Scarcity is an effec­tive tac­tic often used in copy­writ­ing to cre­ate a sense of urgency in an effort to con­vince the unde­cided reader to make a pur­chas­ing decision.

After all, peo­ple pro­cras­ti­nate, and they do for a vari­ety of rea­sons. It’s sim­ply human nature. So the goal of apply­ing scarcity is to pre­vent prospects from pro­cras­ti­nat­ing.

As online con­sumers become wise to these direct-​​response copy­writ­ing tac­tics, one ques­tion often arises:

“What about dig­i­tal prod­uct down­loads, like ebooks and soft­ware? How can you cre­ate a sense of urgency for some­thing that, in itself, is lim­it­less or per­ceived as such?”

Here’s how to use scarcity sell­ing effec­tively with dig­i­tal products:

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“Sam­pli­fy­ing” is a term I’ve coined to explain the grow­ing (albeit always exist­ing) need for more proof. The more sam­ples you offer before you sell your prod­uct, the more you will invari­ably sell.

Blame it on the need to feel more secure about a pur­chase deci­sion, or blame it on the per­va­sive lack of cred­i­bil­ity with most web­sites these days, the real­ity is that peo­ple want to know exactly what they’re going to get before they buy.

Sure, copy can fill that need, but only to cer­tain degree.

Also, by “sam­ples” I don’t mean just free tri­als, either. They also include videos, audios, online demos, cus­tomer sup­port chats, and inter­ac­tive tools that allow the user to get a sense of what they’re buy­ing (think of 360-​​degree vir­tual tours of homes on real estate web­sites, among others).

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With “user-​​driven copy,” the fact is, peo­ple can choose what they want, how they want it and when they want it. And that is what’s work­ing really well right now, not because it’s new but because it’s natural.

The pro­gres­sion of the web (regard­less if you call it Web 2.0 or not) is sim­ply an exten­sion of how peo­ple behave. Busi­nesses and web­sites are finally wak­ing up. And they’re giv­ing their users what they want, ask for and prefer.

Here’s an example.

In Web 1.0, we were lim­ited by text, graph­ics and links. When cook­ies came along, they helped to cus­tomize the user’s expe­ri­ence to a degree. But cook­ies are still lim­it­ing. They are sta­tic in nature, require more pageviews to make them use­ful if at all, and as we all know carry risks such as pri­vacy and secu­rity issues.

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