6 Potent Approaches To Weaving Scarcity Through Your Sales System

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Daniel Nic

Updated on

Employing the concept of scarcity represents a highly potent method to effectively promote your digital educational programs.

This strategy leverages the psychological concept known as Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), which, in straightforward terms, involves informing your audience that the current proposition is restricted and such a chance might not arise again.

Currently, marketing approaches that utilize scarcity can generally be sorted into two primary classifications: those constrained by Time (involving a specific cutoff) and those restricted by Quantity.

You have likely encountered both varieties of scarcity-driven marketing tactics previously, given their widespread application by enterprises of every scale across nearly all sectors:

Amazon features daily promotions that are accessible for a restricted duration.
Online travel agencies indicate the remaining availability of accommodations for a specific hotel.
The company OnePlus initially permitted purchases of its mobile devices exclusively via an invitation system, achieving over a million units sold using this tactic.
Various forms of stock-reduction sales events clearly illustrate this principle.

These represent merely a handful of illustrations, and one can discover hundreds of similar instances on any given day.

Let us now delve into the reasons for the remarkable effectiveness of scarcity-based marketing and explore how you can integrate it within your sales processes.

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What Makes Scarcity Marketing Effective

Scarcity-based marketing tactics leverage a fundamental aspect of human psychology – items perceived as rare or uniquely available are typically desired and valued much more highly than those that are readily obtainable.

The core of scarcity marketing lies in conveying a clear message that the product under consideration is in limited supply, and if one wishes to acquire it, immediate action is necessary! When this message is communicated effectively, scarcity proves successful and can markedly improve sales conversion rates.

Scarcity marketing is effective because we, as humans, naturally assign greater worth to things that are uncommon or restricted in availability.

This principle is equally applicable to digital educational programs and other online offerings. Nevertheless, the precise approach will vary depending on the characteristics of your product, the structure of your sales process, your specific target audience, your pricing model, and other factors.

Now, let’s explore the six most potent scarcity marketing methods that are highly effective for online sales and discuss how you can implement these within your own sales funnel:

1. Establish A Specific Enrolment Period For Your Digital Course

Temporarily restricting access is among the most widely adopted scarcity marketing strategies, frequently employed by numerous online educators for their primary educational offerings.

Under this model, registration for an educational program commences on a specific date, and then access is concluded after a predetermined number of days.

Should an individual be unable to register for the course within this designated timeframe, they will need to await the subsequent offering. Typically, there is—or, more accurately, there ought to be—an interval of no less than one month between consecutive course openings.

Bryan Harris from VideoFruit.com effectively utilizes this approach for his “Get 10,000 Subscribers” program. If one attempts to register for this program after the official enrolment period has concluded, they are directed to a specific webpage prompting them to enlist on a waiting list for future opportunities.

This particular method proves highly effective due to several key factors:

A restricted timeframe combined with the understanding that they must endure a wait of several months compels individuals to proceed.
This strategy imparts a perception of uniqueness and special access to your offering for the participants.
Maintaining a waiting list additionally ensures you possess a receptive group for your subsequent program introduction.

My suggestion is to employ this technique for high-value, premium offerings that command a significant investment. Educational programs priced above $500 would benefit from integrating such a strategy within their sales framework.

Nevertheless, when utilizing this method, careful consideration of the interval between successive offerings is crucial; initiating launches, for instance, twice within a single month, might be perceived more as a promotional maneuver than a genuine opportunity.

Regarding the practical application of this method, the process is quite uncomplicated. Should you utilize a platform such as ClickFunnels or Leadpages for constructing your promotional web pages, you can effortlessly incorporate a countdown mechanism that will automatically reroute your sales information page to a subscription page once the specified time limit is reached.

In the event your landing page creation tool does not support automatic redirection of your sales page, you can manually take out the ‘Purchase Now’ activators from your sales page and substitute them with a form for opting in.

2. Restrict The Quantity Of Available Course Placements

An additional widely recognized scarcity marketing tactic is to cap the total number of available enrollments for the educational program.

The fundamental concept here is to clearly communicate that significant interest exists for this course from many other individuals, and if you do not take swift action, you risk losing the chance to participate.

Noah Kagan from AppSumo employs this method for his ‘How To Make A $1,000 A Month Business’ course. As you can observe, there are merely ‘182’ places still available for the course, after which access for new enrollments will be discontinued.

Now, you have the option to employ this as a distinct tactic, or alternatively, you can integrate it with the strategy of time-constrained enrollment.

In the second instance, access to the course concludes either when the specified deadline arrives or when every available place has been claimed. This approach is remarkably effective as it introduces an intensified feeling of special availability and, consequently, a greater sense of urgency for your educational programs.

I would suggest applying this particular method alongside the time-limited enrollment, because merely restricting the quantity of available places might not prove effective for brands that are not as widely recognized.

It is fairly simple to put this kind of scarcity into practice. Once all the available positions are taken, you can easily remove the ‘Purchase Now’ button from your sales page and instead include a subscription form for individuals to join the waiting list.

What presents a greater difficulty is the implementation of a dynamically updated count of remaining spots on the sales page. A number of people accomplish this manually, refreshing the figure for available spots at predetermined intervals, for example, every few hours.

3. Provide An Early Registration Price Break For A Select Group

With this approach, a special introductory price is extended to a select group of purchasers who act promptly, essentially meaning you are capping the number of course enrollments available at this specific reduced rate.

You have the option to either conclude enrollments or keep them open once this initial discounted offer period concludes.

This method is strongly advised for debuting new educational programs, as it assists you in assessing market interest, collecting valuable insights, and generating additional excitement surrounding your fresh offering.

Let’s consider an illustration of how this preferential pricing is applied. Imagine you are introducing a new educational program designed to be continuously available (meaning enrollment will always be accessible).

You could provide a certain percentage reduction to the initial ‘n’ number of purchasers, thereby making their swift decision more advantageous.

This particular approach can additionally serve to evaluate the interest in your educational program and to accumulate participant insights. You might present your course (prior to its formal introduction) to a specific quantity of individuals at a certain percentage off, and from their reaction, you can ascertain the level of demand for your program.

It’s important to carefully determine ‘n’ – the quantity of individuals – ensuring it aligns with your financial objectives and is perceived by your audience as a genuinely limited opportunity (it should not be excessively large or overly small).

Regarding the practical implementation of this method, it is relatively uncomplicated, although it might necessitate some additional effort on your part.

Should you be utilizing a system that does not permit the creation of restricted-use promotional codes, you would need to develop two distinct sales pages – one featuring the reduced price and another displaying the standard price. Subsequently, you would need to re-route the page after ‘n’ number of customers have purchased the course at the special rate.

However if you are employing a platform like Teachable, you can readily generate a promotional code and restrict its application to ‘n’ number of customers. Once this promotional code attains its maximum usage, the sales page will then display the standard price instead of the reduced one.

You also have the option to present varied levels of this introductory pricing – for instance, an exceptional initial discount of 50% for the first 50 participants and a subsequent introductory discount of 25% for the following 100 participants.

An alternative variation of this type of approach involves presenting an introductory discount valid until a specific date, and the manner in which you choose to integrate this into your sales plan is entirely your decision.

4. Offer A Continuous Discount To Fresh Subscribers

This represents an exceptionally potent and broadly applicable scarcity marketing technique. Here, an individual receives a distinct proposition (for instance, a 50% reduction on the course fee), and this proposition is activated by a specific user behavior (such as subscribing to an email newsletter).

This special proposition subsequently stays valid for a defined duration, following which the individual no longer has access to that particular discount level.

A truly crucial element of this particular approach is its perpetually available nature – signifying that an identical proposition is extended to each person, regardless of the specific time they choose to subscribe to the email communications.

Continuously available discount propositions have gained considerable traction over the past few years, and several factors contribute to this growing preference:

This represents a fully automated, ‘deploy and operate independently’ type of methodology, and consequently, it offers substantial capacity for expansion.
This enables your educational program to remain perpetually accessible, signifying that registration is continuously available, and for the participants, this translates to the ability to purchase and engage with the course at their convenience.
Even though the educational program is consistently open for registration, singular discount propositions assist in creating a feeling of immediacy and encourage individuals to move forward with a decision.

Individuals engaged in selling digital educational programs or any similar perpetually available online offerings can utilize these continuously available discount propositions to enhance their sales conversion figures. Nevertheless, the critical factor is the establishment of authentic, believable limited availability.

Putting a scarcity mechanism of this nature into operation is not entirely simple, and you will require a specialized instrument such as Deadline Funnel to effectively manage its execution.

You can utilize Deadline Funnel to construct a continuously operating sales system for your courses, and also to incorporate countdown features on your sales pages and within your emails. A key advantage is its broad compatibility, allowing use with WordPress, Teachable/Thinkific, ClickFunnels, or virtually any other landing page creation tool.

Should you be searching for a comprehensive walkthrough on integrating a continuously available discount proposition into your sales system, you can consult this in-depth instructional resource.

5. Present A Continuous Upsell Opportunity For New Clients

This represents another illustration of a perpetually available scarcity marketing method. However, distinct from ongoing offers for recent subscribers, this specific kind of proposition is designed to enhance your earnings from individuals who have previously made purchases from your business.

Allow me to clarify by presenting a case example involving a customer whom I assisted in implementing a comparable approach. Nathan, associated with StationX, markets digital cybersecurity educational programs through his Teachable-based online institution.

Immediately after someone completes a course purchase at his institution, the learner is provided with a unique price reduction opportunity to enhance their initial acquisition.

The singular price reduction proposition is accessible to the client for merely the subsequent 48 hours, beyond which there is no alternative method for the client to acquire the package at this particular cost.

Following this, Nathan maintains communication with the client through email correspondence, and as a direct result of this approach, Nathan observed an increase in the average expenditure per client from approximately $25 to nearly $40.

I suggest this type of perpetually available scarcity method to any individual who possesses an additional product or service to offer and desires to boost the average income generated from their clientele.

Regarding the practical application of this method, it closely resembles that of ongoing discount propositions for new subscribers, and once more, you will require Deadline Funnel to carry it out effectively.

EXPERT ADVICE: These were merely two illustrations of perpetually available scarcity marketing methods. The ways in which you can apply this are constrained solely by your creative thinking. For instance, you could initiate ongoing offers when a user successfully finishes a specific course, or perhaps even when they refrain from making a purchase during a promotional sequence (as a reduced-price alternative), and so forth.

6. Provide Swift Action Incentives To Your Clientele

Typically, when you initiate a new product introduction or conduct any type of promotional effort (including continuously running promotions), a significant portion of the sales tends to occur as the closing date approaches.

Presenting incentives for prompt decisions can assist in distributing these sales somewhat more uniformly across the entire duration of the promotional period.

You may have participated in an online seminar where the host provided special incentives to individuals who registered for the educational program while the seminar was still in progress.

Alternatively, you might have observed someone extending special incentives to all who register for the educational program within the initial 48-hour window.

These particular approaches encourage individuals to make an immediate decision rather than waiting until the deadline is near, thereby providing an additional uplift to your sales figures.

Bryan Harris from videofruit.com employs this method to stimulate quick decisions for his Get 10,000 Subscribers program.

If you are developing a standard incentive for prompt action, you can straightforwardly distribute access links (which, naturally, will become inactive after a specified duration) for the incentives to those individuals who qualify for them.

Establishing continuously available incentives for prompt action is somewhat more complex and will, once again, necessitate the utilization of a specialized instrument such as Deadline Funnel.

Concluding Remarks

The principle of scarcity is indeed effective and can substantially elevate your digital program sales achievements. You ought to seriously evaluate integrating scarcity within your marketing approach if you market digital educational programs via your personal web platform.

Nevertheless, when integrating scarcity within your sales methodology, it is important to remember a few key points:

Avoid attempting to manufacture artificial limitations. This action could inflict lasting harm upon your enterprise and its public image.
Limited availability strategies are effective only when you possess an established group to present them. If you are newly venturing into digital programs, prioritize cultivating your viewership initially.
Employ appropriate limited-time tactics that align well with your specific offering and your intended participants.

Should you possess any inquiries or particular instances of scarcity you’ve observed or implemented, kindly share them with us by posting a remark underneath!

About The Author

Daniel Nic

Daniel NicFounder, SellingOnliceCoursesGuide.comis an entrepreneur and digital education specialist who founded sellingonlinecoursesguide.com, a platform dedicated to helping creators and educators successfully navigate the online course marketplace. Through his website, he shares insights and strategies for developing, marketing, and monetizing online educational content. His work focuses on empowering course creators to build sustainable online businesses while effectively sharing their knowledge with students worldwide.