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A Marketing Lesson From My Cat…?
Today’s post I thought of last night while playing with my cat Pepe.
This is the same cat who actually plays ball with me (I’m not joking – he plays ball with me exactly like a dog would, except he’s got a little toy mouse instead of a ball).
Anyway, he’s only about 6 months old and loves to play, and one thing he loves is when you tap your fingers on the floor.
When I do that, Pepe gets down into the “attack stance”, starts shaking his butt, and gets ready to pounce. He normally shakes his butt for a 3-5 before pouncing.
But last night, I noticed something.
I noticed that the second I started pulling my hand farther away from him, he would pounce without hesitation.
Why?
Because Pepe was afraid he wouldn’t be able to pounce if I pulled it away far enough. He was afraid he’d lose what he was trying to do (bite my hand).
And your prospects are the exact same way.
If you put something in front of them they really want, build them up to the point where they HAVE to have it, but then threaten to take it away, you’re going to have a much higher chance of getting that prospect to buy.
This is called the “scarcity tactic”.
You can do this in a number of ways. Here are 5 very popular ways to do it:
- Having a limited number of products you can sell.
- Only selling for a certain amount of time.
- Having certain bonuses only for the first “X” amount of people.
- Having a timer on your website that counts down until they finally don’t have a choice whether to buy it or not.
- Mentioning how the information in the products will only be good for a certain amount of time (this is commonly used in the financial niche)
Scarcity is one of the most powerful human motivators in the world.
Think about it.
You’re out in a store shopping and you see a shirt you love. You notice that it’s the last one on the rack, but you’re still wondering if you should buy it or not.
All of a sudden, someone a similar body shape and weight starts walking up to the rack.
In a panic, afraid they’re going to take that shirt, you grab it off the rack to make sure they don’t have a chance of taking it off you!
The next time you’re writing copy, make sure you create a sense of scarcity in your prospect. But don’t be the same as everyone else. Give them a reason why they have to buy it.
Without a reason why, your prospect will lose trust in you and you’ll lose the sale.
If you have a great story of how you used scarcity in a creative way, please let us know!
