The Value of Making Your Product or Service Seem to be Scarce

Mindy Weinstein, Ph. D., is the reigning subject matter expert on scarcity marketing.

She observes that it involves much more than ads saying, "buy now before we sell out" or "flash sale: today only." The kind of scarcity you can convert to prospects can significantly increase your income when handled correctly.

Scarcity is Attractive

Her new book, The Power of Scarcity: Leveraging Urgency and Demand to Influence Customer Decisions (McGraw Hill 2022), explains how to induce customers to notice what you're offering and to motivate them to take action. Big brands, for example, employ exclusivity, demand, and time restrictions to expand revenues, and small businesses can do the same.

Here is a brief sampling of what the book contains:

    * Time-related scarcity: create urgency by offering coupons that expire or discounts only good for this week or month.

    * Limited supply scarcity: this appeal works well, especially if you have a durable good.

    * Exclusive membership scarcity: this can help to increase demand. Not everybody gets to be a member, or there are hurdles to doing so.

    * Limited edition scarcity: we're only going to produce so many, and then you can't acquire this item anymore.

    * Best seller status: touting what other customers have been buying so that prospective customers will be duly influenced.

    * Most popular status: a claim you can make without any data. Simply saying this is our most popular model or most popular service helps to direct otherwise confused buyers.

Actionable Ideas

All of Weinstein’s information is based on in-depth psychological research and offered in an easy and straightforward manner.