Urgency Marketing
ecommerce psychology
shopify black friday
DSW takes their marketing initiatives seriously, and it shows — they’ve been on top of their game for years, winning omnichannel awards thanks to their strategic investments in people, process and technology.
In order to remain a leader, DSW set a goal around Instagram: The brand wanted to hit one-million followers (a pretty large jump from their follower count of about 495,000 at the time). The first step in achieving that goal? Find a way to reach the halfway mark of 500,000.
They decided to rely on a strategy that had delivered positive results in the past: urgency marketing. Urgency marketing uses psychology principles to motivate consumers, and DSW would use it in the form of a digital activation.
Urgency marketing: The outcome
Here’s how the activation worked:
1. DSW launched an activation where consumers were told that a limited set of gift cards and offers would be releasing soon.
2. Participants simply needed to click a special claim link when the prizes were released. The fastest to click claimed the biggest reward.
3. Participants could receive a “heads up” before the rewards were released to increase their chance of winning. They simply needed to take key actions, like follow DSW on Instagram.
Here are the results:
- 17,000 new Instagram followers
- 51,000 new email subscribers to the DSW database
- 1,000 incremental mobile app installs each day
- 4,300 transactions that had a measurable impact on sales
DSW surpassed the 500,000-follower goal before the 5-day campaign even ended.
Along with social acquisition, DSW has been able to leverage urgency marketing to accelerate acquisition growth across email, loyalty, mobile app and SMS. 
