There’s an acronym that’s doing the rounds that I wasn’t fully aware of what it meant and its FOMO which means in case you don’t know (and I didn’t so I looked it up). FOMO means fear of missing out. This is the anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.
So when you dig into it, it’s actually nothing new at all, but plain old fear brought about through the thought of losing something that you never had. In behavioral economics, and decision theory, the psychology behind FOMO can be partially explained by loss aversion. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (BTW there is a summary of “Thinking fast, thinking slow” by Tversky and Kahneman available to members, well worth the read) demonstrated people’s strong tendency to want to avoid any losses. In fact, their research suggests that losses are twice as impactful on people, psychologically, as gains. This leads to risk aversion; we just hate to lose out on anything.
Another principle psychological principle behind FOMO is The Paradox of Choice (There’s a book summary of this coming soon for our members). Barry Schwartz explains that the more choices we have, the less happy we are with what we choose. Too many choices lead to anxiety and depressive FOMO feelings particularly for people most sensitive to FOMO. These are according to Schwartz, ‘maximizers’, people who are always trying to get “the best” out of every situation. Maximizers are more prone to regret, and depression over the choices they make.
Why Use FOMO in Marketing?
Let’s take a look at some FOMO statistics, as this will help you understand why FOMO marketing campaigns are so effective, especially with certain demographics.
Lots of data suggests that FOMO is most prevalent among millennials. Around 69% of millennials experience the phenomenon, and according to Strategy Online, 60% of millennials make reactive purchases because of FOMO. In other words, they’ll buy something just because they feel they might miss out.
Here’s six ways that you can use the power of FOMO in your marketing:-
- Show That People are Buying
Some of the most effective examples of FOMO trigger the feeling without even making a sales pitch. If visitors to your website know other people are buying, then they’ll want to buy, too. Amazon do this all the time. It’s a great example of what Robert Cialdini called social proof in his book Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion (there’s a summary of this book available for my members).
- Show Stock Levels.
Scarcity is a big component of FOMO based marketing, because if something’s about to run out, there’s a huge incentive to get it now. There are many ways to highlight scarcity. For example, if you’re running an online store, you can show stock levels, as Amazon does. Or, if you’re in the travel business, you could show the number of spaces left, as Booking.com does or finally you could use the classic “while stocks last” messaging, that suggests that your product or service is about to run out or disappear.
- Make Your Visitors Watch the Clock
When thinking about how to create FOMO, you can also look into urgency in marketing. The use of deadlines in marketing is nothing new but it’s still as powerful today as it’s always been. Ask anybody who does online sales and they’ll tell you that the vast majority of sales come in the final few minutes before the deadline expires.
- Free Shipping Offer
Did you know that around 90% of shoppers list free shipping as their prime incentive for buying online? That’s one reason why FOMO marketing campaigns that limit free shipping can be really effective. Let’s be honest, we’ve all bought something extra on Amazon so we can get free delivery, haven’t we? If people feel they’ll miss out on free shipping by not making a purchase, they’ll likely make it, especially if the additional expenditure is relatively small. Let your customers know how much more they have to spend to get free shipping, or simply place a banner at the top of your page, showing what the threshold is for getting that benefit.
- Have an Exclusive Offer
There’s nothing to trigger FOMO like exclusivity. As human beings, we love the thought of getting our hands on an opportunity very few people have. Don’t believe us? Check out any airport boarding gate and see how happy people with priority access are. Or think about how many people have signed up for Amazon Prime (80 million at last count) so they can get deals other Amazon shoppers can’t get (like free shipping). While those are great FOMO marketing examples, you can also use exclusivity by creating a limited edition product or service.
- Offer Rewards for Early Decisions
Giving a freebie is a good way to attract customers. However, you can make it even more effective by limiting that freebie. Offline, you see this tactic when stores offer a gift or special discount to the first 100 customers, and that usually makes hundreds of people line up.
FOMO marketing is a great technique to make your prospects eager to buy from you. However, if you’re not implementing it correctly, it can appear to be manipulative and might even alienate your more savvy prospects. So think about how you’re going to use FOMO and check out my other blogs on persuasion based marketing for some more advice.
BTW if you’re interested in reading any of the book summaries I’ve mentioned drop me an email (info@johnolivant.com) and I’ll send you a copy.
Twelve intensive half-day meetings.
