In this episode of The Marketer’s Mind, listen as Todd shares a common mistake average marketers make when using “scarcity” in their marketing.
He says, “They’re actually not using scarcity at all.” In this episode you’ll hear Todd explain how the big dogs of direct response marketing combine true scarcity with one other element to ratchet up its sales conversion power.
Great points Todd!
I’ve thought a lot about the difference between urgency and scarcity and I’ll admit I’ve been using them interchangeably – mostly because a deadline = scarce amount of time to pull the trigger and take action. But also, as you mentioned in your audio, that with a deadline you could make the bonus scarce… you called that scarcity. That’s a common way our Deadline Funnel clients use our software, and it seems to combine scarcity and urgency.
Keep up the great work.
Hey Jack – that combination of both — the countdown (urgency) and a scarce element that could disappear anytime (scarcity) — is really powerful. We try to engineer that into as many offers as possible.
Sidenote: We’ve been using DeadlineFunnel a lot with new campaigns. And the team is really loving it. It does for us what used to require some custom coding. So great stuff!
Todd,
Great topic. We’ve used a combination of urgency & scarcity in many of our launches.
Just 7 Slots left. This offer expires in 1 Day, 12 hours, 36 minutes, 10 seconds
(or when all spots are filled, whichever comes first.)
In our experience, urgency trumps scarcity… meaning that without the countdown timer, there is less pressure to grab one of the remaining spots. Also, when focused on physical scarcity, you’re limited on how many you can sell, but with urgency, you can potentially sell a lot more in the same amount of time. Always a bit frustrating when quantity runs out with time still left.
But, of course, you’re right. Better to have urgency and scarcity than just one or the other.
Finally, I would say that one could argue that urgency actually IS scarcity… scarcity of time, but that’s probably just semantics. Great podcast. Thanks!
Hey David – great comment. Yeah, I agree… there is definitely a bit of semantics in how we refer to it. The main point for us to remember is leveraging both is more powerful than just one, like you wisely put it. Thanks for sharing.