Add FOMO to your emails with a countdown clock

Dynamic content is a hot trend, and the chances are pretty good that it’s here to stay. For customers, this type of content gives them exactly what they want: more personalization. 

Adding personalization to your emails is just another way to make them stand out. Your readers get what matters to them right to the inbox. It helps build trust and develop a long-lasting relationship over time. 

Plus, in a practical sense, it works. Personalized content helps drive higher levels of opens, clicks, conversion, and engagement. That puts more revenue in your pocket. 

Think about how you can use real-time dynamic content to personalize and increase the urgency of your emails. It can help heighten your customer’s fear of missing out (FOMO), which can drive more sales. One way to do that with a countdown clock in the emails.

Here’s how.

What is an online countdown timer?

You’ve probably already seen these on websites. You go online, and a pop-up appears telling you that a flash sale ends in 17 hours 26 minutes, and 12 seconds. 

These are really popular around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Chances are, you’ve bought an item or two courtesy of these simple countdown timers. 

Now, imagine the same thing but from your email. And, we’re not just talking about a picture of a countdown timer. No, this timer is really working. The timer will countdown in real-time, updating every time your customer opens their email. 

With the Zembula platform, adding a countdown timer is super easy. It’s just a snippet of code, and you’re good to go. That means you can include countdown clocks in all sorts of emails.

Here’s an awesome example of an email that combines a countdown and location data. With this, your customer is getting hyper-localized personal information. 

When they open their email while out for a walk, they get more than just a coupon. The customer also has the location of their neighborhood store to redeem it. If they open it a few hours later in a different neighborhood, the email updates at the moment-of-open. So, they’ll get the most up-to-date countdown on the timer and the location of the nearest store, automatically.

Imagine what you could do with that?

How countdown clocks can drive urgency

It’s hard to get people to buy. Even though consumers spend trillions of dollars every year online, getting someone to go from an email reader to a buyer takes effort. 

It helps when you give your potential customers motivation to buy. One way to do that is by creating a sense of urgency. FOMO is a real thing and when your customers feel it deeply, they are more likely to act. 

Having a sale can help motivate some of your customers. But having that ticking timer can pump up the FOMO to a new level. Your customers have a visual representation of the time they have left before missing out on something sitting right there in their inbox. 

Every minute they aren’t acting means missing something that someone else is getting. It’s a powerful motivator.

Don’t limit your timers to just sales

You can use countdown clocks and timers for all sorts of emails. Sure, they are probably most associated with sales, but there are plenty of ways to incorporate them in other types of emails. 

Examples include:

• Welcome email discounts
• Redeeming coupons
• Announcing limited editions of products
• Early VIP access for loyalty members
• Pricing updates

And more. 

Go through your current campaigns and see where adding a timer might help increase the sense of urgency. You don’t have to create a flash sale or another big planned event to take advantage of the possibilities of using a timer.

In so many cases, a gentle nudge is all it has to take to get customers thinking about buying something before running out of time.

Are you starting to see the potential of countdown clocks in email? 

If you’re interested in giving a timer a try in your emails, check out this link to create your own. We’ll send you the countdown timer HTML to insert right into your emails.