Creating excitement about your product is something that goes above and beyond normal advertising. It’s like the difference between someone telling you the funfair is coming to town, and actually walking into the funhouse.

One way to create excitement is to have a competition. You can’t do that on Amazon, but if you have an email list or active social media it’s quite easy to do. Suppose you sell cat food and toys. Any of these ideas would work:

•      a TikTok challenge for cutest cat costume, perhaps coming up to Halloween;

•      a quiz about famous people’s cats, which could use a multiple choice form on your website and automatically give a 20% coupon for full marks;

•      “name this cat” with a local cat refuge;

•      give anyone starting to follow you on Instagram the chance to win a month’s cat food.

Make sure the prizes are appropriate to the level of competition. If people make a big effort, make sure the prize feels worthwhile. And look for ways to continue the excitement; take photos of competition winners, run a ‘best of the best’ vote or ‘people’s choice’ vote, or  make a gallery of entries.

Another way to create excitement is to link to events. But the link has to be real. If you sell cycling accessories, a link to the Tour de France can work well. For instance a bingo card that followers can mark according to events on the Tour, or a fantasy team game, would be great ways to capitalize on the race. (Remember to check local lottery rules and if you’re offering Tour-related stuff, make sure you keep the right side of the copyright rules.) Or you could issue a Tour de France challenge for leisure cyclists; can they cycle a ‘King of the Mountains’ route locally? Step up their distance by 1 km every day?

But if you sell beauty products, that’s going to be a very tenuous link, and probably won’t get many of your customers excited.

While real life examples don’t necessarily create the same kind of excitement, they’ll still help people make an emotional connection to your product. So if you have a way to use your competitions and events to create content that you can use later, it’s a great idea. Interviews, photos, and videos can all be planned at the same time that you plan the event. Then you’ll be able to extend the excitement a bit longer.

Of course there’s another way to excite customers, and that’s to create deadlines. Some brands do this by offering limited edition goods. For instance, Montblanc has ‘Patrons of Art’ pens which can cost as much as $3,000. Converse has limited edition trainers, sometimes cooperating with fashion brands like Comme Des Garçons. If you don’t press the Buy button right away, you might miss your chance.

Of course, you can also offer a discount with a deadline, or with a limited number of goods available. “We’re offering half-price Hello Kitty schoolbags – but only 500 of them!” or “Special Thanksgiving discount up to midnight on Thursday” are great messages to get customers’ attention. A Lightning Deal on Amazon could get them buying, though you’ll need to be lucky enough for your product to be features at a time when your customers are online, and not at three o’clock in the morning.

Or you could use Vipon to offer a discount. Vipon members know exactly how important it is to act quickly before those tempting offers disappear!