Whenever a founder tells me their launch didn't sell, my first question is who they sent it to.
The answer, quite often, is everyone. They've built a list with thousands of subscribers on it, but they couldn't tell you which subscribers wanted the offer, or how many were still reading at all.
Working out who's still reading is harder than it sounds. Open and click rates give you a rough picture, but automated security bots and antivirus software inflate some of those numbers, so even a healthy open rate can't tell you who's actually on the other end of your emails.
So before your next launch, ask yourself a simple question: who are you really talking to?
The newsletters I write for clients have generated over $1M in revenue this year alone, and the easiest way I've found to answer that question is to ask readers directly, with a poll they can answer in a single click. I put polls in 3 places, and each one tells you something different.
Poll 1: In your welcome email
A lot of welcome emails try to do too much before the founder sending them knows who's reading.
With my clients, the welcome sequence opens with a single email that covers who you are, what you do, why the newsletter exists and what readers can expect from it.
That email ends with a poll built around 2 questions:
- Who the reader is.
- Which topics matter most to them.
The answers shape every email that follows. Readers get follow-ups based on their role and their interests, and from there, the relationship personalises itself.
Note: some email platforms don't handle this well, which is part of why I use Kit, where segmentation is built in and simple to set up.
Poll 2: In your weekly newsletter
One client sent her weekly newsletter to 12,000 subscribers, and roughly 55% of them opened it.
She wanted more leads from that list, but an open rate can't show you which readers are interested in buying, and she needed to know who wanted her digital course.
Rather than send a sales email, we added a short poll to the bottom of each newsletter, with a few weighted questions about the course. Over 600 people answered within 5 weeks.
The interested readers now get targeted emails that refer back to their poll answers, and some get a personal message instead.
I'll always lean towards that personal message, and from there, a booked call. Even if the reader doesn't buy, you've built a relationship, and people you have a relationship with are more likely to recommend you later.
Poll 3: In the weeks before a launch
The founder whose launch went to the whole list could have used this one.
For my clients, the asking begins 4 or 5 weeks before launch. We send newsletters on the topic of the offer, and each one carries a poll with questions that change from one email to the next.
By launch day, you'll know 2 things:
- Whether anyone actually wants the offer.
- Exactly who to send it to.
If interest is low, we rework the offer or hold it back, but strong interest is a good sign the offer will sell. Once it goes ahead, the people who showed interest get targeted emails, because they're the warmest buyers on the list.
Big companies spend so much on market research before anything goes on sale for a reason, and a poll in your newsletter does the same job on a smaller scale.
Put together, a poll in your welcome email shows you who just joined, one in your weekly newsletter shows you who's interested in your offer, and a few before a launch show you whether anyone wants it and who to send it to.
If you don't ask, you don't get.