Using Behavioral Science in Marketing

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Creating urgency and exclusivity through the scarcity principle

Behavioral scientists have found that scarcity increases desirability. As a result, limited times, quantities, opportunities—and limited access to information—can all motivate your customers and prospects. So, too, can the feeling that they can obtain something that not everyone else can, simply because of who they are or the group they belong to.

You want what you can’t have. I do, too. So do most people. You can find examples all around us. If you are religious, you might think of the biblical story of Eve and the apple. She could have anything she wanted in the garden of Eden, except an apple. So, what did she want? Or think of Mark Twain’s tale of Tom Sawyer, getting his ...