Scarcity and FOMO in B2B

Thomas Krol — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:47:52 +0000

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

Wake up. Get ready. Rush kids out the door. Rush to work. Rush to your first meeting. It’s a daily routine for many. Throw in a seasonal time change, and it makes for a frantic Monday!

How do we break the chain of this routine and actually get stuff done? Hopefully, this email gives you a few minutes every week to think bigger picture and get your head above the daily scheduling tyranny – or at the very least, some interesting tunes and a couple of deep thoughts!

Give this song by Fleetwood Mac a listen as we see what the experts are saying this week…

FOMO and Demand

It’s not just our time that’s in high demand. Reservations at a hot restaurant, limited edition memorabilia, concert tickets – it’s no secret that scarcity marketing works wonders for businesses. People always have a fear of missing out, and it’s what motivates them to act. Thanks to this FOMO, scarcity marketing gets to thrive.

But how to decide who gets these items?

One attractive option is “first-come-first-served.” It feels fair. The theory is that people who really want what you have will spend (waste) time in line to show their commitment. But of course, this is a tax, and an uneven one at that, since some people value their time more than others.

Another is to simply auction off the scarce items. The good news is that the value of the scarce item won’t be squandered on time wasting, but goes to the company. This might feel unfair, as it rewards people with more assets, as so many things do.

The third (fairest?) method is to have a lottery. Invite your best customers or charge a commitment fee, and then randomly allocate the loot. The good news is that you won’t alienate customers who feel as though it’s their fault that they didn’t wait in line long enough, or spend enough.

Each decision has effects. And it’s up to the producer to break the silence and decide which emotions they want to be responsible for creating. How do you leverage scarcity at your organization – and what emotions does this build within your customers?

Swift Scarcity

Interested in some tickets to Taylor Swift?

You’ve probably heard all the recent fuss about ticketing – but it seems that tickets are actually in abundance! Not cheap, but you can definitely get them. So what gives?

Of course, you won’t find these tickets on Ticketmaster – you’ll need to purchase from a third-party site. But wait… TICKETMASTER IS ALSO A RESALE SITE! That’s right: with most shows, though the primary sale may be over, you can still post available seats, as long as they’re no cheaper than the original price.

So why can’t you buy Taylor Swift tickets on Ticketmaster? According to Bob Lefsetz, it’s because SHE doesn’t want you to! Taylor is in control of ticketing, but Ticketmaster is the one that takes the heat.

With all these ticketing “fiascos,” what we really have is just a small number of fans caught up in the hysteria, complaining. And they’re vocal about it, so the rest of us take notice, even if we still have no intention of going. So what is the true demand for Taylor Swift? If tickets were sold market by market, we might have found out it was less than perceived. Or maybe not. But by selling all the tickets at once, the question never came up!

It’s a complicated business, with a lot of players running in the shadows of their own kind of scarcity marketing.

And as always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Scarcity and FOMO in B2B appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Product-Led Growth: Don’t Let Misconceptions Lead You Astray

Thomas Krol — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 14:01:44 +0000

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

There’s a lot of talk right now about scarcity marketing – the idea of limiting the supply of a product, whether it be through restricting availability to a certain time frame or decreasing production – often both. The principle is sound – we all want what we can’t have and love to flaunt when we have something others don’t – a little wouldn’t do, so the little gets more and more.

Give this song by Guns N’ Roses a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week…

Netflix no longer bingeing

You’ve probably heard the rumours that Netflix is going to abandon its ‘binge’ model. Is that not a concept that is ingrained in the product itself? Netflix was an alternative to HBO, which in turn was an alternative to cable networks. And binge-watching became a huge part of its value to its customers! Now I get up around whenever… when bingeing Breaking Bad on Netflix, I just couldn’t stop watching that ‘next episode’!

Many highlight Netflix as a great example of a PLG strategy that has been extremely successful – a great example of how to react flexibly and in a dynamic manner to the changing conditions generated by the market.

But abandoning the binge model seems to be contrary to this – potentially ignoring its customers in search of an ever-growing bottom line. (This is how the music business got in trouble!) Perhaps this is a misguided attempt at scarcity marketing, rationing out shows an episode at a time.

According to Bob Lefsetz, the tail is now wagging the dog. Investors are running the streaming companies, and Netflix should’ve known better and may need to kick them on down the line. Producing less content for more money AND bringing in ads, all while charging MORE, Netflix is starting to resemble the TV networks of yore that it was meant to make obsolete.

Fallacies of Product-Led Growth

Matt Papertsian is one of my favourite analysts at Forrester… and he’s got a great balanced take on PLG. To ensure the revenue engine stays aligned and focused on the customer, the B2B CMO has a huge role to play in addressing these fallacies of PLG:

Product-led growth puts the product first.
Companies must take an all-or-nothing approach.
Product-led growth is new!
The product has been ignored in favor of marketing and sales.
The product alone can scale the company.
Marketing is no longer needed at the top of the funnel.
Operationalizing the insights gleaned from user data is easier with a PLG strategy.

By dispelling these seven product-led growth fallacies, CMOs can use the skills unique to marketing to help the company scale for growth. Maybe our friends at Netflix should check this out as they keep tryin’ ta get better than before…

I might get burnt, but you’ll get to laugh live!

Outbound Isn’t Dead (You Just Suck At It) – that’s my session title! I’ll be speaking at breadcrumb.io’s Hot Takes Live online event on Sept. 27. But this one is meant to be different. They’ve gathered 30 of the top SaaS leaders to dish out hot takes and harsh truths on product-led growth, RevOps, marketing, and sales.

Trendy marketing and sales strategies emerge seemingly every day, but do they really live up to the hype? Don’t miss your opportunity to see whether I crash and burn or fight back the flames. It’s free, and you can register here.

I’ve been knockin’ and won’t leave you alone… So as always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!