HWW #41 - Fuzz Scarcity
Chris “Mr. Moneyfingers” Haddad here with the June, 2008 edition of *your* Hard Working Words Newsletter.
I’m just back in HWW central after a long (and lovely) week out on the East Coast where I gorged on expensive Manhattan cuisine, got baked and burned while crossing the Brooklyn bridge and had the supreme (and supremely fun . . . I recommend it) honor of being the officiant at my good friend Mason Rabinowitz’s wedding to the absolutely *awesome* Cari Strand.
All of which has *nothing* to do with today’s brief (but powerful) topic. A little thing I like to call “Fuzzy Scarcity.”
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Fuzzy Scarcity
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If you’ve been studying marketing for any length of time you already know that *scarcity* is one of the most whoppingly powerful tools you can use to get your prospects to actually reach into their pockets and buy your stuff.
In fact, it’s so powerful that Robert Cialdini lists it as the 5th and final “Weapon of Influence” in his awesome book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” ( If you haven’t already, you really should read it) . . .
And pretty much every copywriting book or course out there *demands* that you include a level of scarcity in your sales letter or ad in order to tickle the back of your prospect’s brain, kill the “I’ll think about it” impulse, spur immediate action and justify a higher price.
Now, most of the time including a sales-popping level of scarcity in your promotion is pretty easy . . .
If you’re selling a widget, you’ve generally only got so many on hand . . .
If you’re selling a seminar, there really are only so many seats you can fit in a room . . .
And if you’re selling a service, there really *is* a limit on how many clients you can handle at any given time.
But what do you do if (as in the case when you’re selling a digital product like an ebook, an audio recording or a downloadable video) what you’ve got is essentially *unlimited?*
Well, that’s when you bring in what I like to call . . . Fuzzy Scarcity.
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What The Heck Is “Fuzzy Scarcity?”
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Fuzzy scarcity is where you create doubt and turbulence in your prospect’s mind by saying that while this fantastic deal at this fantastic price and with these mind-breaking bonuses *is* available right now . . . it *might* not be tomorrow.
You *might* decide to raise the price (maybe even *double* it) . . .
You *might* decide that that super-awesome “deal maker” bonus is just too damned cool . . .
Or you even *might* decide to take the whole shebang off the market forever after you make a certain number of sales just because that’s what you want to do . . .
The key here, of course, is to keep the terms of your scarcity “Fuzzy” and vaguely defined . . . and to make sure that you never, ever (ever) lie. (There’s a special, and rather well populated, corner of hell reserved for marketers who lie about this sort of stuff.)
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Need an example?
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Here’s some “riffing” copy that I came up with while I was at John Carlton’s “17 Points Of Copywriting Success” workshop a couple of months back. (Tangentially, that conference is where the whole “fuzzy scarcity” concept stopped being “fuzzy” and solidified nicely in my mind.)
This is for an ebook I’m working on called “The Ultimate Best Man Speech” and this copy will appear pretty far down the sales letter . . .
“Hey, listen . . . if you’ve read this far down this letter it shows me that you’re serious about learning how to do this right. . . and about giving a really kick ass best man speech at your buddy’s wedding.
And, if this is right for you, I want to make sure you get your hands on this info and put it into action.
But here’s the deal.
My friends who have gone through the “Ultimate Best Man Speech Guide” think I’m kind of a moron. They think I’ve gotten way too excited . . .
With the audio recordings, the “plug and play” wedding speech examples, the instant email access to me and all the other awesome bonuses, they think I’ve gone overboard.
And I’m pretty sure that I’m going to either cut this package WAYYYY down, or I’m going to basically double the price.
Not sure.
But I’m thinking about it.
So if you want to get the “Sweetheart deal” you should grab it now.”
Get it?
Now, of course, for Fuzzy Scarcity to work, you first have to convince your prospect that they actually *want* what you’ve got to sell . . . but once you do even just a *hint* that you might take it away from them (or that they might get an “unfair” deal that nobody else is going to get) will have them buying like crazy.
P.S. Obviously there’s a whole lot more to say on this topic ranging from how to use bonuses to create scarcity to the fact that for a certain segment of the market scarcity is actually a feature (why the heck do you think people buy diamonds?) but that’s all way beyond the scope of this brief article.
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And that’s that.
Before I go, just a quick tip of the hat to the late, great George Carlin. I doubt he had much love for Copywriters or marketers, but damn that man knew language.
Remember, you can always leave a comment on the blog version of this article on the HWW Blog: http://www.haddadink.com/blog
See you in the funny papers.
Chris
