Incorporating Scarcity into your Marketing

Scarcity is a powerful motivator, which also makes it an effective marketing strategy. The reason scarcity works so well is because we live in a culture where everyone has a fear of missing out. This is why social media usage is so prevalent – people are afraid that if they don’t check social sites, they’ll miss out on exciting updates or information from their friends. This fear is amplified even more when it comes to making purchases because no one wants to miss out on the hottest products or best deals. 

So when it comes to your digital marketing, how can you incorporate scarcity into your strategy? Here are four tips to help you ride the scarcity wave:

Use “For a Limited Time!” Verbiage
Telling people that deals won’t last forever is a great way to fuel the scarcity hype. Whether you choose use “for a limited time” or “limited quantities” or “while supplies last,” be sure to reiterate this verbiage on your website and across your marketing efforts – put it in your paid search ads online, incorporate it into emails, and hype it on social media. 

Once you’ve committed to using this strategy though, be sure to follow through with it. A company that constantly advertises sales and low prices as limited time events but let them continue to run for long periods of time or runs promotion after promotion in rapid succession will get a reputation as just being a low cost competitor. Once this happens it can create a vicious cycle where customers will only shop when a sale is occurring, which forces a company to have to keep running sales and offering deep discounts in order to get any business at all. This “sales addiction” cuts into profits and can spell a company’s demise if not properly managed and corrected. 

List Stock Quantity on Product Pages
Some ecommerce providers allow you to show stock quantity on product pages once inventory levels drop below a certain threshold. If this option is available to you, it can be a great way to persuade shoppers to buy right away to avoid missing out on a hot product. 

Allow Shoppers to Sign Up for “Back in Stock” Emails
If you don’t have the option to list stock quantity, you can always insinuate that a product is scarce by adding a button that allows shoppers to add themselves to a list to be notified when the product is back in stock. While shoppers won’t take advantage of this when the product is still available for purchase, it hints to them that the product’s availability may run out at any time, therefore encouraging them to buy more quickly. 

Set Up Daily Deals for Limited Stock Products
Daily deals are a great way to put some pressure on shoppers and get them to make a purchase decision in less time. By only offering a discount for one day, shoppers are forced to buy right away if they like the deal because they know that it won’t be around tomorrow. 

The best way to execute a daily deal strategy is to put low stock items on daily deal so that they are more likely to run out before the deal ends. Once products are sold out be sure to visualize this on your website so that visitors will see that the deal is no longer available. A sold out message signals to shoppers that your products are a great value and very popular with their peers. This then increases future demand for your products and the likelihood that shoppers will return to your site again or tell their friends about your deals.

Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!