5 insights on the psychology of urgency marketing

As the Brand Journalist at Quikly, I feel it’s my duty to take you along with me as I learn the ins and outs of marketing psychology. In a way, we’ve learned a lot together and I’m proud to say I’ve made a major accomplishment in my career recently: I held my very first Quikly webinar on "The Psychology of Urgency Marketing: How to Motivate Consumers to Take Action."

Preparing for the webinar took a lot of work. I had to find a topic that not only resonated with me, but would provide our audience with invaluable information on urgency marketing. I had to create a story worth listening to and I believe I did just that. If you didn’t get the chance to catch the webinar live, don’t worry. The knowledge I shared is still available for you, in a recorded copy online and here in this blog post.

I’ve taken five of my favorite quotes from the webinar and explained them in detail below. I hope you enjoy learning about it just as much as I did.

1. “Urgency marketing is a culmination of various psychology-based marketing practices that encourage fast-forward movement from consumers.”

In its simplest form, urgency marketing is about crafting your marketing, or promotions, in a way that drives immediate response. It provides you with countless opportunities to reach your target audience in a short period of time, serve them quickly and accomplish your goals faster. As explained in the webinar, urgency marketing has uses in every marketing channel from social media to SMS.

There are four main psychological principles that make up urgency marketing: anticipation, scarcity/fear of missing out, social proof, and competition. 

Implementing urgency into your marketing tactics can happen in a number of ways. You can pick focus on one psychological principle or combine as many as you’d like to help you reach your goal.

2. “There’s a science to [anticipation and excitement], and it starts with giving your customers something they can look forward to.”

Anticipation is only possible when there’s something exciting on the horizon. 

You may anticipate going to a new restaurant — because you heard the food was really good — or wearing your favorite item — because you always get a ton of compliments. No matter the subject, the reason for your anticipation is the same: There’s a satisfying goal on the other side of your action.

Consumer psychologist Shagoon Maurya recently told us that “humans are driven by anticipation since this leads to goal-directed behavior.” This means humans perform an action in anticipation of its consequence. It’s all about predicting how that action might affect them in the future. 

3. “When something is low in supply and high in demand, the perceived value of that item goes up and we fear not being able to get ahold of it.”

This quote is about none other than scarcity and its main partner, FOMO. The pair are great accelerators for consumer action. Using them ethically in your marketing campaigns won’t require you to scare your customers into action. It’s actually designed to help you better serve your customers when they’re moving slowly towards a beneficial product or have already missed out on an item they truly needed. 

Promoting forward movement in your customers can happen with the use of notifications regarding valuable offers that are about to expire, or you can solidify your customers' FOMO by showing them how other customers are benefiting from a product or service they passed on (just be sure to offer them another chance to benefit from the product themselves)

4. “…And it doesn’t have to be a huge million dollar reward either, the competition alone is enough to keep you engaged”

During this segment of the webinar, I was discussing each element of urgency marketing. This quote referred to competition, a psychological element that allows humans to rank their achievements and gives them something to aspire to.

One huge benefit from competition is the feeling that you are an active participant in something that might result in a substantial reward. The weight of the reward doesn’t matter — for many consumers, there’s more than enough psychological value in an immersive experience.

5. “Social proof is a psychological principle that explains just how much influence the thoughts of other people have on human behavior.”

Social proof is the idea that we are more likely to follow the same line of thinking as someone we know or trust. Simply put, the people your customers surround themselves with have a large influence on their lives and their buying decisions.

This psychological principle is most often seen through reviews, testimonials and best-seller sections. 

Out of all the work I’ve done in consumer psychology thus far, the webinar on urgency marketing has to be one of my proudest moments. I hope it's been a helpful one for you, especially as you've read this post.