How Do You Respond To Scarcity, Countdown Timers Etc.?

Just about every product launch we see these days has either a countdown timer on it or a limited number of copies or places available or some form of urgency to act now.

I’m a member of a very active and interesting Facebook group run by Dennis Becker where he asked this question today and so far everyone has responded that they no longer respond to any type of scarcity marketing, whatever the reasoning behind it.

I’ve been of the view for a long time now that this type of marketing had somehow brainwashed people into not responding to a marketing piece unless it has some sort of urgency, scarcity or other hyped up marketing wrapped around it. I have certainly noticed that sometimes I get a better response to something that has elements of this type of marketing to it than I have to a straightforward marketing piece where I’m just recommending a product or service that I think will help my subscribers. If that were really the case generally it would be a sad state of affairs indeed.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, as my friends on the Facebook group seem to indicate, people are responding less to this type of marketing these days.

How do you feel? Do you click away at the first sign of scarcity? Do you need the push that scarcity/urgency elements give you?

Let us all know what you think. Post a comment below. The results could be very useful to all of us in our on-going marketing online.

Trevor