A new twist on scarcity (an idea I'm thinking of using)

[Chris Thompson]

Hi everyone,

I came up with this idea yesterday and I'm interested in opinions. It might not be new, but it was an idea in my head, so it's new to me.

Preamble: I have a clickbank product and I do not use scarcity in my sales letter except to suggest (rightly so) that I am thinking of raising the price, so to sign up for opt-in to be notified in advance of any price change. I am not comfortable lying about "only 100 will be sold" at this price, etc, nor am I comfortable lying about the price going up in 24 hours on my sales page.

That said, I understand the VALUE of scarcity. I've read Cialdini's book several times. Love it.

The idea:
1) Raise my price to a new level. Still do not use scarcity on the sales page, but really push for the opt-in (I offer a free lesson) and pitch it as "make me prove myself before you buy".

2) They double opt-in and get a link to their free lesson

3) The free lesson page also includes a special unadvertised time-sensitive discount. I have a CGI script that allows me to create a countdown timer, and set it to whatever I like. If they buy before the timer expires, they get the discount. When the timer expires, the price goes back up.

I would write something on the free-lesson page such as, "Thanks for trying out the free lesson. As a "thank you" for signing up to my email tips, I'm offering you an unadvertised discount on the entire course, but the discount is only valid for 24 hours. Remember, you still have a full 60 days to ask for a refund, so you have nothing to loose and everything to gain with this time-limited offer"

My feeling is that by introducing scarcity ONLY after they opt-in, I'll be more likely to positively surprise my leads because they were not expecting a discount to be offered to them.

I came up with this idea because I notice that my autoresponder series tends to convert subscribers usually right after the free lesson.

Thoughts?

[Frank Donovan]

Hi Chris

I haven't seen your sales page or product, but if your opt-in is just so that people can be advised of any price increases, I don't see it generating much enthusiasm.

Also, bear in mind that emphasis on an opt-in on your sales page is likely to deter many potential affiliates.

I'd suggest that you may be "overthinking" your sales process. If you were to concentrate on having a compelling offer and a great product, you might just get the results you desire without the need to generate extra scarcity.

Best,


Frank

[Peter Adamson]

I'm not a big fan of contrived scarcity. It doesn't work on me any more, although I am sure there are newbies that fall for it still. I believe that trust is among the most important factors and the hardest to win. When you win trust, your prospects will buy. But you don't deserve it if you use tactics like contrived scarcity.

I would go for a genuine value proposition like a free report to get the optin, gain trust with free email courses and attempt to convert after they get to know and trust you.

It sounds a bit boring but a) it works and b) it is not subject to degradation from overuse (if the value proposition is genuine and you don't spam your optins with endless drivel emails)

[Chris Thompson]

Frank - thanks for the reply. The product is fantastic, the value is awesome, and customers love the product. The opt-in (as I said) is primarily advertised as giving a free lesson. It also contains a series of tips, which are valuable content (I get tons of testimonials unsolicited), and they push the customer towards the sale. I use a P.S at the bottom to tell people I might raise the price and to get on my email list so that they won't be caught by a surprise raise in price. It's more ethical to me to do this rather than lie about a price increase "coming soon" when I haven't truly decided if I'll raise and when.

Scarcity works. I'm just looking for an ethical way to use it. Something I'm comfortable with. This seems like "it".

[Kevin-VirtualProfitCenter]

Originally Posted by Chris Thompson

3) The free lesson page also includes a special unadvertised time-sensitive discount. I have a CGI script that allows me to create a countdown timer, and set it to whatever I like. If they buy before the timer expires, they get the discount. When the timer expires, the price goes back up.

I would write something on the free-lesson page such as, "Thanks for trying out the free lesson. As a "thank you" for signing up to my email tips, I'm offering you an unadvertised discount on the entire course, but the discount is only valid for 24 hours. Remember, you still have a full 60 days to ask for a refund, so you have nothing to loose and everything to gain with this time-limited offer"

My feeling is that by introducing scarcity ONLY after they opt-in, I'll be more likely to positively surprise my leads because they were not expecting a discount to be offered to them.

I came up with this idea because I notice that my autoresponder series tends to convert subscribers usually right after the free lesson.

Thoughts?

Good idea as long as the limited time offer is one where they have enough time to make a decision based on the price point.

If you want some other ideas on ethical scarcity I put together a post here (though almost no one saw it--"Ethical Scarcity" just isn't a hot title I guess!):

Ethical Scarcity

[Chris Thompson]

Kevin - great thread you started. Thanks for sending the link. I am planning to use a real countdown timer. I already use it, but it isn't converting well. I think the reason is that I only send people to the discount offer with countdown timer after 30 days of them receiving my free lesson. I think 30 days is too long. So what I'm thinking of doing is putting the timer on the free lesson page so they get the sale offer on day 1.

The timer tracks them by IP address and cookie, so after the timer expires, a return to that same page will reveal a different set of HTML code, with no sale price.

I think that the combination of my free offer + an unadvertised discount, will help conversion. In this game we're always trying to raise conversion. Always.

[JordanFrancis]

I agree with Marc.

I know it's tough, but the danger with asking for opinions is that you might end up scrapping your own potentially-genius idea for someone else's. Your idea could take your sales up a level. Who is to say, but you after testing?

[Chris Thompson]

Thanks guys, I agree it's something to just "do" and measure the results. I'd implement it today but my top priority is a sales letter re-write and a new WP theme installation (flexsqueeze). This is a major change so I don't want to do more changes until I get a steady handle on what my new conversion rate is.