Guess what, I turn 25 years old today.
And the reason people give you birthday presents or even celebrate birthdays is for one reason.
If You Know That Reason…
… Then you can apply it to your e-mails, sales letters, products, everything, and it will increase response better than any 1-click upsell, forced continuity, free CD offer, 100% commission, or whatever goofy marketing fad is going around today.
The real reason you send people thank you cards, celebrate birthdays, buy one time offers… the reason it’s 20 times easier to get a girlfriend when you’re already dating some other chick is because of scarcity.
Scarcity is probably the ultimate reason you bought your house or car. You had to make a bid now before someone else did.
Here’s a Funny Story…
Lance and I recently ran a webinar course with 15 students who paid $497 each to get in. Part of the weekly challenges were to run your own webinars.
These were small webinars we only promoted the afternoon before. The average one had 17 attendees.
But the webinar with the biggest turnout (from Andy Erickson) had 62 people register and 35 people show up. Why?
I made a single post on a forum a few hours before saying we would only let 50 people in. Nobody knew how to react to it.
Suddenly, They Wanted In!
Just last week I was at a week-long mastermind retreat that requires you to have a certain level of income to join. Lance was my guest, and he “sort of” wanted in the mastermind, but as soon as he realized he couldn’t get in, he REALLY had to get in!
How did I build my list? The exact same way. I made forum offers over and over again saying: here’s the price now, here’s the price it will be by this date. And I stuck to my word.
How do I get so many blog comments? Exact same way. If I don’t get 10 comments, this blog is going to disappear. Suddenly it’s not around forever.
How Can You Add Scarcity to Everything You Do?
It’s simple… answer one or all of these questions on your squeeze pages, e-mails and sales letters:
- Price Justification: What’s the reason why the price is so low right now? (Even if “you” think it’s a high price.)
- Change the Offer: How soon will you change the offer by removing bonuses or de-bundling the package?
- Price Increase: How long until your product costs twice as much? (an actual set date)
- Expiration Date: How long until you close out this offer completely?
… And suddenly, the decision to buy becomes a no-brainer.
I split test stuff all the time and little changes, like the headline or a single word, make all the difference.
Recently I found out adding a SMALL logo to one of my web pages increased sales by 44.4 percent. That test gave me 18 extra sales at $47 even before the split test was over!
On a squeeze page, I increased opt-ins by 20 percent (tested with 97.5% accuracy) by REMOVING the subheadline.
You have a large population of prospects who are “just about” ready for you to push them over the fence. Adding scarcity is the best push you can give them.
It’s takeaway selling. If you don’t act soon, you won’t get this.
You Create Excitement Just By Saying “No.”
The next time you offer anything… a free report, blog post, e-mail newsletter, special report, training course, DVDs, whatever… add an arbitrary number of copies that will be sold, or an arbitrary deadline when you’ll take it off the market, and stick to it.
And the real reason why birthdays are so important is because you have a very limited number of them.
What’s your favorite scarcity technique? Comment below with your answer, and oh yeah, wish me happy 25th birthday as well.
