Have you ever bought stuff from, say, Amazon because you feared you would lose out on it? Or maybe all your friends were buying it, and you didn’t want to be left out? If so, what you experienced is FOMO: fear of missing out.
Many people experience it too. TrustPulse says that “60% of people make purchases because of FOMO, mostly within 24 hours”.
So what exactly is FOMO in eCommerce?
FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, is the anxiety you experience when you feel the need to take advantage of a special opportunity. It is also the fear of not being included in a rather enjoyable and advantageous event. In 2013, a study defined FOMO as “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.”
No one wants to be left out of something good. Thus, it is your job as a marketer or business owner to take full advantage of that fear in driving your sales and conversions up.
After all, who wants to miss out on a bestselling product that offers huge savings? Certainly not your visitors!
But how exactly do you implement FOMO in your marketing? Is it a complicated process? Not to worry, all these -and many more – I will be answering in today’s post.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
How To Use FOMO To Drive More Sales
Using the Fear Of Missing Out on your eCommerce business is a great way to boost your conversion rates. It triggers the sense of urgency you need to get your visitors to act swiftly. If you implement this strategy successfully, you are sure to see more sales from your online store.
Below are a few tips on adopting FOMO techniques to promote your eCommerce business.Â
1. Set a Time Limit
One popular way to implement FOMO is by setting a time limit to a product or an offer. Nothing puts pressure on people like watching the time tick away. It sets off anxiety and an internal alarm that will make them rush to take advantage of your offer.
Regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity, one thing is sure: no one likes to miss out. This is why limiting the time you give people to act is important.
How does this eCommerce FOMO technique work?
Pretty simple:
- First, identify a bestselling product in your catalog. Ensure that it’s of good quality and that most of your web visitors will love to own it.
- Put a discount on this product. People love and appreciate discounts, especially when they don’t have to do anything in particular to earn them.
- Set a time limit with a countdown timer to make it urgent. The time limit could last a few hours or a few days. The discount will only be valid within this time window. Once the time elapses, the product goes back to its regular price.
- Watch your conversion rate go through the roof.
Here’s what a countdown timer looks like:
Big eCommerce sites such as Walmart and Amazon often use this technique, especially in Black Friday sales campaigns. Apparently, they are seeing a lot of success with it.
2. Invest in Influencer Marketing
Ever heard of influencer marketing? You most likely have, but just in case you haven’t, influencer marketing involves getting popular people – like celebrities – to talk about your product. You might have seen that a couple of times on Instagram.
But why do brands spend so much getting influencers to talk about their products? Simple. Influencer marketing works. And what makes it effective is that it creates the FOMO you need to get potential customers to purchase your products.
It is also a quick and easy way to build trust and proof of quality, as celebrities hold a lot of sway over what people think.
Influencers are great for your business if used properly. Quoting an influencer on your website and attaching a picture of them with your product assures your visitors that your product is worth every penny.
Need some inspiration? Let me give you one.
Reebok, a footwear and clothing brand, once hired CardiB, a famous rap artist with a large fan base, to promote one of their products. This resulted in over 3.5 million likes and over 15,000 comments on Instagram.
That’s a lot of engagement, isn’t it?
Of course, it doesn’t have to be Cardi B for you – just about anyone with a substantial following on social media can do brand influencing for you.
3. Offer Value Bundles
Offer your customers a chance to save a lot of money off your products. And there’s no better way to go about this than offering a value bundle.
But what exactly am I referring to as value bundles?
Let’s assume you sell baby items like baby food, clothes, sleeping gear, etc., in your store. Instead of selling these items individually, you can bundle them and sell them as one piece. Of course, with a discount on it. That becomes a value bundle.
It doesn’t have to be a baby item anyway.
Take look at this furniture bundle offer from Walmart.
By convincing your visitors to save money on bundles of related items, you get to sell off your products quickly: nobody wants to miss out on a value bundle. Add a strict time limit, and you’d heighten the FOMO with your visitors.
4. Incorporate FOMO into Your Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
Every sale you make happens after your customer clicks on a CTA button. Therefore, your CTA copy is essential when using FOMO in marketing your eCommerce products.
Your CTA shouldn’t just convince your visitors but also give them a sense of urgency.
A Call-To-Action that can draw emotion from your visitors has a better success rate than one that pulls no emotion. It should make your visitors feel like they are taking advantage of an opportunity before the time runs out.
How do you get FOMO into your CTA? It’s all in your copy! But a typical CTA copy has a few words at best; so, you’ll have to use the right words to ensure you’re making the most of it.
Phrases like “Here’s your chance…” are a great option, but you can get even more creative.
Adding “now” can also suffice. Here’s some inspiration from DesignCuts. They’ve splashed their discount directly on their CTA button. It’s unconventional, but it does create FOMO.
Regardless of the words used, the objective is to make your potential customers aware of this golden opportunity and convince them to act on it quickly.
Some examples of phrases you can use to create FOMO with your CTA are:
- Grab this before it’s gone!
- Limited Stock Selling out fast!
- Don’t miss out!
- Subscribe to get a coupon!
Sprucing up your CTA buttons with FOMO is an important aspect of marketing and can significantly increase your conversion rates.
5. Tweak Your Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is used for lead generation. It works as an incentive to help you get your visitors to give you their contact details.
Collecting the contact details of your visitors is no doubt important for your eCommerce business. After all, these contacts make up your email lists, which helps you build and boost customer relationships.
To capture those emails, you might have to bait your visitors with a lead magnet. However, getting your visitors to act promptly is key to succeeding with a lead magnet. This is where FOMO comes in.
One way to make this work is by throwing in an irresistible discount or coupon code that they have to grab before time runs out.
6. Use Exit-Intent Popups
Another way to use FOMO to drive more sales is by deploying exit-intent popups. Exit-intent popups appear on users’ screens when they attempt to exit the page. It appears as a notification box that contains content that will convince an abandoning visitor to change their mind about leaving your website.
Getting the idea? Maybe an illustration will help.
Minimum, a fashion eCommerce store displays an exit-intent popup when you attempt to leave their website.
Exit-intent popups are a small but essential part of marketing for eCommerce businesses. Integrating FOMO into them can help improve your conversions.
Want to implement FOMO with your exit-intent popups already? Simply add an incentive that your visitors will find irresistible to a bestselling product that will soon go out of stock. Alternatively, you could add a discount code with an expiration time to it.
It is important to use attention-grabbing elements in your exit-intent popup design. Go with the best fonts and colors.
If you have different variants of the same popup and are having trouble deciding which one will work better, simply do an A/B test. Also, don’t forget to use words that convey urgency to your audience.
7. Make Your Visitors Feel Special
People like being treated specially. They want to feel like VIPs or part of something that other people aren’t. As a marketer or business owner, you should exploit this desire.
Make your visitors feel special by providing exclusive deals that other people are not privy to have. Provide them with offers and let them know that they are getting them because they are special.
Exclusive deals are great because they promote customer relationships and improve loyalty and trust.
An exclusive deal can take the form of incentives. It can be coupons for customers who subscribe to your newsletter, discounts for people who buy a specific quantity of products, or discount offers for first-time visitors.
Here’s an example of a campaign that combines FOMO with an exclusive deal. The exclusive deal offers coupons for specific quantities of products purchased but for a limited time only.
8. Offer Limited Free Shipping
One of the primary reasons visitors back out from making purchases is the high cost of shipping. Sometimes, shipping fees cost almost as much as the item itself. Shoppers find this ridiculous and discouraging too.
As such, you might want to consider offering free shipping to your customers. But how do you do this without putting a strain on your business’ finances?
Make it a limited offer. In other words, create FOMO by making the free shipping only available within a specific time window. Here’s an ad that illustrates this.
If you can’t offer free shipping, consider discounted shipping. Maybe, you could offer customers, say, a 50% discount on shipping fees if they act fast.
9. Display Customer Reviews
One great way to improve sales using FOMO is by displaying reviews on your website.
Did you know that about 70% of people read through reviews before making an online purchase? So, reviews are no longer a nice-to-have on your website.
When most people see reviews, they think: “if people think this product is this good, I don’t want to miss out on it”. That’s FOMO at work.
Not sure how to get your customers to leave reviews on your page? Simply entice them with incentives. This could be a coupon code, discount, or a free gift, it’ll encourage them to talk about your products.
Want more tips? Go and check out this post.
If your website runs on WordPress or Shopify, consider using Judge.me plugin to add reviews to your store.
10. Entice Customers with Pre-orders
As humans, patience isn’t really our strength. We like to get things right now, especially if it is something we really desire.
An excellent way to create FOMO is by offering your customers the pre-order option for items still in production or not yet in stock. The pre-order option allows customers to secure their items early, thereby saving them the trouble of having them go out of stock.
Alternatively, you can offer discounts on pre-orders. For example, if you’ll be selling an item for $100 when it’s in stock, the cost of pre-ordering it could go for a discounted price of $80, thereby helping your customers save $20. They wouldn’t want to miss out on that.
To make your pre-order campaign even more effective, add a countdown timer. The goal is to let prospective customers know that they have a limited time to place a pre-order, and if they don’t act fast they would lose out. This will surely help to get you lots of sales.
Conclusion
There you have it: 10 strategies for inducing FOMO on your online store. They include offering time-sensitive discounts, displaying reviews, working with an influencer, etc.
I hope you learned a thing or two from this post.
