Never Use Scarcity Tactics Without This in Place First. Never!

Today, I went on a kayak tour along the Chicago River.

Now, if you’ve never kayaked the Chicago River, I highly recommend the excursion.

On top of just being surrounded by the city, boats, and buildings, the guide also gave us a tour of the architecture and history of the buildings.

And one specific building stood out to me:

The Carbide and Carbon Building.

A beautiful 1920s-era tower scraping clouds at 503 feet in the sky.

But the height isn’t what’s so striking about it.

It’s the color. And what it represents.

Green for the “base” of the building, and 24 karat gold for the top.

Does this color pallet remind you of anything?

A type of … alcoholic beverage, perhaps?

It’s a champagne bottle.

And in many ways, this building — which represents the bubbly beverage we all know and (maybe) love) — is a huge “F.U.” to prohibition.

Nobody wanted prohibition.

And when the government enacted it, the demand for alcohol and “secretive” methods of consuming it (i.e. speakeasies) skyrocketed.

This paved the way for what we now refer to as the “Roaring 20s.”

The whole thing made me think about copywriting. (I mean duh, what are you here for?)

And how you can use this “prohibition” concept in your own copy, if the situation calls for it.

The idea is simple: highlight a real limitation that surrounds access to the product or service you’re writing for.

It’s that easy. And you can apply it to almost anything you’re writing about.

How to use this prohibition idea in your copy:

Exclusivity (only allow a select few access by requiring additional payment)

Scarcity (only offer a finite amount of the product or service)

Real cart closes (only keep the cart open for a certain amount of time)

There are certainly more, but I’m on a plane right now and can’t think of any additional ones.

Now … an important note on using this tactic. VERY important:

If you decide to limit access to a product in your copy, it must be genuine.

I mean it.

I did a landing page for a large client last year who leaned heavily on the “cart close” limitation.

The problem was that every day, the timer would just reset.

So my first suggestion during the copy audit was to remove this immediately, because in my opinion, most consumers in most markets see right through this tactic.

Our collective “B.S. filter” is just too high these days.

Anyways. You get the idea.

“Prohibition” copywriting can be very useful, so long as you’re genuine about how you use it.

Otherwise it’ll just … fizzle out.

Have you used copy like this successfully in the past? Hit reply and let me know.

Or, peruse more copywriting stores like this on my site here: stealthiscopy.com/blog.

David Patrick