:00\",\"description\":\"What's stopping your customers from using your product? 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