The beauty of a waitlist campaign is that it transparently shows the supply and demand tension for your new product or service.
In other words, “Look at how many people are signalling their interest in my new thing! Don’t you want it too? There’s only [number] many available – get on the waitlist so you don’t miss out! AND you get a free [fabulous lead magnet] just for subscribing!’’
Why are you giving that something away for free here? Because your waitlist subscribers aren’t just giving you their name and email – although that’s valuable enough, in itself. To really maximise the potential of your waitlist, include a few carefully chosen questions that give you invaluable data about your leads.
In principle, this sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? But exactly what type of questions should you include in your launch waitlist?
Here’s a list of some different question types to jumpstart your thinking. Remember, they’re not all applicable to every product or service launch. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and you’ll choose the right questions for your waitlist subscribers.
What are you launching with a waitlist?
A waitlist is a brilliant way to prove that your new idea has signals of interest from your audience. It helps you measure how strong those signals are and if they’re coming from different audience segments. A waitlist is good for you AND your prospective customers, here’s why:
- Warm-up act: Your waitlist funnel strategy grabs your audiences’ attention, then generates excitement from subscription to launch day. It’s the perfect warm-up act for your new product or service.
We’re not talking annoying, repetitive ‘Don’t forget, launch day is [Insert date]’ emails! But emotionally engaging content, like wonderfully shareable behind-the-scenes and teaser visuals, that really joins people in with your launch journey – embedding their commitment to buy.
- Sorry, you’re not on the list: The whole idea of being on a special list, that not everyone can join is, by definition, exclusive. And who doesn’t like to feel special?
By giving your waitlist a maximum number of subscribers, you’re baking scarcity right into your offer. And, very importantly, it’s genuine. There are limited numbers – and you’re one of the lucky ones!
- Quality not quantity: In terms of leads, this is the ultimate aim. Save your time and energy by using waitlist questions to pre-qualify your leads – so you only invest resources in the ones most likely to convert into sales.
- Read their minds: Your waitlist metrics plop big dollops of data analysis onto your strategic thinking plate – straight from the minds of your audience. You can align customer needs, preferences and pain points with your new offering from the concept stage.
By taking care of every step on their path to purchase and adapting to every nuance of your audience’s responses, you can be confident in your product-market fit waaaaaay before launch day.
- Sold out, I’m afraid: Except you’re not afraid, you’re delighted! Your waitlist strategy results in a seamless launch with a total sellout of your lovely new thing. If anyone drops out, you have a list of very happy people who want to take their place. You capped the list, so there’s no leftover stock languishing in the cupboard.
Reasons you might be launching a waitlist
Businesses in a range of industries use the benefits of a waitlist funnel to create the successful launch of a new product or service in different ways. For example:
- Limited availability products: Things like small-batch spirits, custom-made furniture, or commissioned art pieces all have limited availability because of the obvious production constraints. These are not ever going to be aimed at a high volume market because the way they’re made is part of their definition. But you still want an oversubscribed waitlist – even though your orders will be filled in months, not days or weeks.
- Luxury goods and services: Mackenzie Valk of MPH said: “One of the key elements that differentiate luxury consumers is their pursuit of exclusivity. This desire is not merely about owning something unique but about the feeling of belonging to an elite club.”
The luxury industry are experts in conjuring this feeling of exclusivity. Rolex and Hermès are two of the most globally well-known waiting lists. There’s no way just to walk in and buy a Birkin bag – you have to be accepted onto the waiting list first. And, no, they can’t tell you when you’re likely to reach the top!
- Software and app launches: As well as putting their hands up as keen potential buyers – your waitlist is a great place to find beta testers! It gives you the chance to fix any bugs and refine new features before the big launch.
- Seasonal businesses: If your business is holiday themed, or based around event services, you’ve got concentrated demand at particular times of year. Think Christmas-themed food pop-up shops, or wedding planning exhibitions. Waitlists are a brilliant way to manage high demand during your peak times.
- Something that’s brand new: Have you invented a groundbreaking health-tech gadget, or created a new type of fabric for safety wear? Before you dive into production, use a waitlist strategy to gauge market interest and collect initial feedback from your potential audience.
You’ll either get confirmation that people share your enthusiasm for your new idea, or you’ll get crickets – in which case it’s better to know before you invest any more time and money. Or, most usefully, you’ll get insights that mean you can adapt your idea to better fit your customers’ needs before production.
Why you need to be asking questions on your waitlist
Yes, you want a lead form asking for your prospects’ name and email address, right at the start of your waitlist. Congratulations, they’ve willingly shared their contact data – no GDPR issues. But you can get so much more from your waitlist by asking a few market research questions…
It’s crucial that you pre-qualify the leads you get for your new product or service. You want to be selling to people who actually need or want it, and your customers want to buy things that genuinely solve a specific problem. With carefully chosen questions, your audience self-select if they’re the right fit.
For example, your target audience may be really enthusiastic about the new CRM you’re launching. But if their company doesn’t have the budget, they’re not the right lead for you and your product isn’t right for them.
Think about what insights are useful to you right now and construct your questions to get the answers. If you were sitting in a room of potential customers, what would you want to ask them?
- If you’re at the concept stage, you can figure out if there’s any demand for your idea.
- If you’re trying to decide which of 4 concepts to bring to production, ask your customers which they’d prefer, and why.
- If you’d like to get to know a new audience segment, ask them about their particular pain points.
All the information your audience shares with you is turned into actionable insights. Using this absolute goldmine of information to adjust and adapt your offer means that people are literally waiting to buy your finished product.
Waitlist question ideas
Fear of the blank page/screen is real – so here’s some waitlist question types to spark your inspiration.
Contact information
Whatever you do, don’t get carried away and forget to ask these non-negotiable basics:
- What’s your name?
- What’s your email address?
- What’s your phone number? – If this is necessary to your sales process. Otherwise, leave it off or make it optional.
Demographic information
If particular demographic information is key to your brand personas or how you’re selling, you might ask factual questions like:
- Where is your business located? Country / County / City
- What age range are you in: 18 – 30 / 30 – 40 / 40 – 50 etc.
- What’s your occupation?
Questions about sexuality, race, religion, and political affiliation may be appropriate in specific contexts, just make sure they’re worded sensitively and are fully inclusive.
Job role
Insights from these questions can be particularly enlightening if you typically sell to buying teams. Alongside other strategic questions, it can reveal the subtle differences in their aims and pain points that relate to your new product or service.
- What’s your job title?
- What’s your role in the buying team?
- Do you have budget sign-off powers?
Industry
If your product or service is useful in several different industries, it’s a good idea to include industry specific questions. This gives you a better idea of your reach into certain sectors and helps to eliminate interest from people who’s industry wouldn’t be the right fit. And it gives you additional details to deepen your understanding of each brand persona.
- Which industry do you work in? Tech / Health / Construction / Education
Sometimes the simplest wording is the best!
Interest level
Just a quick, easily understood, gauge of their current interest level.
- On a scale of 1 – 10, how interested are you in buying our shiny new thing?
Product or service specific questions
To go deeper into why they’ve given that rating to their interest level, you might want to include some specific questions about your product or service.
- What specific problem are you hoping our product/service will solve for you?
- What do you do right now to deal with this problem?
- Which of these brands have you used before? [competitor] / [competitor] / [competitor]
- Which of these products/services have you used before? [list of similar products/services]
- Would you prefer [new thing], or [new thing]? This one’s really helpful if you’re deciding between different concepts. It could be anything from B2B SaaS features, to new flavours of crisps.
- How often do you see yourself using our new product/service? Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Not sure, never had anything like it before
- Which new [feature] of our new product or service do you think will be most useful? [List of different features]
- On a scale of 1-10, how useful would [feature] be?
- Rank these other factors in order of importance to you as you’re considering our new thing: Previous good experience with us / Previous bad experience with us / Our well-known superb customer service / Our reputation for quality / Our excellent reviews
Budget and timeline
A basic budgeting question helps you enter the market at the right price point straightaway. And it allows you to work out if the potential profit margin is healthy enough to invest in full production.
Questions involving timelines give you an indication if your audience has urgency around when they need your product or service. Bear in mind, this might be around end of budget spending timetables.
- How quickly do you need our new [product/service]? Yesterday / ASAP / Within the month / Whenever it’s ready
- How much are you willing to pay for our lovely new thing? [List of price ranges]
- Would a finance payment option make you more likely to buy? Yes / No
For investment
You may want to use this waitlist as an opportunity to gauge interest from potential investors. This depends on your business position and the scalability of your new idea.
- Do you want to see the angel investor pitch? Yes / No
Open questions
These need a blank space for your audience to type in their own thoughts. These answers can throw up new ideas for future creations and may tell you things about your brand, service or quality level that inform your business strategy.
- Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
- Are there any features or services you think are missing from our new offer?
- Do you want to ask us anything about our new thing?
Writing waitlist questions: 5 Top tips
1. Be clear: 1 question = ask about 1 thing (not 2 or more things at the same time in the same question, that’s just confusing for everyone).
2. Be inclusive: If you’re giving multiple choice answers, there must be an option for everyone or you risk immediate alienation.
For example: Which of our new crisp flavours tickles your tastebuds the most? Cherry / Strawberry / Orange / Yuk! Even if the person reading doesn’t fancy any of them, they can still join in and select ‘Yuk!’
3. The need for speed: It’s not just Maverick – these days everyone feels the need for speed. This isn’t a full survey, so it’s wise to limit the number of questions on your waitlist to between 3 and 5.
Also make sure you’ve minimised the number of clicks and the amount of brain power required to answer your questions. This means you’re not asking too much of your subscribers and makes a high completion rate more likely.
4. Add some personality: Make your questions sound like you. The examples above are deliberately general for the purposes of this article, so you take them and imagine how you’d say it. Inject some personality! You know your audience, use your shared language.
For example:
- Ordinary version: ‘What do you think of our new summer dress range? Not for me / Some of it’s OK / Like most of it / Love it’
- Add a splash of our favourite Queer Eye star Jonathan van Ness: ‘What vibe is our new summer range giving? NO WORDS / Meh / Obsessed with the fabrics, feeling most of the styles / Who gave you permission?’
5. Check before you publish: Proofread for the usual spelling and punctuation whoopsies. But also check that everything makes sense now it’s out of your head and on the screen. You need to beta test the whole waitlist funnel and clarify anything that’s flagged as confusing – before you invite people to subscribe.
How to use your waitlist responses for a successful product or service launch
You need to monitor all your data and use those insights to create the best product or service your customers could possibly hope for. You can use waitlist insights to tweak initial designs to include audience feedback and make sure you start at the right price point.
All that extra data adds important details to your brand personas, to inform even more targeted messaging and marketing campaigns. Your waitlist questions aren’t just pre-qualifying your leads, they’re segmenting your audience by their answers. So you can set up properly personalised email campaigns for each segment at the start of your waitlist funnel strategy.
What’s really brilliant about ScoreApp’s waitlist capability, is that it measures the responses to each individual question. If one question has a significantly higher drop off rate – you can get in there and change the wording, or just delete it altogether. This kind of fine detail means that you can continuously evaluate and improve your waitlist questions and nurture sequences.
Ask the right questions – build your waitlist with ScoreApp
Well-worded questions are the secret weapons behind an oversubscribed waitlist and a sellout launch.
Building your waitlist funnel with ScoreApp gives you:
- A compelling landing page to share everywhere
- Gorgeous waitlist templates with suggested questions you can translate into your own voice
- Metrics that pre-qualify leads, segment your subscribers, and deliver actionable insights
- Automatic email sequences that build excitement up until launch day and continue to look after your customers post-purchase
- Ways to save money along your whole launch journey
Create your waitlist quiz with ScoreApp today for FREE!
