A Suggestion To Increase Sign-Ups For Your Product/Service

This idea is based on an experiment described by Dan Ariely in one of his books (we don't remember which one, or maybe he explained this in a talk) - this is the outline of the experiment:

A set of 100 folks need to do a painful task (say, take some very painful injection) regularly for 10 continuous days. Which of the following incentives/punishments provides the best results?

1. A $10 gift for every day the injection is taken
2. A $10 fine for every day the injection is missed
3. Every day there would be a surprise winner selected from the 100, to receive $1000. But even if you happen to be the surprise winner, if you have not taken the injection that day, you will not be eligible to collect the $1000.

The results provide some solid insights to get people to do something that they are not inclined to by default -signing up for your service, for instance. You have marketed it as best as you can - but it does not seem to work.

One simple idea that could work is this: On the sign-up page, have something that will trigger the following thought in the minds of the customer: "On a later day, I don't want to regret not signing up for this" - the message could be subtle, but it needs to be clear.

If it becomes too direct, it might not work - like Alex Tew tried on his second attempt at the Million Dollar Homepage - Pixelotto

Get the customer into a regret minimization mode. That's the idea. Have you seen this with any service? Can you think of some examples?