Your Guide To Master Fear Of Missing Out Marketing!

It might be astonishing to know that fear can be a great motivator for humans. It is an inherited feeling in humankind. People always fear from missing something out. They are not willing to miss out on a good deal or an opportunity. Missing opportunities might cause them feelings of regrets or being left out, which leads them to act quickly. As humans, we naturally want to be part of things and always to know what’s going on around us.

This is what psychologists call Fear of missing out. This phenomenon can be of great benefit to marketers and advertisers. Many marketers use the Fear of missing out in their campaign to boost their sales and profits. Indeed, It is a well-established concept in consumer behavior and is widely used in social media marketing context.

So, If you want to know more about this phenomenon and how to use it in your marketing strategy, continue reading this article!

First, let’s try to understand what the Fear Of Missing Out in marketing is?

Many researchers have tackled this topic and tried to define the concept of Fear Of Missing Out which is sometimes referred to as FOMO.

Speaking from a psychological aspect, it can be explained as the anxiety people feel when excluded from a new experience or social event. We can say that FOMO is characterized by the desire to always stay connected with what others are doing.

Applying this concept on marketing, it can be defined as J. Walter Thompson (JWT) Worldwide, FOMO mentioned:

“the uneasy and consuming feeling that you’re missing out, that your peers are doing, in the know about, and in possession of more or something better than you.” 

In addition, other researchers stated that Fear Of Missing out is a fear that other people might have better experiences and rewards, which encourages people to use certain products in order to not miss out on whatever others have. 

Actually, FOMO is considered a powerful consumer motivator that influences consumers’ purchase decisions. That’s why many advertisers acknowledge this fact and try to take advantage of it to capture the audience’s attention and encourage them to buy.

Here is what usually happens in the Fear of Missing out process:

When a shopper finds a discount that won’t last for long, he will experience anxiety and uncertainty. He would think, what is the right decision to make? Am I going to miss out on this deal if I don’t make a purchase now?, what will I miss? is it a good opportunity?!.

When this shopper starts thinking like that, this means he is experiencing a fear of missing out. Usually, this feeling will urge him to purchase (taking into account the efforts and incentives that you as an advertiser will give him to reinforce this feeling) so that he won’t feel any regrets in the future or that he lost a good opportunity.

Now, because statistics can give an insight into how important FOMO is for your marketing strategies, let’s dive into some numbers!

• 56% of people are afraid they’ll miss out if they don’t stay on top of what’s happening on social media.

• 69% of millennials experience FOMO. 

• 60% of millennials make reactive purchases because of FOMO

• According to a survey, 60% of people made purchases due to exclusive offers and discounts for fear of losing the opportunity more than their need to own such products.

• 48% of millennials have spent money they didn’t have to keep up with their friends.

• Forbes mentioned that If consumers are offered a 30% discount, 66% of millennials will switch brands. 

All these statistics can help you better understand the importance of integrating fear of missing out into your campaigns, as it will open many opportunities for you. In addition, it can increase your conversion rate and reduce your abandoned baskets, which is considered a huge problem for many advertisers; according to some statistics, 72% of all online shopping carts are abandoned.

The use of Fear of missing out marketing can be seen in many marketing efforts and e-commerce websites such as Noon, Booking.com and Shein. They usually tend to add stock availability to encourage consumers to buy the product before it is out of stock. This technique is an example of FOMO usage.

Still, how exactly can you use FOMO in your marketing strategies?

In this section, Affsquare will provide you with some ideas to integrate FOMO into your marketing!

Usually, the FOMO marketing strategy focuses its messages around the following criteria: 

1- Urgency

2- Scarcity

3- Missed Opportunity

These three criteria can be used through different methods:

1- Limited-time Offers:

You can promote discounts and offers that will last for a limited time. Also, you can use a countdown timer on your website or the offer landing page to create a feeling of urgency and scarcity. According to statistics, The presence of the timer alone made an 8.6% lift in conversions. Also, it was found that when consumers experience scarcity conditions, they often tend to have an urgency to buy.

2- Highlight Stock availability:

Highlighting the limited supply of a product can encourage consumers to take action. Humans are competitive by nature, so feel free to make use of this competitiveness by displaying product availability. This will show your consumers that other people are buying the same product as them, which will indicate its popularity. Also, this will stress the scarcity of the product, which will make it more valuable and create a sense of urgency as they will feel that they might miss out on this opportunity.

3- Social Proof:

Using social proofs can act as a booster shot. You need to pay attention to using Reviews and User Generated Content. It was found that 90% of consumers look at reviews before making a purchase, and customer reviews influence 67.3% of purchasing decisions. So adding consumer reviews to your website or Social media accounts can be beneficial because product reviews are 12X more trusted than product descriptions.

On top of that, You can incorporate UGC in your social media feeds or your e-commerce website because 92% of consumers trust word of mouth. And UGC can act as word of mouth. Also, it was found that over 60% of consumers seek out UGC before making a purchase and 84% of millennials stated that UGC has some influence on their buying decisions.

At the end of the day, using these testimonials will let consumers feel that they are missing out on something others have.

In addition, social proof can include notifications that show your shoppers what others are doing on the website. Showing how many people visited this page or purchased this product can create feelings of scarcity and competitiveness.

4- Using Affiliates to create Feeling of missing out:

You can use Influencers to create FOMO campaigns. According to a study conducted by (Dinh and Lee, 2021), It was found that consumers usually tend to engage in a social comparison process. They compare themselves with influencers and try to imitate them. The interaction between influencers and their followers promoted upward social comparisons, which motivated materialistic possession and the anxiety of missing out on trendy products.

It was proved that influencers using FOMO could positively impact consumers’ purchase intention and increase advertisers’ sales. 

Influencers are your perfect method for your FOMO marketing because consumers always look up to their favorite influencers. They fear that they might miss out on endorsed products if they don’t try or buy them, which will lead to missing important opportunities from their point of view. It was found that 60% of people purchase products within 24 hours of seeing an endorsed product by an influencer.

Another way of using affiliate marketing to implement FOMO can be through the previously mentioned methods. You can promote your limited-time offers and show that your products will be out of stock through different types of affiliates.

Keep in mind!

Everything has two sides. Although Fear of missing out has many benefits and advantages for your business, you can’t overlook its other side.

You need to be cautious when using FOMO in your marketing. Consider it a chemical experience in which every step should be calculated and taken with extra care. Why?

Because too much FOMO might backfire on you and give the opposite results. An Academic study found that If you push too much fear of missing out campaigns on social media, this might cause social media fatigue and change consumers’ attitudes to negative ones. Ultimately, this will lead to losing your consumers because of the intrusiveness and content overload.

Furthermore, you need to weigh your FOMO usage from an ethical perspective. As the core of FOMO marketing is to induce negative emotions in the consumers. That’s why you need to handle it wisely. Based on some statistics:

• 39 percent of people felt envy
• 30 percent felt jealousy
• 21 percent felt sad or disappointed

This shows that FOMO marketing sometimes creates a sense of unease for some people. That’s why you need to use it with the right intentions, As consumers now are more savvy and intelligent and can usually sense whenever you are trying to exploit or manipulate them.

Conclusion

Integrating Fear Of Missing Out into your marketing strategy can boost your sales and profits. Combining this with affiliate marketing may be the missing puzzle that will give you the perfect strategy. We at Affsquare understand precisely the importance of such a phenomenon. We always tend to know more about consumers in different industries and study them and their behavior to get accurate insights to help our advertisers and affiliates.

JOIN US NOW and benefit from our affiliates who implement Fear of missing out and much more in their strategies and BOOST YOUR SALES!