--- title: Use FOMO to Generate Leads and Drive Conversions description: FOMO isn't just a buzzword. It's a powerful psychological force you can use to increase engagement with your marketing activities across the board. --- [![Hufu_logo.png](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Hudsonfusion_nov-2015/Hufu_logo.png?width=226&name=Hufu_logo.png "Hufu_logo.png")](http://www.hudsonfusion.com/) [![phone icon](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hubfs/Home-V6/phn.png)](tel:+19147620900) ![logo.jpg](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Hudsonfusion-Img/logo.jpg?width=293&name=logo.jpg "logo.jpg") **Use FOMO to Generate Leads and Drive Conversions**![Use FOMO to Generate Leads and Drive Conversions](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hs-fs/hubfs/FOMO-01-1.jpg?width=955&name=FOMO-01-1.jpg "Use FOMO to Generate Leads and Drive Conversions") Everybody’s talking about FOMO: the fear of missing out. It’s a stupid buzzword that speaks to a major psychological principle that’s only getting more prominent as we get even *more* connected over social media. In short, FOMO is the principle that sends you over to a crowd of people *just* to see what they’re looking at, or leaves you disappointed when you’re the *only one* of your friends who isn’t playing Overwatch, even though you never cared about it to begin with. FOMO, my friends. FOMO. It’s the fear that we’re somehow skipping something even *better* than what we’ve already got. So basically, it’s a fancy way of saying “the grass is always greener” or “you want what you can’t have,” and it’s being fueled by the internet to a *massive* degree. All we ever see are how *great* all our friends’ lives are and how shabby our own seem by comparison. We know all our neuroses, fears, and boredoms, but everyone *else* in the world looks like *they’re* having a great time. And it’s stronger the younger you get. Not that you can get younger. I’m *definitely* not working on a device to do that. That’s crazy talk. **But FOMO is an ultra-powerful marketing asset if you can leverage it properly.** Think about how Apple utilizes FOMO to move their products with lightning speed; they’ve got the cachet on cool, so all they *really* have to do is limit production – and let artificial scarcity do the rest. A simple notice saying “Supplies are limited; many orders may not ship until the summer” (as during the Apple Watch launch) tells people that if they don’t purchase *right now* they’ll have to wait another *eight months* for the magical little toy – but *all of their friends will already have it*. Now, not everyone can be Apple, but we can still make use of FOMO to increase traffic and conversions. The thing is, **fear is always a part of marketing.** It can be explicit (as in Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 “[Daisy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO0R4k1tVMs)” ad), or it can be subtle, but you’re trying to reach people who *want* something, and want carries a concomitant fear of *not* getting it. Sometimes it’s as simple as “You want to have fun. This is fun. You don’t want to not have fun.” But where FOMO comes in is with a very simple addition: “Everyone *else* is having fun. You’ll be the *only one not having fun*.” That’s isolating. It makes you feel like you’re on the outs with the crowd. And it can make you feel like what you *are* doing is a waste, an unwanted toy that suddenly feels a million times less impressive than it did a moment ago. **You can harness that feeling.** ** ** **Content Upgrade** There’s an interesting little element in the modern video game marketplace called downloadable content, or DLC. DLC can be everything from new costumes for your hero, new maps to play on, or even entirely new feature sets that can change how the game operates, hopefully for the better. And the thing is – DLC is almost *never* free. The people who they want to purchase DLC are already customers, milking more money from their most dedicated, hardcore fans, by dangling *more stuff* in front of them. And since gaming is a community activity, people *without* the DLC are frequently unable to play competitively with those who do (who quickly become a massive chunk of the player base) and are constantly exposed to the improvements the content offers through social contact. And if they want to avoid that, well, all they have to do is fork over $15 bucks. This works. It works *crazy* well. It takes advantage of the massive investment people have in the original product to continue to monetize it well into the future – sometimes *years* into the future, turning a $60 game into something someone has invested hundreds and hundreds of dollars into. Which just makes them *more* likely to buy the next DLC. **How You Can Take Advantage** - When you develop your content, don’t give them everything all at once; leave room to expand on it. For example, if you put out “5 Ways to Clean Industrial Equipment Cheaply,” you can follow up by marketing “5 *More *Ways to Clean Industrial Equipment Cheaply” to the same people – with massive conversion rates that will help you identify highly engaged leads. - Include a complementary content offer to go alongside otherwise free content. A blog post, for example, could be about five simple ways to increase your home’s resale value, and follow it up with “The Comprehensive Guide to Maximizing Your Home’s Resale Value” – which they can have in exchange for an email address. In both cases, you’re leveraging their established interest by enticing them with something they actually *don’t* want to miss out on; if you want to increase your home’s resale value a *little*, well, you almost certainly want to *maximize* that value. And all it costs is an email address. And if you pass on the offer? That could be costing you *tens of thousands of dollars.* Mic drop. #FOMO   **Exclusivity** Heinz is crazy. But also Heinz is genius. They created an exclusive, limited-edition *ketchup product*. But instead of slapping “exclusive” on the bottle, they limited its availability to people who had bothered to like Heinz’s Facebook page. Ketchup people, in other words. The social ad they used to promote it? “This is for serious ketchup fans only.” The only way to learn about how to *get* this balsamic vinegar ketchup was to Like their Facebook page. And the thing is? It worked. There’s a key takeaway to this: not everything is for everybody, and by limiting availability, you make people *want to be in the pool of people who can have it*. And if there’s a simple action – liking a page, handing over their email address – that gets them in that in-group, well, people will do it. They’ll do it like crazy, because nobody likes to be excluded, even from ketchup. Telling people they *can’t *have something tends to make them want it, because they don’t want to miss out on something. So you can take advantage of this by giving people opportunities to move from out-group to in-group with ease, making the transition frictionless, *and* collecting valuable data in the process. And that is how you turn regular people into ketchup people. #FOMO In short, FOMO is a powerful psychological force that can turn disinterest into ravenous obsession, because nobody wants to miss out on something rad. By hyping exclusivity and leveraging existing customers, you can drive lead generation *and* improve conversions. - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) - [Share](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://info.hudsonfusion.com/use-fomo-to-generate-leads-and-drive-conversions;src=sdkpreparse) [![levelup.png](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Home-V6/levelup.png?width=212&name=levelup.png "levelup.png")](http://blog.hudsonfusion.com/) ### Subscribe to Level Up © Hudson Fusion LLC Westchester County, NY   #### [privacy policy](http://www.hudsonfusion.com/privacy-policy) ![hubspot-gold-badge.png](https://info.hudsonfusion.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Home-V6/hubspot-gold-badge.png?width=300&name=hubspot-gold-badge.png "hubspot-gold-badge.png") 914-762-0900 [info@hudsonfusion.com](mailto:info@hudsonfusion.com) - [**](https://www.facebook.com/HudsonFusion) - [**](https://www.linkedin.com/company/hudson-fusion-llc) - [**](https://twitter.com/HudsonFusion) - [**](https://plus.google.com/+Hudsonfusion/posts) - [**](http://www.pinterest.com/hudsonfusion/) - [**](https://www.youtube.com/user/HudsonFusion) ![Facebook Pixel Code](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1466905156914131&ev=PageView&noscript=1) ![](https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/viewthroughconversion/1060416409/?guid=ON&script=0) ![](https://dc.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=70557&fmt=gif)