Ayelet Weisz
We’ve all seen it. You go to a conference, experience a day of packed information, and pat yourself on the back for deciding to go.
Then the pitch begins.
You knew it was coming. You’ve been to enough conferences to expect it. You even accept it because, as a marketer, you’re interested in their strategy, their technique. You decide to sit through it and treat it as a learning experience, because really – you’ve seen enough of these types of pitches to not let this one get to you. And besides, you don’t have the budget or time for it anyway.
They hit your biggest pain point and you tell yourself to stay strong. They add on the bonuses and you remind yourself of all your other expenses (if budget’s the issue) or commitments (if time is your “objection”).
You decide not to buy right now. Even though they do a really, really good job, and you really, really want your pain point to go away, and you’ve been really, really convinced they can help you buy it. You’ll go home. You’ll think about it. You’ll rationalize your way out of it.
But then they say the bonuses – those valued more than whatever they’re selling, those that you drooled over despite yourself during the pitch – are only available for the first 25 buyers.
You look around the room. 999 other marketers are drooling over the bonuses.
What do you do?
How to Use Exclusivity and the Fear of Missing Out in Your Calls to Action
Calls to action – nicknamed CTAs by marketers across the world – are that crucial part of our business that drives our audience from passive readers or listeners to active action takers who get results.
But in a world that’s inundated with CTAs, letting your audience wait to take action “later” could mean drowning in the sea of offers, and missing them out as subscribers or customers forever.
We’ll get back to the story at the end of the post, but first, let’s make sure you’re not making this crucial mistake. Let’s look at 4 effective strategies that help you build exclusivity and FOMO (meaning, fear of missing out) into your calls to action, and be the marketer left standing.
Create FOMO by Promising a Result Only a Few Get
The easiest way to built exclusivity into your call to action is to – well – make your offer exclusive. If you’re a service provider, you can only take on so many clients, so availability is actually limited. Check out this email sales coach Wendy Weiss sent to her subscribers:
She was looking for 3 coaching clients, but she sent the email to 40,000 subscribers. Those who were interested had to act fast if they didn’t want to miss out. And more than that – they had to apply to be her client, which added another level of exclusivity to this. It wasn’t enough for a sales professional to want to be a client – this sales professional also had to be chosen as the perfect client.
The hidden message subscribers read: Only the lucky ones “get in” and get to boost their sales with the Queen of Cold Calling’s help.
But you can pull it off even if availability isn’t limited – by promising a result most people will never get. Here’s how Derek Halpern does it on Social Triggers:
Most people will never get responses from influencers, let alone fast responses from influencers. Social Triggers’ readers know that if they close the page without downloading the free ebook, they’ll miss out on a strategy that can help them take their business to the next level.
Create FOMO by Making the Possibility to Cure Pain Points Time Limited
Ever noticed how salespeople in stores never know how long their special discount offers will last?
Stores make sure their employees either don’t have this information or don’t share it with customers, because they want to trigger FOMO in us. FOMO meaning, yes, you might want to walk away, think about it and come back tomorrow or next month, but what if the discount will no longer be available?
If you walk out of the store today, you’ll walk away with the fear of missing out and you’ll keep thinking about it as you go through your day. In that case, if it’s a product you need and a decent discount, you’ll either buy it right away or, at the very least, you’ll come back as soon as possible – much faster than you would have otherwise – to make sure you don’t miss the deal.
If you’ve been going back and forth on buying it, you might have eventually decided to let it go, but the time limited discount forces you to make a decision, and makes it easier for you to choose to buy.
Of course, keeping prospects in suspense isn’t the only way to do this.
Sometimes you want them to know when the special offer expires to make sure they hurry up and buy.
That’s what Liam Austin, founder of Small Today, did with his Instagram Success Summit. He added a countdown to his call to action to make sure you don’t forget when prices increase:
