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No one wants to feel left out. This is a reality that eCommerce marketers are now trying to take full advantage of. People always want to feel included, be part of everything that is happening around them, and benefit from every great opportunity that comes their way.
With these desires comes a certain type of fear, which is the fear of missing out on things and opportunities, also called FOMO. Today, eCommerce marketers are effectively using FOMO as a marketing strategy.
If you don’t know what FOMO marketing for eCommerce is, you better start reading this article so that you don’t miss out on the opportunity to use this great marketing strategy before your competitors do.
In this article, we will walk you through the meaning of FOMO marketing, the most relevant statistics, the top FOMO marketing techniques for eCommerce, and a few inspiring examples.
See? We just applied some FOMO to encourage you to read this article and benefit from it. Now let us tell you everything you need to know about FOMO marketing for eCommerce.
Table of Content:
- What is FOMO Marketing for eCommerce?
- Most important statistics related to FOMO Marketing.
- Top 10 FOMO Marketing techniques for eCommerce.
- Best 5 examples of FOMO Marketing for eCommerce.
What is FOMO Marketing for eCommerce?
The word FOMO stands for “Fear Of Missing Out”. It is a psychological phenomenon that is now being used as a marketing strategy to get more potential customers to convert, get better conversion rate optimization, drive more sales, and achieve more revenues.
Generally, FOMO can be defined as a mix of anxiety, apprehension, and regret triggered when you feel that you are missing out on a great opportunity or that someone else might be getting that opportunity before you.
Particularly in eCommerce, FOMO can be defined as a marketing tactic used to encourage customers to purchase your products or services by making them feel that if they do not take action, they will be losing something great. In other words, FOMO marketing for eCommerce makes online customers assume that others are having better experiences, which pushes them to take action.
Most important statistics related to FOMO Marketing
Here we gathered for you some of the most important and relevant statistics about FOMO marketing for eCommerce:
- 56% of people are afraid to stay away from social media because they believe it will cause them to miss out on important events, news, or updates (Optinmonster, 2022).
- 36% of people are scared of feeling like an outsider, which is one of the feelings that come with FOMO (Trustpulse, 2019).
- 45% of people who have FOMO cannot stay away from social media for more than 12 hours (Trustpulse, 2019).
- Almost 7 out of 10 millennials experience FOMO, which is equal to nearly 69% of the whole group (Optinmonster, 2022).
- A purchase is made by 60% of millennial customers within around 24 hours of experiencing FOMO (Optinmonster, 2022).
- 18 hours of millennials’ day is spent on social media, with 30% of that time spent watching user-generated content (Optinmonster, 2022).
- User-generated content is found to be more influential than brand photos and videos by 85% of customers (Optinmonster, 2022).
- Facebook contributes to FOMO with 72%, Instagram with 14%, Twitter with 11%, and Pinterest with 8% (Optinmonster, 2022).
It is important to know that these are not the only statistics available; however, these previously mentioned statistics are enough to show you the importance of FOMO marketing in today’s world and to encourage you to start using it for your eCommerce business.
Moreover, you can conclude three important things from these statistics:
- Social media is one of the best channels where you can apply FOMO marketing for your eCommerce store.
- Millennials are the best consumers you can target with your FOMO marketing.
- User-generated content is on the rise.
Top 10 FOMO Marketing techniques for eCommerce:
It can be said that FOMO marketing has three main psychological aspects:
- Urgency.
- Scarcity
- Social Proof
There are so many techniques that you can use to make the most out of FOMO marketing for your eCommerce business while focusing on these three important aspects. In this section, we brought you some of the most effective ones:
1- Leverage customer reviews
Customer reviews about the products or services of your eCommerce store are a great way for you to work on the social proof aspect of FOMO marketing and to increase the credibility of what you are selling.
Social proof is based on the idea that when people don’t know what kind of action they should take in a particular situation, they do not rely on their intuition for guidance as much as they seek that guidance from other people. This is where your role comes in:
- Provide incentives for old customers to leave reviews about your products or services.
- Make sure these reviews are visible to your new and potential customers.
Research shows that 95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase online and that if these reviews are positive, they can increase customer spending by 31% (Globe News Wire, 2022) and (Brightlocal, 2022). This stems from customers’ fear of missing out on what other customers enjoy.
2- Always show the number of items remaining in stock
This technique plays on the scarcity aspect of FOMO marketing. The fear of missing out is activated when customers find out that there is only one piece left of the item they are interested in, or when they see a limited number of items left in the inventory. This pushes them to take action immediately and purchase the item before the inventory runs out of it.
3- Provide free shipping and exclusive discounts for a limited time
Free shipping, exclusive discounts, and other limited-time offers create urgency, which is one of the three aspects of FOMO marketing.
You should know that shipping expenses, for example, are considered one of the main reasons customers abandon their shopping carts after adding items to them. Therefore, offering free shipping and constraining it with a specific time limit will make your customers realize the urgency of the situation, which will encourage them to take action as quickly as possible.
As for limited-time discounts, it is a no-brainer that every customer wants to take advantage of the opportunity to purchase their desired products or services at lower costs.
4- Use countdown timers
A great tool that highlights the sense of urgency is Countdown timers. You can use countdown timers across all your channels. For example, you can make them appear as pop-ups on your website pages or on your Instagram and Facebook stories.
This way, you can make your deadline as visible and as obvious to your customers as possible. It can also drive a lot of impulse purchases influenced by the urgency created by the countdown.
5- Take advantage of influencer marketing on social media
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective techniques you can use in your FOMO marketing. It means working with influencers to promote the products or services of your eCommerce brand. It is beneficial for several reasons:
- It represents a form of social proof and encourages customers to trust your brand.
- People usually follow influencers because they get inspired by them. Therefore, if an influencer is promoting a certain product or service, his followers may buy the same product or use the same service just so that they would not miss out on the great experience that this influencer is having.
One of the major marketing channels on which you can implement influencer marketing is Instagram.
Read this article to discover more about Instagram influencer marketing and how it works: How to Use Instagram Influencer Marketing For eCommerce (converted.in)
6- Create some competition between your customers
FOMO marketing for eCommerce is based on the fact that customers not only fear missing out on great opportunities, but they also fear that others might have these opportunities before them. This is why a little competition might stir up a sense of urgency and scarcity.
You can create this by setting up a contest. Your contests should have a clear goal, a target audience, and a specific valuable prize. Your customers will participate in these contests out of fear of letting your prize slip away or go to someone else.
7- Create live events
Online live events are one of the things that are time-bound. You can create monthly or weekly live events and fill them with fun activities, giveaways, and exclusive discounts and promotions. Your customers will attend these events because they will know that if they miss them, they will also be missing out on all the benefits that you offer exclusively during these events.
8- Benefit from user-generated content
As it appears from the statistics presented in this article, user-generated content is proven to be very influential these days. It represents a form of social proof and encourages more engagement around your brand.
Remember the contests we talked about earlier? Well, you can combine these two techniques together. You can create entire contests based on user-generated content. For example, you can encourage your customers to share their own experiences with your brand by posting pictures and videos about your products or services in exchange for prizes.
9- Use FOMO marketing across all your channels
The beauty of FOMO marketing strategies is that you can combine them with other marketing strategies and get amazing results. Just like we said earlier that you can combine FOMO marketing with Influencer marketing, you can also combine it with Omnichannel marketing.
In other words, you can spread your FOMO marketing across all channels, platforms, and devices available in a connected and synchronized way. Make sure you provide the same level of urgency, scarcity, and social proof everywhere your customers exist.
Moreover, you should take advantage of social media channels as much as you can because you have seen the statistics, and you are now aware of how important these channels are today. And make sure that your social media platforms and your online store are on the same page.
10- Integrate your FOMO marketing with your Email marketing
We already covered how you can use FOMO marketing with influencer marketing and omnichannel marketing. Now it is time to talk about how to integrate FOMO marketing with Email marketing.
There are so many ways you can implement FOMO marketing by utilizing emails:
- Use emails to tell your customers about flash sales, which are sales that offer a product or service at a significantly discounted rate for a limited and short period of time.
- Send emails to remind customers of seasonal sales that will end at the end of the season.
- Send abandoned cart emails to remind customers that the items they have added to their cart might become out of stock soon. You can also give them some exclusive discount for a limited time as a reward if they purchase the items in the cart.
- Send customers emails telling them about the opportunities that they have missed. For example, if you send an email saying that they have just missed a very exclusive discount, this will make them feel regretful and make them on constant high alert so that they don’t miss any more opportunities.
Best 5 examples of FOMO Marketing for eCommerce.
Let us show you a few inspiring examples of eCommerce businesses that are successfully implementing FOMO marketing.
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Amazon
Amazon focuses on the urgency and scarcity aspects of the FOMO by always showing the number of items left in stock and by adding phrases such as “order soon” to encourage customers to order immediately. Amazon also creates what it calls “Deal of the Day”, which are deals that last for only 24 hours.
Additionally, Amazon sometimes offers deals that are available only on the mobile app. By doing this, Amazon makes customers feel that they are missing out on great deals; hence, they download the application, which eventually benefits the omnichannel strategy of the eCommerce business.
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True Classic
In addition to offering limited-time sales and discounts, True Classic, an eCommerce brand that sells T-shirts, focuses on another FOMO marketing technique. It uses cart abandonment emails. For example, they send emails saying:
“ If you purchase the items in your cart today, you will get a discount of 20%”
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Sephora
Sephora’s use of FOMO marketing appears very clearly in the way it manages its loyalty programs. The members of Sephora’s loyalty programs have access to exclusive products and offers that non-members do not have access to. By doing this, Sephora makes the non-members feel that they are missing out on all the amazing deals that only exist in the loyalty programs; which eventually encourages them to subscribe and become members.
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Banana Republic
Banana Republic is an eCommerce clothing business that leverages FOMO marketing by offering special discounts to customers on their first purchase. This way, it manages to get a lot of website visitors to convert because an exclusive discount on their first transaction is not something they would want to miss.
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Wayfair
Wayfair is an American eCommerce store that sells furniture and home goods. It uses one of the booming FOMO marketing techniques we discussed earlier, which is user-generated content.
Wayfair leverages user-generated content by encouraging its customers to show their personal experiences with the brand by posting images of the products using the hashtag #wayfairathome. By doing this, Wayfair spreads awareness and reinforces social proof, which reflects positively on the results of its FOMO marketing.
Final Thoughts:
Throughout the past few years, FOMO marketing has proven itself to be very effective in increasing conversions and sales. You can start applying FOMO marketing for your eCommerce business by implementing the previously mentioned techniques. However, these techniques would be so much easier to implement using an automation tool, which is what Convertedin offers you.
Using Convertedin, you can easily:
- Create personalized emails for your customers to tell them about your flash sales, season sales, limited-time discounts, promotions, or even special offers to get them to reclaim abandoned carts.
- Segment your target audience, which will help you manage your FOMO marketing techniques and direct them in a better way.
- Reinforce your FOMO marketing by reaching customers across different channels through building and automating personalized ads.
What are you waiting for? Book your Demo now and enjoy this marketing automation system that will help you maximize your benefit from FOMO marketing.
