Conversion
Time Scarcity
We're more likely to act if the clock is ticking…
90 people were asked to solve 50 puzzles in either 10 or 40 minutes. A time-saving notification stating that “This question isn’t worth any points. Press A to skip” would pop up for half the puzzles.
Results showed that the time-scarce group ironically were more likely to miss the time-saving notifications due to their heightened focus on task completion.
Time Scarcity increases conversion under a few conditions
Make sure your use of it is on-brand, authentic and not overly-aggressive to avoid harming long-term trust and loyalty.
A big clock with red flashing text may boost sales in the short-term but risks damaging brand perceptions in the longer term and will lead to Reactance in the more behaviorally-aware and in more mature markets with stronger competition.
Use time windows for excitement.
Particularly for experiments with new ideas or for seasonal Limited Editions. Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappucino was on sale for 5 days only. It sold out in just 3 and generated 160,000 Instagram posts.
Develop novel ways of saving people time.
People who spend money on time-saving purchases report greater life satisfaction (Whillans et al, 2017).
Amazon and Sainsbury’s are exploring no-queue, no-till shopping. Just scan on the app and leave. How can you free up even a few minutes of our most precious commodity?
Conversion
Scarcity
We value things more when they’re in limited supply
There’s a reason this Nugget is #1 in our library.
The concept of Scarcity lies at the core of economics, and greatly influences perceptions of value, status and our competitive desire to attain certain items over others.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the more poorly-applied concepts out there, along with Defaults and Loss Aversion.
Mastering quantity scarcity
An airline stating that there's
“Only 3 seats left” may well be using accurate data and not simply using faux-scarcity to artificially suggest that there's less supply of seats than there actually is.
However, from the user's perspective, the buildup of mistrust around the use of scarcity means cynicism is higher, so one must be careful with information presented.
Similarly, hotel websites telling you that “30 other people are looking at this item” engineer stress to compel people into action without changing supply yet highlighting demand in a manipulative way.
Instead, use quantity scarcity to focus on the craft and high quality of what you're selling.
Make your scarcity feel valuable, not stressful.
Mastering time scarcity
Ensure that any time restriction is highlighted primarily for the purpose of maintaining the quality of your product or service, and not merely to cause stress that could be avoided.
As an example, use time scarcity to launch unique or experimental products that are only available within a particular window (say a week, month or season).
This use of time scarcity is positive and encourages brand exploration, used creatively to highlight your unique value.
There’s a reason this Nugget is #1 in our library.
The concept of Scarcity lies at the core of economics, and greatly influences perceptions of value, status and our competitive desire to attain certain items over others.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the more poorly-applied concepts out there, along with Defaults and Loss Aversion.
Mastering quantity scarcity
An airline stating that there's
“Only 3 seats left” may well be using accurate data and not simply using faux-scarcity to artificially suggest that there's less supply of seats than there actually is.
However, from the user's perspective, the buildup of mistrust around the use of scarcity means cynicism is higher, so one must be careful with information presented.
Similarly, hotel websites telling you that “30 other people are looking at this item” engineer stress to compel people into action without changing supply yet highlighting demand in a manipulative way.
Instead, use quantity scarcity to focus on the craft and high quality of what you're selling.
Make your scarcity feel valuable, not stressful.
Mastering time scarcity
Ensure that any time restriction is highlighted primarily for the purpose of maintaining the quality of your product or service, and not merely to cause stress that could be avoided.
As an example, use time scarcity to launch unique or experimental products that are only available within a particular window (say a week, month or season).
This use of time scarcity is positive and encourages brand exploration, used creatively to highlight your unique value.
146 people were asked to rate identical cookies that were either presented in a jar as scarce or in abundance. They were then asked how likely they would be to want to eat a further cookie.
When scarce, the cookies were rated as more desirable and having a higher value. They were also seen as more valuable when going from an abundant state to scarce than when always scarce.
Scarcity comes in 4 flavors:
Quantity, Time, Access & Rarity.
Control quantity.
To increase perceived value of your product, release it in smaller and diminishing quantities, emphasizing its finite nature.
Restrict time.
When the clock is ticking and we’re overwhelmed, we take mental shortcuts that speed up decision-making.
Motivate customers by emphasizing the limited time remaining in which to act.
Limit access.
Restricting access to your products or services will increase desire and perceived value. Do this selectively for certain features and / or customer segments.
For instance, you might want to design valuable, unique rewards that are only unlocked for very special efforts on the part of the customer.
Conversion
Salience
Our choices are determined by the information we're shown
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
Over 10 days, millions of people using online ticket marketplace Stubhub were put into two groups, where 15% ticket fees were either made salient up front during ticket browsing, or hidden until checkout.
Results found that for those with delayed salience of the fee, revenue increased by 21%, with a quarter of this due to higher priced tickets being bought.
What is seen is what is done
Surfacing key information in a timely fashion can prompt us to do more of what we aspire to. For instance, Amazon have redesigned their Kindle so that when it's not in use, the screensaver becomes the cover of the book you're currently reading. This acts as a salient reminder to read as one notices the Kindle throughout the day. We can use the same approach to boost healthy eating, having a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table over one filled with salty cashews. What do you want users to do more of? How do you want them to feel? What unique or delightful features can you surface that will help inspire action and make Tiny Habits that much more likely to form?
More knowledge isn't necessarily better
There's a trade-off between what's presented to us now and making good decisions for our future. For instance, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase choose to omit the % gained or lost from one's investments. Research shows that if they instead showed this, people may incorrectly sell coins that have increased in value, while keeping coins that have dropped in value, known as the Disposition Effect.
Differentiate by removing information
Whereas knowledge can be power, it can also demotivate. For example, weight loss scales Shapa does away with the number telling you how much you weigh, instead providing 5 colour bands denoting averaged performance. Omitting the number shifts us away from short term fluctuations in weight that can lead to feelings of failure causing us to give up. What information or options could you hide that could otherwise lead users to short term or harmful outcomes? What can you remove that could confuse or overwhelm?
Delayed salience can trigger shock
Also consider the ethical implications of hiding key information, as in the study above. In this case, any reactance felt will be relative to the proportion of the extra fees incurred, customer expectations, industry norms and how frequent the transaction is. Hidden fees on more regular transactions like grocery shopping will be subject to higher levels of reactance than one-offs like a car purchase. There is an art to surfacing such painful information at the correct time in order to generate a sale. Try adding an explanation of why the fee exists to reduce drop-off, like Airbnb do.
Conversion
Zeigarnik Effect
Incomplete tasks weigh on our minds until done
47 subjects were given around 20 small, manual tasks to complete, one at a time. Experimenters randomly interrupted completion of half of these tasks. After, subjects were asked to recall as many tasks as possible.
There was a 90% higher recall of incomplete and interrupted tasks than those completed.
Make important task completion frictionless. If customers leave your site without finishing their order, make it effortlessly easy to get that completion feeling, such as allowing for completion with a single click, tap or swipe.
Focus on completion’s emotional release. Providing reward incentives for task completion actually demotivates consumers. Instead, remind them not just of the product they’ve not yet bought, but of the feelings that this ‘purchase task’ will unlock.
Make known campaigns incomplete and interactive. Greater familiarity with an advert increases consumer ability to complete an interrupted ad message. Active participation also boosts ad memory (Heller, 1956). So if your popular campaign’s reaching its end, consider a special second follow-up version that allows for active participation in completing the ad message.
