June 2002

Copywriting Technique
Creating Scarcity
by Tom Antion

Hmmmmm. Creating scarcity. If a product or service is so good it seems like scarcity should create itself shouldn't it? Well not in copywriting and not in sales. Yes, it can happen sometimes, but a good copywriter can create it with specific words and situations.

Let's consider some situations where there is true scarcity and then we'll look at some situations where we create scarcity.

TRUE SCARCITY
Here are some examples:

• Beatles reunion concert

• Van Gogh paintings

• Brains in the corporate world (especially my list management company)

CREATED SCARCITY

• Everything else

Just think about it. How much do you think tickets for the Beatles concert would be? $500.00 .. . . sure if you want to be in a remote  auditorium to watch a simulcast and you don't mind having lousy seats. $1,000.00,  . . . $5,000.00 . . ..  Who knows how high it would go. Scarcity is the reason.

It's the same thing with rare paintings, artwork, rare coins, etc.

Most of the copy you see written regarding scarcity has been created.

• "Our allotment was only 12 of this model,"

• "Only three to a customer,"

• "Only 12 left," are all generated and concocted scarcity techniques.

They just happened to forget to say the allotment was for this week and next week they get 12 more. And why is there "Only three to a customer?" Is it because the seller is only worried about being fair? There are "Only 5 left." This conveniently omits the fact that the seller can order more any time.

I'm not saying any of the above statements are untruthful or unethical (sometimes they are). The statements are simply appealing to basic human nature. When something is scarce, people want it more, they buy it faster and pay more for it. If you want people buying more of your stuff faster and paying a high price for it, then you may want to implement scarcity into your business model and most definitely into your copy.

Work some phrases like this into your copy:

• We only have space for 12 participants

• These are the last 5 available.

• We only have 2 available dates open in June

• I can only take on two new consulting clients

• We have only 4 appointments left

• Bridge line space is limited.

DON'T LIE

I am not suggesting you lie. I'm suggesting that actually limiting your availability can get you a much higher price for your products and services and make them even more in demand.

Next month we'll mix a little scarcity in with "urgency" to really slamdunk the people that read your copy.  . . .Now of course I can only sell 12,000 more memberships to this website before it reaches capacity, so don't unsubscribe or you probably won't be able to get back in for any amount of money. . . .  Yeah right! hahahahahahhaha