Most people like to take their time when making a purchase and, quite often, this means they will walk away from a product and forget all about it. That’s why limited-time offers can be so effective, as they incentivise consumers to buy immediately with the threat of getting a worse offer if they delay. In this article, we’ll look at how to make the most out of limited-time offers.
If you really want to understand your customers’ buying habits, then you should first look at your own. It’s very rare to find people who continuously buy on impulse without any motivation to do so. Instead, most people will think carefully before buying a product, and many will leave a site to check out the reviews. That’s why you need to motivate people to buy as soon as possible, to avoid them leaving your site and losing interest.
Just like you, your customers lead busy lives and therefore need to be able to make decisions quickly about whether or not they intend to do something. If you present your customers with a great product at a great price, then their first reaction will be to think ‘yes, I want that.’ However, this initial thought will only last so long, and pretty soon they may begin to question it and started digging to do extra research. This is when they leave and potentially never come back. However, if you can catch them in a window of limited opportunity, then they will be far more likely to go with their initial instinct and buy there and then. This is all thanks to the famous advertising method FOMO or the Fear Of Missing Out.
People hate missing out on opportunities, and it’s something which is hardwired into our brains over time. There are plenty of people out there with regrets that they didn’t do something differently in the past, and that experience only makes them more susceptible to acting on impulse when presented with a limited-chance. Take a look at the two examples below and see which one you think would be more effective?
It should come as no surprise that the second will have people buying on impulse far more than the first. The first gives no real incentive for people to act fast and the thought that they could easily come back to the offer at a later date will mean that they are much more likely to put it to the backs of their minds and forget about it. However, there are right and wrong ways in which to highlight limited-time offers to your customers. Here are four things you can do with limited-time offers to make them more effective.
Have a Clear Call To Action
If you want people to act quickly, then make sure you tell them in no uncertain terms exactly what it is that you want them to do. Clarity is key when it comes to getting people to act on impulse so keep it simple and write exactly what you want the customer to do, e.g. ‘Order Now’, ‘Call Now’, ‘Sign Up Now’ etc. If you want to be even more pressing you can put ‘Hurry!’ in front, e.g. ‘Hurry! Sign Up Now.’
Make the Final Date Stand Out
The one thing you want the customer to feel is under pressure, and it is the deadline that will do that. People are terrified of missing deadlines and, as a result, the deadline should be the thing that really stands out in your advert. Remember, the time limit will only work if people know what the limit is, so make sure it stands out from everything else.
End the Offer When it Ends
There are a couple of reasons for this; the first is that, if you don’t end it at the time in your advert, then people who rushed to buy will be annoyed. Secondly, it makes customers more relaxed and less likely to buy. If people think that they can get away with waiting, then they will wait. There are a lot of companies that continuously create offers and customers know they can put off buying something until they shop around. The difference is, that if customers believe your limit they will buy from you then and there, otherwise they will shop around for a better deal, safe in the knowledge that your deal will probably be back on when they return.
Limited Availability
A good alternative to time is stock. With this one, you can run the campaign longer as you won’t be limited by an exact date when your supply will run out.
What’s more, it can be just as effective as time if used well. Some people added the number they have left in stock. One famous example of this is shopping channels who use it to great effect. The more the number goes down, the greater the impulse for the customer to buy becomes.