Best FOMO Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Membership Site

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Published in Resources August 7, 2024 8 min read

Have you ever scrolled your Social Media in a festive season and felt a pinch in your heart at all the fun everyone is having? While you sit on a couch! We are sure it has happened multiple times. This is the feeling of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). It is a powerful marketing tool because, like many other marketing ploys, it’s based on a psychological trigger underlying two concepts: urgency and exclusivity. Around 60% of millennials make repeat purchases because of this FOMO. 

Psychologically, FOMO is the anxiety of potentially missing out on enjoyable experiences happening elsewhere. This has been triggered because of the rampant increase in Social Media usage. Albeit, it is a marketing tool used by major businesses as FOMO affects approximately 75% of young adults. 

The fact that the term FOMO was coined by a marketing strategist (Dr. Dan Herman, 1996) highlights its potential as a powerful psychological tool in advertising based on the desire of humans to get joy and pleasure. In other words, it also leads to comparison and a desire to live a certain lifestyle. 

Are you interested in how FOMO-based marketing drives engagement and revenue on membership sites? Let’s discover!

best fomo marketing strategies for membership sites

FOMO Marketing for Membership Sites

Let’s understand the fundamentals of creating a marketing strategy that evokes a fear of missing out among your current and potential members.

Why use FOMO marketing for member-only content sites?

When you are providing exclusive content for members, others are bound to feel left out. When you have set a robust content system and know the value of your offering, this strategy would work wonders for you. How?

  • Inspire members to consume new content or subscribe to more member-only content.
  • Launch some exclusive, limited time digital products to encourage sales. 
  • For increasing views and logins for your updates. 
  • Encouragement to upgrade their membership plans. 
  • Increasing events participation for various live or offline events. 

How to Create a FOMO Marketing Campaign?

how to do fomo marketing

In a marketing campaign, there are some specific criterias that are used to create FOMO marketing. Let us understand them. 

1. Scarcity (a perception of limited availability)

When you express that a certain product or offer is available for a limited time duration, it sparks the feeling of scarcity. This has been used traditionally in m marketing and now even in online marketing for inciting sales from customers. Have you heard examples like ‘Grab it before it’s out of stock’, ‘early-bird offer for grabs’, ‘the product is not coming again.’ These are some of the examples of scarcity building. 

2. Urgency (a strong sense of time pressure)

When you create a membership plan or a content that is active for a limited period only, you create an urgency. For instance, ‘only 2-days left for this offer’, ‘the time limit is ending’, ‘last day to avail FLAT 50%.’ Such marketing copies would attract visitors and also help you build an email list.

3. Exclusivity  (making people feel like they are part of an exclusive group)

Have you observed there is a name for the group of people that belong to a certain group. Just like there are cults like movie buffs, the Army, the Swifties, you can give an exclusive name to your community and make the members feel special. For instance, Join the VIP Lounge, Get access to Crazy Coders, Contribute to the Marketeers Den and so on. This will give a specific tag and give a feeling of being exclusive. 

Types of FOMO content

types of fomo marketing content

The selection of FOMO content for your membership site is pivotal to achieving your marketing goals. Looking to increase revenue? Enhance member engagement or reduce churn? The type of FOMO you decide to employ here and now will significantly impact your success.

Understand these FOMO content strategies for a membership site aligned with different goals:

Goal FOMO marketing solutions
Boost revenue
  1. Discounts on upgrades and downgrades for a limited time.
  2. Seasonal promotions tied to holidays or industry-specific events.
  3. Lessons or courses available for enrollment within a specific period of time.
Increase engagement
  1. Exclusive, individual offerings for members.
  2. Time-limited content drops or live events.
  3. Limited-access challenges or competitions.
Reduce churn
  1. Showcase real member experiences of others.
  2. Hire influencers and popular people.
  3. Highlight missed opportunities.

Which Platform is Best for FOMO Marketing Campaign

best platforms for fomo marketing campaigns

To build an effective FOMO marketing strategy, you need to choose the right platform. Based on your audience demographics and goal of your marketing, you need to understand where their time is spent the most. Based on that, the selection of platforms can be done. 

Social networks

If you have a significant social media presence, this is the best platform to induce FOMO. If your target audience is active on social media, learn more about their interaction patterns and create a social media campaign. 

Paid ads from popular search engines

This is a proven way to find new members with paid search ads that highlight exclusive benefits and limited-time offers. You can select the demographic of your target audience while setting up the paid Ad and get relevant leads. 

On your membership site home page or individual pages

Use FOMO marketing to place deal countdown timers, creative images or pop-up form to promote time-sensitive deals.

Directly in the membership area for logged-in members

While not every member visits your membership site home page, they surely log into their accounts! Create dedicated sections or pop-ups within your membership site to showcase time-sensitive content or promotions. This can be best used for promoting upsells and cross sells. 

Personalized recommendations

If you create content and have the tools to customize it for individual members, it’s a great way to enhance members’ activity with these messages. Target personal interests and solve a specific problem with FOMO marketing. This will hit right to the spot. 

Member login page

Before they even try to log in, feature your deals. This might be one of the most visited parts of your membership site and you might be interested in making profit from it.

Emails

If you have member segments of your membership base, a FOMO-optimized email marketing subject line and compelling content can drive high open and click-through rates.

The optimal channel for your FOMO ads depends on your target audience, budget, and the nature of your content.

Powerful FOMO Messages

To maximize the impact of your FOMO campaigns on your membership site, focus on creating messages that evoke a strong sense of urgency and exclusivity.

Here are examples:

  • FEW Days Only
  • Individual Offer
  • Don’t Miss Out
  • Hurry, Seats Filling Fast
  • Last Chance to Save
  • Tick Tock
  • Members Only
  • Be the First to Know
  • VIP Access
  • Rare Opportunity
  • One-Time Offer

How to Use ARMember to Maximize Your FOMO Marketing

How to Use ARMember to Maximize Your FOMO Marketing

For our ARMember customers, there are many add-ons that need your attention when you want to implement powerful FOMO marketing on your membership site portal.

At the end of the day, you can find the way to use them to meet your particular needs, but here are a few ARMember add-on highlights that we are keen to share with you:

User Private Content Add-on to Promote Personal FOMO

While the User Private Content add-on exists to customize member-only content for individual members, it also empowers you to experiment with individualized offers and FOMO messaging to boost member engagement and revenue.

Experiment with this powerful extension, it’s totally free with ARMember!

Social Community Add-on to Broadcast Special Offers Inside Community

Post public announcements or promote speific offers via the inner community of members using the Social Community add-on. Enable conversations and comments to create more user-generated content and empower members to become advocates by sharing their experiences and promoting your offerings within the community.

Membership Limit Add-on to Create FOMO for New Members

With the Membership Limit add-on, you can position your limited membership plans as exclusive access to personalized attention or specialized content. When you control member numbers for a plan and enrollment periods, you’re essentially creating a scarcity model that is a cornerstone of FOMO.

WhatsApp Notifications Add-on for Effective FOMO

WhatsApp’s high open rates and personal touch make it an ideal channel for FOMO-driven messages. You can easily do that with the WhatsApp notification add-on. This should be especially effective on your members who haven’t logged into your membership site for some time. You can also test SMS notifications for the same effect.

Encourage Gift Sales

A Gift Membership add-on can be used for FOMO marketing activities in different ways. For example, offer limited-edition or seasonal gift-giving experiences on social media, leveraging the power of social proof.

Conclusion: FOMO Marketing with Good Intentions

To summarize, FOMO marketing implemented on membership sites can drive actions like purchases, subscriptions, and participation in events.

Remember that FOMO marketing is just a way to effectively advertise your real valuable offerings to your members, so we highly recommend practicing ‘FOMO marketing with good intentions’.

Your members or to-be-members should feel excited about the opportunities, not manipulated or deceived.

Next, your membership site FOMO marketing requires a strategy – it highly relies on where you place your messages, who your target audience is, and what need of theirs you want to meet. With the ARMember membership WordPress plugin, you get numerous opportunities to customize your member portal for powerful FOMO marketing, even without referring to external platforms, reaching out to your members directly.

And lastly, pick words carefully to create truly compelling messages that speak to your audience and evoke the real feeling of FOMO.

More to read today:

Brain Denim

Brian Denim

Meet Brian, a WordPress expert with a decade of experience in web development and a passion for technical writing, watching movies, and camping.

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