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🎃 Special Halloween Edition: Growth Hacks Based on Fear 😱
😱 Very Scary Growth Hack #1 – Fear of Being Rejected!
Listerine’s 1920s ads turned bad breath from a fairly common minor flaw into halitosis, a condition that made you into a social pariah, sexless and alone.
Consumers were rendered so effectively insecure that Listerine’s sales rose “from $115,000 to more than $8 million” in just seven years.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/marketing-campaign-invented-halitosis-180954082/?no-ist
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😱 😱 Even Scarier Growth Hack #2 – Fear of Death = Shockvertising:
Non-profits and public service announcements use this tactic often. Using horrifying or discomforting images along with alarmist headlines gets a real visceral reaction from people.
Examples include anti-smoking ads featuring real ex-smokers displaying the ravages of throat cancer and Buerger’s disease, and commercials that show the awful consequences of texting while driving.
Fear is used in these ads for one simple reason: because it works. In 2012, the CDC reported that one week of scary anti-smoking ads prompted 50,000 smokers to quit.
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😱 😱 😱 The Scariest Growth Hack #3 – Fear of Missing Out!
One clothing company has this all figured out. This online retailer tested a limited next-day shipping offer against another version in which the limited offer wasn’t shown.
The limited time shipping offer boosted sales by 226%.
All it took was one line of text with a countdown and somewhere around 45 seconds to install it.
But to take full advantage of scarcity to increase your sales, you need to fully understand it’s power.
Source: https://sumo.com/stories/scarcity-marketing
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In Depth Articles:
Building a Brand Based on Emotions: Fear
How “Scary” Sells With Fear Based Marketing
