No, I didn’t just grab this title out of the thin air, but I understand you would say that. Many people have probably never heard of FOMO or JOMO. That is why I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to inform you about this.
Both aspects are very attractive from a marketing point of view to use to increase or at least encourage conversion
Is it something new?
No, both FOMO and JOMO have actually been around for years, but since they are not the most common terms, they have not managed to do it to every household.
But that principles are old need not say anything about whether or not they can be effective in the present time. On the contrary, I think that with the development of society, principles such as FOMO and JOMO will only become more important.
What is FOMO?
The most famous of these two marketing terms is FOMO.
FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. By this I mean the fear of things going wrong or not being part of something.
Humans are by nature no matter how nasty that sounds herd animals. Seeing what other people do often encourages that specific action. To fall back into cliches; Monkey see Monkey do. (it feels so wrong to say, but well it’s really the truth)
FOMO is the more well-known approach because it highlights the positive / active / inclusive side of things. With FOMO, everything is really about the experience. In fact you could say that you are sending people with the help of FOMO towards an experience.
Experience society
Although FOMO seems to be an individual process, it is also strongly related to the current spirit of the times. We live in a time when everything must be a fantastic fantastic fun experience.
Psychiatrist Dirk de Wachter (https://www.volkskrant.nl/mensen/alles-altijd-leuk-vinden-lijkt-me- een-vergissing~bb43fa28/) also called it “the disease of our time”. He stated:
We zijn te geobsedeerd met geluk. We willen dat alles leuk, leuk, leuk is. En dat lijkt me een vergissing.
Which translates to; We are too obsessed with happiness. We want everything to be fun/great. And to me that seems like a mistake.
Should everything be fun / great?
It is the obsession with conceivable happiness that feeds the fear of missing something enormously.
Example
An evening on the couch does not outweigh the “happiness level” of a night out – at least according to general (read social) opinion. That while there are enough people who consciously choose to spend a nice evening on the couch (ahh finally rest).
Even if you are not afraid of missing something on your own, you will probably get talked into it sooner or later. FOMO has very strong aspects of what is accepted as social and normal and those principles are a strong driver for many people.
You will probably understand that this can be very interesting from a marketing point of view.
But does FOMO really make us happy? Well no, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Just take a look at the fashion sector and tell us that there is no stereotype there about what society is claiming to be desirable and “normal”.
Many people would have more of a JOMO experience than a FOMO experience. That while that is the intention.
What is JOMO?
Now that you have a good idea of what FOMO is, you can probably already guess what JOMO would mean.
JOMO stands for Joy Of Missing Out. By this I mean the joy of not being part of something or missing out on something.
As the direct counterpart of FOMO there is therefore JOMO; this is about not wanting to be the herd animal. You may be the loner / lone wolf who makes his own path.
The term JOMO was coined by a blogger named Anil Dash (https://anildash.com/2012/07/19/jomo/). He himself said that at JOMO you embrace missing social occasions, which can be very good for you.
How can you enjoy consciously missing things?
By focusing less on the chance of missing something, and focusing more on the possible positive effects of what you are doing now.
Example
An evening on the couch instead of going out with friends.
Who knows, you just needed that me-time?
Regardless of which ever way you twist it JOMO from a marketing perspective, is interesting as well.
How to use FOMO / JOMO successfully?
Depending on what your product, service, promotion and therefore conversion is you can use FOMO or JOMO better. The combination of both is a tricky one, it is possible … but is often not nearly as successful as betting on a specific side.
To be able to do that well, you must know very well who you are dealing with. In short, who is your target audience / demographic. What is going on with them, what interests are there and perhaps even better what problem you can solve with your product, service, action, advice etc.
Because if there is 1 thing we all want, whether it is FOMO, JOMO or another segmentation part, there is only 1 thing we want the best solution for a problem.
Keep it real
FOMO and JOMO can be enormously successful, but unfortunately this approach also has one biggest problem. It must be real / authentic. Just as it is with reviews for products or services you have to be able to rely on what you see is real and not fake.
Unfortunately, there are already parties that provide techniques that can fake these aspects. And before I say that there is absolutely nothing good to say about those techniques; it depends on the use case.
Example;
For example, if you are a shop owner who does get traffic but does not see people converting whatever you do, then using fake FOMO can give a boost to ensure conversions.
That is, however, not a license for NOT delivering a solid product / service or support / after sales that goes with it. But in such cases, deploying FOMO in such a way can be helpful.
But seriously; keep it real!
If you are a company that does have the necessary sales / conversions, it is no longer convenient / smart to try and get people over with such tactics.
Simply because you have real data that you can present to the still doubling customer.
If you still continue on the fake tour you should realize 1 thing; people never like to be fooled. If one finds out about such practices, then one will often publicly criticize you for that.
Make sure that you also never go overboard when it comes to FOMO / JOMO. Otherwise you will eventually fool yourself.
FOMO/JOMO and my approach
What you may have noticed is that I am trying to keep it as global as possible in terms of FOMO and JOMO. That is consciously done this way. The reason is that by making it really concrete, I might not be able to highlight the full load of both the aspects.
That does not alter the fact that a huge amount is possible by using these techniques, but both are enormously bound by the preconditions that you set for your project / platform. Therefore I would like to invite you, if you are interested, to contact me to discuss with me which forms of FOMO and / or JOMO suit you.
