This post concludes my series on types of advertising appeals. If you want to read the entire series, you can access each of the first post below. Then each post links to the next:

Types of Advertising Appeals 1 – Fear and Humor

This final post on types of advertising appeals covers scarcity.

Types of Advertising Appeals: Scarcity

As people, we are more inclined to want what’s in limited supply. We are also more inclined to take immediate action if we have limited time to act. Limited supply and time provide scarcity appeals.

The trick in using scarcity appeals is that the time or supply has to really be limited.
Let me give you an example of each type of scarcity appeal.

Types of Advertising Appeals: Time Scarcity

But first some context. I usually work a split shift in my business. I work from around 8 a.m. until 3 or 5 p.m. depending on what time my husband gets home from his job and what else I have to do that day. Then after he goes to bed around 9 p.m. I work again until midnight or so.

One night while I was working late, I went to a membership site that I considering joining. The sales page offered a number of free days membership if I registered within six hours of first opening the sales page. I was tired and decided to wait until the next morning.

I slept about seven hours then went back. The free days were no longer available to me. I even tried on another computer, but I still couldn’t get the free days. So I had to register for a full 30 days and pay for them all.

The owner of this site was serious about scarcity of time to make a decision about joining his membership site. And he had tracking in place to support it.

That is not always the case. I’ve also gone to sales pages that say I have until midnight to purchase at a discount, but when I go back the next day I’m offered the same discount and again told that I have until midnight to purchase at the discount.

The first example used real scarcity of time. The second example only tried to make visitors think there’s a time scarcity when there really wasn’t. Visitors will tell others when scarcity is real and when it’s fake. So don’t try to fake scarcity. It backfires.

Types of Advertising Appeals: Supply Scarcity

Now let me give you an example of supply scarcity. I’ve sold a textbook through university stores since 2000. The second edition of that book was published in 2006. One of my adopting professors wanted to continue using the first edition, but I only had a few of the first edition left.

I explained this to him, but he’s stuck with the first edition. For last fall’s order, I had to send a couple of books that weren’t in mint condition, but they were the best that I had left. Now all I have are returns that are in even worse condition. The professor will either have to adopt the second edition, adopt another book, or his students will have to buy blemished books. That’s real scarcity because I won’t print anymore of the first edition.

But I’ve seen sales pages that promote a limited number of an e-book. Now e-books aren’t printed, they are digital. So there is no limit to them unless the author decides to sell only a certain number. Some authors do.

But many times when people advertise a limited number of e-books, they are trying to create scarcity when it doesn’t actually exist. If scarcity is faked, it doesn’t work. Instead it causes customers and target market members to loose trust in the publisher.

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Posted 8-28-08: Types of Advertising Appeals 4 - Scarcity

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 6:12 am and is filed under Advertising.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.