Sell More and Faster With a Ballot
Restrict supply and generate more demand than you ever thought possible
STEAL THIS CAMPAIGN
Restrict supply and generate more demand than you ever thought possible
Lack of availability is an aphrodisiac in marketing terms.
The less you have, the more valuable it becomes — not everyone will be lucky enough to own it.
Today I’ll be telling you about the most under-utilized tactic in stock-control: the ballot.
With a ballot, you’ll be selling more than you have and accepting the funds of only a few lucky buyers.
I Was Sucked In by It, so I Knew Others Would Be
This entry of Steal This Campaign is quite meta for me because I’m telling you to steal a campaign that I stole from someone else. You’re stealing what’s already been stolen.
In December 2016, I received an email from the Welsh Rugby Union offering me tickets to the upcoming Wales vs. Ireland rugby match… with a twist.
You couldn’t just buy the tickets. You had to buy blindly and hope that you were successful.
“Due to the demand and the limited availability of tickets this year, there will be a public ballot to ensure fans have a fair chance of getting tickets.”
I clicked apply and entered my card details quicker than any purchase I’ve ever made in my life.
After I blew the smoke off my debit card, I knew I could use the idea in my own marketing campaigns — and you can too.
Restrict Supply, Increase Demand
Sometimes even if you have enough, you can over-inflate your demand by letting people know the product is limited.
Use lines like:
Limited availability
Only x in existence
Just x amount of products were made
When it’s gone, it’s gone for good
Create urgency. Create a frenzy
You could sell out in silence but it would be a slow and emotionless process.
The customers who bought would have no urgency to checkout and complete their order. The buyers would trickle in at their pace, not yours.
In contrast, with a ballot, you’re drawing insane attention towards how limited the stock is and how many people want it. It creates a frenzy.
To create a ballot:
Pick a limited product you want to promote.
Email out or create a social campaign to let your customers know about the limited availability of your product.
Set a deadline where the ballot ends and make customers aware that they have to take part to have any chance of owning the product at all.
Sit back and watch the tirade of sales pour in.
Select and ship to successful customers (that you’ve chosen at random) and inform unsuccessful customers. Better luck next time.
It works because social proof dictates that people are more likely to want what others are buying right now — so by restricting supply with your ballot and letting people know about the large demand, you’re building-in social proof by default.
It creates urgency.
How I Sold Three Times More Stock Than I Had
For my ballot campaign, I sent a plain text email and ended up having the finish the ballot early due to overwhelming demand.
You can structure your ballot in one of two ways:
If your business is insured to store customer credit card details, you can charge successful customers when the ballot is over.
If your business isn’t insured to store customer credit details, you can charge all customers upfront and refund only the unsuccessful ones.
At the time, option 2 was my only option.
The Results + I Share My Exact Email
The response was overwhelming and the surplus decks of playing cards were sold out in record time — $20,000 of revenue before the email even finished sending in Mailchimp.
As the hours went on, we were just watching more orders pour in.
Manually refunding customers was our only option, so we had to end the ballot early, otherwise, we’d be refunding more than 3x the number of orders we’d be accepting.
Make no mistake, this is the only situation where issuing many refunds could be considered a huge success.
Below is the exact email I wrote for the campaign. I was writing, as I often did, for the YouTuber Daniel Madison — written as him, in his character’s voice.
The Madison Select Ballot is open.
When printing [playing] cards at USPCC, their minimum run was 2,500 decks.
We only produced 2,000 Madison Select Boxes.
Do the math!
That’s 500 of each deck up for grabs, and a f**k load of people who want them.
Simply add which decks you want to your cart and checkout. This does not guarantee you have them.
Your order will be held until the 28th of December, my birthday, and only those selected will get shipping confirmations.
That brave few will own the last of the supply.
Anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be chosen in the ballot will get a full refund for the decks they purchased.
This isn’t first come first serve. This isn’t a bid war.
I am Daniel Madison. I control luck.
Since Using This Campaign, I’ve Seen Other Brands Use It Well
I’m not the only one to use the ballot and hopefully, I won’t be the last. They’re not just effective for businesses, they’re fun for customers.
Last year I got an email from The Whisky Exchange for their Pappy Van Winkle ballot.
I blacked out and when I woke up my debit card was smoking again…
Below is my order confirmation for a $150 bottle of bourbon — one I probably didn’t need and unfortunately didn’t win.
Why It Works for Retailers
Your supply should always exceed your demand in retail, or you’re sitting on too much stock at a cost. The upside of selling-out quicker is that it replenishes any money you spent in acquiring the stock in the first place.
It’s money in the business instead of being stuck on the shelves — and at full margin.
A ballot also maximizes the speed of profitability for that particular product or event — and the hype created by selling-out of stock fast helps to generate strong PR for your brand or business.
The name ballot may sound confusing, but ultimately you’re selling a limited amount of stock, in a limited amount of time, to an unlimited amount of customers.
Successful orders will be fulfilled and unsuccessful orders will be forgotten.
Let me know if you try it.
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series, Steal This Campaign, wherein we highlight creative, achievable, and unique ideas that you can steal or replicate parts of in your own marketing campaigns.