3 definitions of urgency marketing

When a new concept makes its way into a well-known industry, defining it is necessary for establishing collective knowledge amongst thought-leaders.

Urgency marketing helps craft marketing promotions in a way that drives immediate consumer response. To help explain the strategy, we’ve compiled a list of three urgency marketing definitions. 

1. A form of marketing that drives brand awareness and pushes a consumer to take action.  

In its simplest form, urgency marketing is a means of promoting fast response times in consumers. It does so by finding new ways to promote trusted tactics and peak consumer’s’ curiosity. Limited-time offers, notifications, and customer reviews are a few known strategies that can be enhanced with urgency marketing.

When combined with elements of psychology (scarcity/FOMO, social proof, anticipation, etc.), standard marketing practices are transformed into fun concepts that drive consumers to engage with brand marketing and quickly travel through the customer lifecycle. 

2. Marketing that creates a sense of urgency by increasing the perceived value of brands, products, and services.

The more valuable something seems, the more consumers want to experience it for themselves. It’s a matter of human psychology and it drives action. Customer perceived value is the level of importance a customer attaches to a product or service. The benefit may be real or perceived based on things like scarcity of products or engagement from other consumers.

Customer perceived value (CPV) is the level of importance a customer attaches to a product or service. The benefit may be real or perceived based on things like scarcity of products or engagement from other consumers. When consumers notice that a product or service has exclusive value, is highly sought after, or won’t be around for long, many things can happen - including an increase in customer perceived value.

3. A marketing tactic that capitalizes on the human desire to not be left out of something that is desirable (i.e. saving money, rare/hard to come by product).

When it comes to urgency marketing, time is of the essence. Moving quickly is part of the appeal for both brands and consumers and it’s largely brought about by feelings of missing out on something that consumers believe will positively impact their consumer journey. 

Consumers instinctively know that the faster they move to complete a call-to-action, the faster they can feel good about earning their reward (a discount, a VIP status, or a new product). Because urgency marketing utilizes scarcity, the fear of missing, and anticipation, it can work as a vehicle to encourage feelings of desire in consumers for whatever’s being offered. 

As urgency marketing makes waves in the field, understanding its foundational elements can help you promote your campaigns and benefit from its capabilities. This brief overview of urgency marketing is here to set you on the path of insight into how you can prompt fast action and accelerate success.