Conversion

How to Use Urgency and Scarcity to Improve Conversions

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Conversion optimization is way more than button size, font colors, and sizzling calls to action. It’s also about the inner psychology of the user, known as customer psychology. This is such an important part of digital marketing that I wrote The Complete Guide to Understanding Consumer Psychology.

My fundamental assertion is this — “psychology is mission critical for traffic acquisition and conversion optimization.”

That’s why I’m going to explain two psychological tricks and how they could instantly grow your revenue. This has nothing to do with how many pixels wide your CTA button is, or whether your capture form is above the fold or below the fold. This is all about harnessing the power of the human psyche to introduce a flood of conversions.

Urgency and Scarcity will Improve Conversions

First, I will explain what urgency and scarcity are. After that, I’ll share some tactical ways for introducing these strategies into your website.

What is urgency?

Urgency is when a buyer feels like they need to act quickly.

Urgency is the feeling that whatever is going on is really important, and therefore, immediate action should be taken. There are three specific features I want to point out regarding urgency.

Urgency starts with importance.

In order for something to be urgent it has to be important. Think about a man selling helium balloons at a golf course. He can’t really use urgency to sell his balloons, because no one at a golf course needs or wants a helium balloon.

But if he’s selling the helium balloons at an amusement park where children can see them, then the urgency level may increase. A screaming and crying kid might be persuaded not to scream and cry if he or she receives a balloon. Most parents feel a sense of urgency when their child starts screaming or crying.

It’s all about importance. If your product or service is important, then users will be more inclined to respond to urgency.

Urgency has everything to do with time.

Even though urgency starts with a sense of importance, its real value is in timing. You don’t just want people to convert. You want them to convert now. A delayed conversion is a lost conversion.

Urgency tells people to act now. This is is why used car salesman feel the need to scream on television ads, trying to convey urgency to buy now! The idea is if you feel urgent, you’ll not only buy a car, but you’ll probably feel the pressure to do so within the next four minutes.

Urgency is a feeling, and you are in control of creating this feeling.

The great thing about urgency is that you are in control. Your website copy, your images, your buttons, your messaging — these can all be leveraged to increase the sense of urgency on a page. I’ll tell you more about how to do that later on.

What is scarcity?

Scarcity is the feeling that a product or service is in short supply and about to run out. One marketing advice piece puts it like this:

Scarcity refers to any limitation placed on a product or service with the goal of increasing sales through pressure placed on the consumer. The fear of missing out causes people to make the decision to buy.

The fascinating thing about scarcity is that when something begins to run low, people’s desire tends to rise. The inverse relationship looks like this:

Plenty of stuff — no one wants it.

Not much stuff — everyone wants it.

Low supply often creates high demand, as long as the product or service is good enough. Like urgency, scarcity compels action. It eliminates procrastination. If products are flying off the shelves, and they’re almost gone, you have no time to lose! You must buy now!

Here are a few key features of scarcity that you should know about:

Scarcity is perceived.

Often, the sense that something is scarce is created. Sometimes, it’s just a gimmick. Scarcity is such a common marketing technique; everyone tries it.

But few people do it right.

Do you really think that the local furniture store keeps going out of business every six months, and liquidating their entire stock? No! They’re just plastering those signs on the windows, because you as the consumer might think, “Oh no! They’re getting rid of everything! I need to buy it now! It’s probably so cheap!”

But if they declare “LIQUIDATION” every six months, they have completely lost their trust. Scarcity as a marketing technique doesn’t work anymore. The scarcity perception can and should be created through legitimate means.

Scarcity can be regulated.

Most of us can control the level of supply of our product or service. If we need to make more widgets, we can increase production. If we need to take on more consulting clients, we hire more staff.

Is scarcity even a thing? Can we even use it?

Yes. You can create scarcity arbitrarily, by imposing limits, setting client acceptance caps, and making similar statements.

You are in control of scarcity.

The Psychology of Urgency and Scarcity

Urgency and scarcity really work, and they work quite well. People tend to act quickly when an issue is important enough. People tend to buy when something is scarce enough. These two techniques change the consumer’s behavior toward supply and demand — two fundamental economic building blocks.

Buyers do what their instincts tell them to do — to act immediately on what is important (urgency), and to acquire what is limited (scarcity).

How to Create Urgency and Scarcity

Let’s get tactical now. You know that urgency and scarcity work. Now how do you roll out this psychological power on your website and landing pages?

How to Create Urgency

Here are some of the best that I’ve learned to create a sense of urgency.

  1. Pick a deadline.

Remember how I told you that urgency is predicated upon time. This is where the true power of urgency is unleashed — time limits.

Deadlines are the perfect means to increasing urgency. Pick a deadline, and announce it.

  • The deadline for signing up is August 5.
  • This sales ends at 12am on September 1st.
  • Beginning October 3, I will no longer be accepting new patients.
  • Orders must be placed within 24 hours.

Amazon.com uses this tactic on their product pages.

Amazon add to cart

We’re driven by an overwhelming feeling of the importance of time. When a marketing message or a call to action is attached to a time, our urgency level automatically goes up.

  1. Use words like “now,” “hurry,” “instant,” and “immediately.” 

These words tell people to do something right away. There is no waiting around. I use these terms on my website www.neilpatel.com, and have seen incredible success.

My call to action button uses the word “now.”

reserve Neil Patel

I also encourage users to “hurry!” in a bit of text at the bottom of the page. My goal is to increase the importance of a reservation, and to compel a response right away.

The word “now” pushes people a little bit to convert.

This button is from coschedule.com:

get started free now

Ramit Sethi from iwillteachyoutoberich.com uses the word “instant” on his CTA button:

make 1000 a month

  1. Show big numbers.

Urgency works with data. When you introduce large numbers into the conversation, you are raising the importance of your product or service.

Basecamp uses big numbers to elevate importance, and therefore to encourage urgency:

basecamp trail

Crazyegg uses a number on the landing page, too.

convert better with crazyegg

  1. Use urgent colors.

Red, orange, and yellow can sometimes introduce a feeling of urgency. Red is the color of stop signs and traffic signals. Yellow is the color of caution and yield. Orange is the color of construction cones. Red, orange, and yellow are the colors associated with heat and fire. Red is a color associated with passion and love. It’s also the color of blood.

I told you this article wasn’t just about buttons and colors, but color psychology and customer psychology do overlap. In a study conducted by Hubspot, switching to a red CTA button from a green one increased a site’s conversion rate by 21%.

performable get started

SAP BusinessObjects tested a blue text link vs. a large orange button, and found that their conversion rate increased 32.5%.

control vs test

Image from dmu.cdmginc.us

 

I’ve chosen to use orange and yellow buttons on some of my websites, because I’ve tested for higher conversion rates with these colors.

Here’s the button from CrazyEgg:

show me my heatmap

This one is on Quicksprout:

click here to learn more

Here is Neilpatel.com:

reserve Neil Patel 2

With you website, make sure you test which colors convert the best for you. Just because one color worked best for me, it doesn’t mean it will work well for your business.

How to Create Scarcity

As I explained above, scarcity is completely in your control. Whether you’re consulting, selling a widget, or providing SaaS, you are in control of production and/or customer acceptance.

Scarcity is all about perception. I’m not proposing deception, like pretending that you are running out of product while sitting on a huge stockpile. Instead, I’m proposing a shift in perception. Notice this critical distinction in these techniques:

  1. Put a limit on what you accept.

You can put limits on anything. As a business decision-maker, you have every right to do so. People are not entitled to your product. You can provide it at-will. If you want your product or service to be limited, so be it.

If you are a consultant, this is easy. You only have so many hours in the day, so many slots for meetings, and so much energy to expend. That’s why I am clear about my consulting limitations on my website:

hurry reserve Neil Patel

If you sell a service, even SaaS, you can create this sense of scarcity by limiting how many customers you accept.

For example, you can announce that you’re accepting only 400 new customers during the month of September. What does it matter that you average 80 customers a month ordinarily? As long as you put a limit on your acceptance rate — any limit — you are creating a sense of scarcity.

Display stock limitations.

If you sell products, you have stock to deal with. This is a legitimate source of scarcity. Again, Amazon employs the scarcity technique to increase sales on some products:

Apple iPhone 5

Even if you don’t have a physical stock, you can still have regulations on what you will do and sell.

The whole idea of Groupon is built on scarcity. Each deal lasts a limited time, has a limited quantity, and is limited to one purchase per customer.

buy $125

You know Black Friday? What inspires people to trample each other, arising at ungodly hours of the morning, neglecting self-respect, and engaging in rabid doorbanging marathons? It’s scarcity.

Conclusion

Using the parallel powers of scarcity and urgency, you can boost your conversions and your revenue.

Unfortunately, some companies have turned these techniques into gimmicky scams. They sound more like jokers than legitimate businesses.

I think you can do differently.

How are you going to implement urgency and scarcity into your business?


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