Fear of Missing Out
Nestled in among all the other weird things our brains do to us is a psychological phenomena known as the Fear of Missing Out.
It affects people in lots of different ways.
For example, I know of one guy who is so afraid of missing out that he cannot make a decision to do anything because he is frightened something better might come along. I remember he was invited to a big dinner and dance once, but because he thought he might get an invitation onto a better (in his view) table, he delayed accepting so long that his place was given to someone else. And the better invitation didn’t materialize.
His fear of missing out made him miss out.
3 Ways Marketers Use Your Fear of Missing Out
- They make their offers time sensitive. This is a VERY effective way to get customers to stop deliberating and buy before the deadline. A countdown timer is a very powerful marketing tool!However, the customer has to know that the deadline is real.
As an affiliate marketer I have lost count of the number of times I’ve promoted a product as soon as it launched, only to see the majority of my sales (often as many as 75%) happen in the last few hours of the countdown timer.
- They make the price rise regularly. “Get it today because this is the cheapest it will ever be!”That’s another very effective message. As dimesales (pricing that goes up by a single cent after every few sales) have shown time and again, the fear of missing out on a SINGLE CENT can make people take action.
- Fear of missing an opportunity. “You could make $100 by the end of today – if you take action now!”We have all seen such claims. And deep down, most of us know they are almost always nonsense. But the part of our brain that responds to FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out – is the primordial, non-reasoning, subconscious mind that doesn’t analyze the words. Rather it switches on that feeling in your gut that you’d better take notice of this before you miss yet another opportunity.
Those three are probably the most obvious and transparent examples, but clever advertisers and copywriters use dozens more.
Fear Of Missing Out in REAL Life
In our lives the Fear Of Missing Out affects us is so many ways.
- It is why many of us obsessively check our phones
- It explains why social media is so compelling
- It explains why we have often attended parties and events even though we KNOW we won’t enjoy them. Just in case.
I’m sure you can think of many others.
A lot of times in marketing the fear of missing out is a fantasy. Nothing bad will actually happen if you don’t buy that shampoo. Your world won’t end if you end up paying one cent extra. The countdown timer MIGHT be fake.
As an aside, I have sometimes promoted products that say they will end at a specific time, only to find later that they didn’t. That doesn’t sit well with me and when I see it happen I usually won’t promote for that person again without assurances. I have a list of marketers who play such games with the truth, and rarely, if ever, consider their products for review.
Using all the marketing tactics at your disposal is one thing, but outright lying is another.
