The "one time special offer" phenomenon

Dear friend,

today I'm going to briefly touch the "one time special offer" phenomenon that's been going on for some time now.

You probably saw such offers several times as they become very popular in the last 7 months or so. You usually get one of those when you sign up for a free download of a product, sign up for almost anything free or after you've purchased some product.

Why are such offers so popular?

Well, you probably already know the answer to this question... because they are so very effective. Especially the ones where one sells a product and then after the person has purchased it, as a "thank you for buying" the customer gets offered another great product for "a fraction of it's normal cost".

It also works great for free sign ups where a vendor provides a free product or service and after the sign up the customer gets a "one time special offer".

"You will never see this offer again..." is what's usually written there.

Why do such offers work?

They work because they very effectively take advantage of human psychology. There are at least two very powerful "psychological triggers" involved:

• Law of consistency
• Fear of loss

Law of consistency

When a person has already bought something from you or signed up for something you provide, it's hard to say "no" to that special offer. It would be like contradicting themselves and no one likes to do that. If you make the offer really special, there will be very few who don't buy what you offer -- as opposed to just having the offer flat out there in the beginning.

Fear of loss

Now this is the most powerful drive that helps making a buying decision. Fear of loss is a much, much greater motivator than possibility of gain. Thus if the customer has this great offer, he or she is afraid to loose it if they don't buy. This is why a "one time special offer" is so powerful -- it's now or never... and majority of people will choose now!

For more such techniques, follow this link: The science of Influence (a book by Kevin Hogan, Psy. D.). I very warmly recommend this book. The link will take you to Amazon's site where you can read more on the book and see the customer reviews.

An example...

Follow this link: Underground interviews by Ewen Chia

Thank you for reading. I hope this gave you an idea or two. Again, this method can be a great means to make many "back-end sales" and increase your profits. Just imagine... with such an offer you can turn a free surfer into a customer or a $47 customer into a $64 customer! Not bad, is it :-)

Have a great day.