Putting together a new offer requires a lot of time, energy and money. If not enough people buy it once you launch it? It’ll all be for nothing.
You might think this risk element is part of the game, but it doesn’t have to be.
I’ll show you exactly how to guarantee that your new product or service sells out – before you actually launch it.
The old way of launching a product or service
Here’s what most business owners tend to do:
- They come up with a new product or service idea based on what they THINK their audience wants
- They spend weeks or even months putting it together
- They create a sales page for it, launch the offer and expect their marketing and sales team to work their magic and sell it
But because it was all based on guesswork (not what their audience actually wants and needs), that new product or service can easily flop.
And by then, they’ve already invested a tonne of time, energy and money into it.
Crazy, when you think about it, isn’t it?
And yet, even though we call it the ‘old’ way of launching a product or service, this is still standard practice for most businesses.
Instead, you can choose to work smarter and only launch offers you KNOW are going to sell (yes, for real! No crystal balls involved).
The new and improved way to launch a product or service
So, how can you launch a product or service and GUARANTEE it sells you?
By creating a waitlist and testing your idea with those subscribers first.
Here’s how that works, in a nutshell:
- You come up with an initial offer idea
- You create a waitlist (= a list of subscribers who are actually interested in that offer) to find out if there’s enough demand for your product or service – BEFORE spending time and money developing it
- As you do that, you gather data to learn more about your audience and what they like and dislike the most about your idea. You can do that with a form or, even better, a compelling quiz
This can only lead to three possible outcomes:
- No one joins your waitlist – Unfortunately, if people see the value in your concept, they don’t join your waitlist, and they won’t buy the final product either. And that’s annoying, I get it. But isn’t it better to figure this out now instead of wasting months and thousands of pounds on it? Another silver lining is that you can use your new insights to come up with a more relevant idea
- You realise you need to tweak your initial idea – Maybe people are signing up for your waitlist, but the data reveals their preferences don’t match your initial assumptions. Perhaps they’re more interested in something that was only meant to be a secondary feature. Either way, you can now optimise your focus and idea!
- Your audience LOVES your idea as it is – If your waitlist is a success, that means you can launch your idea confidently and use your new data to inform your marketing
Genius, isn’t it?
“I’ve launched two services and shelved two ideas thanks to using a waitlist! The ones we launched sold out (and continue to sell out), and the ones we shelved – well, I’m glad I didn’t spend months developing something our audience wasn’t interested in!” Lyndsay Cambridge, co-founder of Jammy Digital
Step-by-step guide to set up an effective waitlist
Enough with wasting your resources on offers built on guesswork and keeping your fingers crossed when you launch them!
Here’s how you can validate your idea and sell right from the start.
1. Create and promote a landing page for your waitlist
Start with your first offer concept and your current understanding of your audience. Sell that idea by building a landing page that feeds into a waitlist.
You should include:
- An attention-grabbing headline about your new product or service
- Copy that shows how it’ll solve your audience’s problem
- A preview of its features and benefits
- Social proof (like testimonials from happy customers or logos from publications where you’ve been featured)
- A quick overview of you and your mission
- A strong call to action to sign up for the waitlist (more on that soon!)
When you use ScoreApp, creating a landing page is a breeze. You’ll get to make the most of our intuitive drag-and-drop editor, templates and AI to speed up your process.
Then, once you’ve created the landing page for your waitlist, promote it EVERYWHERE: on your website, social media, email marketing, webinars and so on. To really test your idea, you want to put it in front of as many people as possible!
2. Create a market research quiz and get your audience to take it
Collecting someone’s email address will show you whether there’s enough demand for your new product or service.
But what if you could also collect data to uncover your audience’s pain points, goals, preferences and needs? And impress them and give them value right from the start?
Well, you totally can. That’s exactly why you should combine your waitlist landing page with a quiz!
Create a strategic quiz to get insights
Use your quiz to ask targeted questions to your audience.
Depending on your offer, you might want to find out:
- What features they are most interested in
- What problem they’re facing, and how it’s impacting them
- What they’ve already done to try and solve it
- What goals they care about the most
- Their likes and dislikes
- Their budget
When you use professional quiz builders like ScoreApp, you can even segment your waitlist members based on their answers. This will allow you to send them more personalised and effective messages during and after your launch.
Encourage people to take it
Don’t fall for the most overused waitlist call to action: “Sign up to be the first to know about it.” Instead, get strategic! How will joining it really benefit them?
For example, you could:
- Offer them an incentive – Consider creating a gifted quiz with an exclusive discount or bonus (like a 1:1 call) that’s only released to the waitlist
- Turn your waitlist quiz into a scorecard – Scorecards are valuable quizzes with results that are divided into categories. So, you’ll help your participants understand their situation (what they’re already doing well and what they still can improve when it comes to that topic) and get personalised advice. For example: “Join our waitlist, and discover your actual entrepreneurial profile in the meantime.” Much more compelling than the usual “Sign up to be the first to know about it,” isn’t it?
3. Use your audience’s feedback to tweak your product or service
Once you’ve promoted your waitlist for a while and shown it to enough people… Well, it’s the moment of truth!
- How many subscribers signed up for it?
- Is it the right offer for your audience, or should you use these new insights to come up with a different one altogether?
- Is there anything you should change or focus on the most when promoting your new product? (It might not be what you thought!)
As seen before, it can be frustrating to realise you made some predictions wrong. But this is your chance to fix them before you launch… instead of wasting your time and resources on something that didn’t resonate with your audience.
4. Write and design your sales page
Use the valuable insights from your waitlist and quiz to inform your copy.
For example, what’s your audience’s BIGGEST problem? And what were they most excited about when they heard about your offer? Focus on that!
When writing the sales page for your new product or service:
- Start with a compelling headline
- Clarify immediately how your offer will solve your audience’s problem and benefit them
- Go more in-depth: craft compelling body copy that connects with their pain point and positions your offer as the obvious solution
- List all your offer features
- Include social proof like testimonials and logos
- End your offer sales page with a strong call to action
5. Launch your new product or service to a fully engaged audience
And this is the biggest game-changer! Instead of taking a massive leap into the unknown, you can now announce your offer:
- To a warm audience who already expressed an interest in it and engaged with your brand through the quiz
- With a strong sales page based on evidence and data (NOT assumptions)
In other words, a recipe for a successful launch!
With ScoreApp, you can sell even more by sending different email sequences to each segment. That way, you can focus on their preferences and needs when promoting your new offer.
6. Sell out consistently!
I also recommend limiting the number of clients you take on at this stage. That way, you’re keeping your initial launch realistic and are bound to sell out.
You can always use this initial launch to gather even more insights, collect testimonials, and optimise your offer and marketing materials (if needed).
Then? Release it to the rest of your audience, and keep using this method for all your launches from now on.
Set up your new waitlist and quiz with ScoreApp, and get ready to launch confidently
Stop wasting a ridiculous amount of time and money on launches that may or may not work.
Instead, set yourself up for success by validating your idea with a waitlist, gathering insights through a quiz and using them to inform your offer and marketing.
Ready to launch a product or service that’s GUARANTEED to sell out? Create your waitlist landing page and ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE.
