FOMO - the fear of missing out that drives customers crazy./Image processing, Midjourney
Marketers are well aware of the FOMO phenomenon - customers' fear of missing out on a profitable sale, which makes them order quickly because the stock is running out.
Many of us have already used manipulation more than once to get more sales or rush customers to make a decision now, but we don't even scratch the edge of the potential.
FOMO is much more powerful than most of us think.
In fact, it is the primary emotional guidance system for customer behavior today.
Understanding the tremendous impact it has on customers can be the difference between a marketing bonanza and a catastrophe.
Where did the FOMO come from?
To understand how to leverage FOMO for business success, you need to go a little deeper in understanding the phenomenon.
Let's start with the basics: FOMO is an important source of our customers' need to take advantage of every opportunity to upgrade themselves and their lives and have good experiences.
Contrary to what many think, FOMO didn't start with the advent of smartphones or social media and it's not about being jealous of the neighbor's green lawn or being upset that our friends are having fun without us.
FOMO has its origins in the ideological revolutions that shaped the modern self-concept.
In recent centuries, ideologies such as individualism, liberalism, capitalism, feminism, and the personal growth and empowerment movement, have sanctified the importance of each person, the natural human rights and encouraged the pursuit of personal fulfillment and growth.
This rich ground of thought fed a concept we have as modern humanity, of self-importance and entitlement, and gave birth to a collective belief that we can be and achieve anything we want and that we deserve to have everything the world has to offer.
In this ideological landscape, we are the protagonists of our own drama and destined for greatness.
This is not just narcissism.
It is a narrative that has been assimilated into us, and it shapes our expectations of life and ourselves.
Let me refine this a bit: it's not that each of us has so much self-worth and confidence, but the cultural message we absorb is that we deserve it and that we're supposed to be capable.
This mindset meets the world we live in, and is now an endless menu of opportunities for potential achievements, experiences or adventures.
The FOMO paradox
Dr. Dan Herman./Yifat Rosenberg
The global markets, the technological revolutions in the field of transportation and communication, modern production technologies, information technologies and the Internet, all of these have opened up unlimited possibilities for us, at least apparently.
This abundance gives birth to a paradox.
With every tempting possibility, the fear of missing out also grows.
FOMO appears at the meeting point between our empowered and entitled self, and a world that offers us endless possibilities.
We are constantly exposed to the achievements we have not achieved, to the experiences we have not experienced and we are accompanied by bitterness because of the paths we have not exhausted.
FOMO is an existential crisis of a self that constantly feels like it could have been more, done more and experienced more.
We feel that our value and our happiness depend on our ability to exhaust every opportunity in the fund of abundance, and we are constantly haunted by the fear that we are missing out on life.
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A short guide to the types of FOMO
The fear of missing out differs from person to person.
It can be a fear of missing career opportunities, gaining power and influence or wealth.
For others it can be expressed in the accumulation of academic achievements, enjoyable experiences and adventures, relationships or sexual experiences and more.
Our values and personality influence the content of what each of us is afraid of missing out on and the strength of the FOMO experience.
Our and our customers' reactions to the FOMO we feel are two polar opposites.
In the "Prey Pole" we are driven to feverish activity, trying to get everything done, to achieve everything, not to give up anything.
On the other hand, in the "paralysis pole" the huge number of alternatives freezes our ability to choose and commit because of the difficulty of giving up other options.
Both reactions stem from the same basic fear of missing out.
Three situations in which we experience FOMO
A fleeting opportunity:
we are exposed to an opportunity of any kind, which seems attractive to us, but it fades away.
Think about a concert on a given date, an item in a one-off collection at Zara, an attraction in a destination abroad that we visit once in a lifetime or about someone or someones we liked at a party.
The dilemma of choice:
we must choose one option and give up other options, no less tempting.
Think about a field of study, a job, a committed relationship.
The pain of "not realizing":
we are exposed through various communication channels, social media, advertising or what we see around us, to the life we would like.
We don't have it, and we feel we deserve it.
FOMO: fuel for marketing success
FOMO has become in recent years the internal compass that tells our customers what to buy, when, where, and why they need it right now.
Our customers in the hypermarket develop a passion for certain brands, rush to join relevant trends and rush to adopt innovations out of a sense of urgency when their specific FOMO is triggered.
The business opportunity is clear.
FOMO allows us to:
Developing Desirable Brands
- Desirable brands respond to a deep hunger for a better existence.
FOMO-driven customers buy not only products but also and above all the potential to be transformed.
Wellness brands support our pursuit of a healthier, more enjoyable and longer life.
Technology brands promise to revolutionize the way we work.
Each of them precisely touches the need of specific customers among all FOMO-driven customers.
Creating long-term and short-term hits
- the motivations that FOMO evokes make it possible to build brands that raise high and very profitable waves of short-term demand.
We all know brands that launch collections or limited series and the result is queues near the stores and online madness.
Fuel for the virality engines
- a comprehensive marketing methodology called "Think Short" enables the development of marketing hits time after time in a systematic way.
But there are also long-term brands like Apple, which for decades has been leveraging a deep understanding of the FOMO principle, feeding consumers' endless appetite for constant innovation and their fear of being left behind.
Incentive for impulse buying
- FOMO turns opportunities for immediate gratification of a relevant need into irresistible ones and drives unplanned purchases.
I'm not just talking about a last minute purchase on the way to the checkout.
The unplanned shopping driven by a sense of urgency also occurs in purchases of much higher amounts such as a new (and smart) television set with a huge screen and wonderful features or when booking a weekend at a luxurious spa hotel full of stars.
The minefield of FOMO
There is also a second side that requires caution and a good familiarity with customers' FOMO.
FOMO can also lead to spectacular failures.
These can occur when we miss the exact need that FOMO evokes in our customers, but there are also other common challenges that arise from it.
Hesitation and Regret
- The paralyzing pole of FOMO is a nightmare for marketers.
Customers are trapped in endless comparisons between competing brands and products as they are terrified of a sub-optimal choice.
Customers abandon the online shopping process because there may be better options they haven't discovered yet.
Or worse, customers who have already bought, return the products or cancel the order.
Even in the B2B fields, there are potential customers who consider every alternative, get lost between the features and performance, and end up putting off the decision because something better might come along.
Brand Loyalty Disappears
- Brand loyalty in the age of FOMO is fickle.
The constant attraction towards the new and exciting makes the customers like butterflies that float between brands.
Switching to a competitor does not even require dissatisfaction or disappointment.
It is enough for the competitor to offer something that at that moment is hotter.
You have to take into account that our competitors also know about FOMO.
This makes the market a battlefield on unstable ground.
Constant danger of losing identity and path
- even marketers are not immune to FOMO.
The constant frustration of contemporary competition puts us in danger of being distracted, while trying to block competitors, we lose focus on what sets our brand apart and gives us an advantage.
Just like that, strong brands dilute themselves and lose their way.
Branding and Marketing to FOMO-Driven Customers: Still a New Frontier
Effective leveraging of FOMO for business success requires acting FOMO-consciously in all branding and marketing tasks, including building value propositions, designing messages, brand stories, creating marketing content and advertising campaigns, targeting, building funnels, developing a branded customer experience, and more.
In order to win this game over time, there are several issues that must be observed.
Two of them are particularly important:
Defining the customers' FOMO profile
- today we can and should segment our customers according to their FOMO profile, understand the persona of each segment and its specific customer journey.
What are they afraid of missing out on in the different areas of life?
In which pole of response to FOMO do they tend to be in our industry?
The answers are different for different customers.
Segmenting customers and creating accurate personas based on FOMO triggers and response patterns dictate different branding and marketing strategies.
The difference between FOMO generators and FOMO enhancers
- on this topic marketers are often confused.
A new value proposition that meets an emotional need arising from FOMO is a FOMO generator that makes people want the brand.
Using manipulation such as creating a sense of scarcity and urgency, it intensifies FOMO which only works if there is already a FOMO generator.
Marketers today need to distinguish between the two and use them strategically.
A potential you won't want to miss
Marketing was simpler in the pre-FOMO days, but who even remembers that?
Today, we are not only competing for the elusive attention of customers but dealing with their existential restlessness, unceasing dissatisfaction and fear of not living life to the fullest and reaching their potential.
FOMO is shaped by the ideologies underlying our self-concept, which are challenged by the countless possibilities and infinite variety that reality opens up to us.
Marketers should think about customer FOMO not in a manipulative approach but out of a commitment to meet customers' emotional needs.
Those who do this will reap the rewards, while others will be left behind.
Dr. Dan Herman gave the FOMO phenomenon its name when he published the first academic article on the subject. He is an expert in the psychology of buyers, a business-marketing strategist and a brand creator.
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