The Art of Creating Scarcity - How can we use this?

[DebbiePenner]

A Quick Tale of Ceramic Cats and Marketing Genius

"We're going to get up early in the morning and drive 3 hours to buy a ceramic cat."

Doctors in Japan are kept way too busy, and I was asking a young heart specialist and his wife what they were going to do on their precious Sunday off.

I was blown away as the explanation unfolded. It turns out there's a marketing genius and his wife who live far up in the mountains, and make simple ceramic cats for a living. The cats are a Japanese tradition called "manekineko." They have one paw up, beckoning, and are supposed to bring good luck.

The artist has come up with a cute story that makes the cats attractive. He claims he was meditating in the forest one day when he found a piece of wood that looked like a cat. He brought it home, and had several turns of good fortune. This led him to the decision to show his gratitude by spending his life making cats.

That's not enough to make my doctor friend rush out of the house at the first light of dawn, though. There's more. Much more.

The artist has designed five different styles of these silly cats, and makes just enough to sell only 20 a day. He opens the shop at 10 o'clock sharp each morning, and lets everyone who has arrived on time participate in a drawing. The lucky customer who drew number one is allowed to choose a cat first, and so it goes for the first 20 people. The rest are sent home empty handed.

The whole process takes less than an hour, at which time the marketing genius closes up the store and goes home to relax - and make more cats if he happens to be running low.

The result? Scores of anxious customers arrive every morning from all over Japan for a chance to get their lucky cat. If they don't succeed, they vow to try again another day. Many of them return over and over until they've collected all five varieties.

I bet if he had simply opened up shop in a tradition manner, he would have sat there all day waiting for a stray customer to wander in, and rejoiced when he had a five cat day. He would probably have had to settle for a much lower price, too.

Think about it. How many of this marketing genius' tactics could you apply to your internet marketing campaign? He used an interesting story, scarcity, superstition, a fun game, word of mouth, and an appeal to the collector in all of us.

I bet you're promoting something more useful than lucky ceramic cats, so you already have an advantage. The next step is to brainstorm ways to succeed more with less effort.

Let me know what you come up with!

[Star69]

Create a product that is very good at what it does, get testimonials from gurus and the like, create a lot of buzz about your launch day AND let everyone know there will only be ONE available for sale each day (well, maybe a few more than that). When it's gone, it's gone until tomorrow. And once 500 are sold it will be gone forever?

Limiting the number available definitely helps. (It would need to be a rather high dollar product though, such as MC 2.0...)

[MemberWing]

Thank you Debbie.
I love this story.
This is the perfect example of inspiration driven success. Inspiration is a guidance from the divine. I love it. It is almost impossible to emulate and duplicate it. And it is going to feed the guy to the rest of his life!

I am studying everything related to inspiration now - this is what we all need, not the tips and tricks of IM.

Thank you for your post!

Gleb

[Corwinnx]

I want one of those cats!

-Marcus

[MemberWing]

Come on - there are 5 different types!

[drmani]

GREAT example.

Here's another - a 'crazy' Australian dentist named Paddi Lund

http://www.PaddiLund.com



All success
Dr.Mani

[artwebster]

These lucky cats are sold on scarcity here, in Spain, also.

The most popular are gold coloured and the vertical front leg operates like an upside down pendulum, beckoning good luck to enter the home.

Usually they sell for €15 ($19) but one shop that sells them only ever has a broken one in stock (I think the shop keeper has simply removed the batteries) but can 'order one especially' but it will be much more expensive. Delivery from China is said to take three weeks. It probably does but they are delivered by the gross!

Obviously these cats have more than simple superstition going for them.

[jayden.fellze]

That is just right, you have to be clever at times and make something that puts excitement to your customers.

[DanGTD]

Regarding money, the art of creating scarcity is called "Paying Yourself First".

Take a percentage of your check that you are not allowed to spend, and use the built-up pressure to imagine new ways of increasing your income.

[FreeMe.com]

LOL... now that was funny.

I bet the guy making the cats is laughing all the way to the bank!

[DebbiePenner]

My trouble is whenever I get a killer idea, I get super busy for the next few days, and by the time I get time to implement it, I can't remember what was so powerful about it, and let it slide.

One day, I'll get the idea and the resources at the same time, and then watch out world!

[Devon Brown]

That's a fantastic story Debbie and definitely inspirational for today. I was just thinking of a new launching and this provided ideas for me!