In this episode, I explain why simply adding a waitlist to your offer isn’t enough to drive conversions. I share the biggest mistakes I see businesses make with waitlists, including leaving subscribers waiting for months without meaningful communication, collecting very little information about their intent, and giving them no compelling reason to join in the first place. While people who join a waitlist have already shown interest, I explain why it’s important to treat them differently from your regular email list and nurture that interest before your doors open.
I also walk through the strategies I use to build high-converting waitlists. I share how to make the first email count, create a nurture sequence that matches the length of the waiting period, ask thoughtful questions to better understand potential customers, and segment people based on whether they’re the right fit for my offer. Finally, I explain why every waitlist should include a meaningful incentive—whether that’s early access, an exclusive bonus, or a special offer—so people have a genuine reason to sign up instead of simply being told they’ll “hear first.”
3 Key Takeaways
- Treat My Waitlist Like a Warm Audience
I don’t see waitlist subscribers as ordinary email subscribers because they’ve already shown interest in my offer. That’s why I make sure they receive dedicated communication, valuable content, and personalized nurturing instead of simply waiting until launch day.
- Use My Waitlist to Learn More About Potential Customers
Rather than collecting only a name and email address, I ask questions that help me understand each person’s needs, level of experience, and whether they’re the right fit for my program. This allows me to segment my audience and provide more relevant recommendations before my offer even opens.
- Give People a Real Reason to Join the Waitlist
I don’t rely on the promise of “being first to know.” Instead, I reward people for joining my waitlist with meaningful incentives such as exclusive bonuses, early access, or special offers that make signing up worthwhile and encourage stronger conversions when my doors open.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, Subscribe to my Youtube
Transcript
Most wait lists are set up for someone to opt into something when you're not selling it. They give you their details and then nothing. So are wait lists worth doing? And if they are worth doing, how do you actually do one so it converts?
Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. I know your time is super valuable, and the fact that you are choosing to spend time with me is not taken lightly. May I ask a favor, though? If you are watching this on YouTube and you haven't yet hit the subscribe button, I would be so grateful if you could do that, and if you could possibly give it a like, even drop me a comment if you're feeling up to it, because that will tell the algorithm that you like what you're watching, and hopefully share it with more people.
if you could drop me a quick [:So for instance, Grow Launch Sell, which is my signature offer, my main program, we open it and probably launch it about three, maybe four times a year. But it's only open at very specific points, and then the doors close. So if you were to come to my site today, I mean, depending on when you're watching this, it may or may not be open, and therefore on the page is going to be a option for you to get on the waitlist to be told when I next open the doors.
a waitlist, let's talk about [:I tried to find some research on how well a waitlist, like, does in terms of conversions, and the only data I really found was, like, from SAS companies. But they do convert much, much higher. So when someone's on a waitlist for a SAS company, I couldn't find anything on online businesses, but that list will convert much higher than their normal list because they're on the waitlist.
The very least I want you to take from this is if they're on the waitlist, there is intent. Now, depending on whether you put the pricing on there, whether you put all the details on there, how strong that intent is is hard to know, but there is some intent. They are interested. So we need to make sure that we really deal with them differently and look after those people.
r wait list is decaying over [:That is a very decayed list by the time you come round to launching again. And obviously they lose interest, and this kind of kills the conversion. So that's the first thing to think about. How long are they likely to be on the wait list? There's your first problem. Problem number two, that there is a weak intent.
And what I mean by that is you're taking, yes, there is intent, but you're taking very little detail from them and you know nothing about them. So often we're just asking them for their name and their email, which on a standard opt-in is all I would ever ask for. But actually on a wait list, I think we can find out some more from them.
period of time and someone, [:You're not getting a commitment of any sort. So by asking them other things and asking them to commit a bit further, that will help the wait list. Number three problem that I see is that the wait list gives them a very vague promise. Now, this is something that I do myself, so this, there's no judgment with a lot of this stuff.
Like, well, there's no judgment with any of this stuff. But often, like, it will just be a case of be the first to hear. So having a vague kind of promise doesn't really make them excited to want to get on the wait list. Okay, so now we know the problems. Let's talk about how to actually structure that wait list so that you are maximizing the people who sign up to it.
most important email because [:But whatever you do, like, don't waste that first email by just going, "Hey, you're on the list. Well done." Then we need to nurture them. One of the things we're gonna talk about in a minute is basically some of the creative more things that you can do and, and one of those things is asking them questions on the wait list form.
But let's say you don't have anything else for them to have. You have no other offers. There's no other directions you can take them in, and therefore, they really do just have to wait for the offer that they've opted in for. So this bit is all about the nurturing. So you've sent them the first email.
everything I do, it depends. [:I make sure I understand fully about their businesses, and I tailor my advice to each individual in there because it depends. If you have a wait list that only has to wait three weeks, then your nurture sequence is gonna look very different for someone who has to wait six months. But it's not about the...
It's not like if I say your nurture sequence needs to be five emails, that you do five emails regardless of the length of time. If it's a longer time, you need to do more emails. You need to keep them warm, and you need to be nurturing them in other ways. And there's various ways in which you can do this.
ailored towards your product [:So you will be emailing them, maybe handling some objections before you even open the doors. You'll be talking about the fact that it's coming. You'll be ramping up the excitement. So it's not just a case of they opt in, they get one email that says, "Well done, you're on the wait list," and then they just get every other email with everybody else.
Treat these people different because they have shown intent, and therefore we want to treat them like the warmer customers that they are. So some of the creative things that you can do for the wait list, as I kind of alluded to, was we could actually have them answer particular questions to get on the wait list, because there might be something.
ed to A one-to-one scenario, [:So not only do you find out more and maybe another avenue to go down, but also they are showing higher intent. The reason we don't ask for lots of information when someone opts into a lead magnet is because we want as many people to opt in as possible, the right people obviously, and by adding more questions, we're basically doing another hurdle and another hurdle.
But actually on the wait list, you can totally do this. You could even take it as far as to have them segmented based on questions. Like I said, there might be a question of have you... So one of mine is have you launched before? Because I work with people who have launched before and want to know how to have more consistent launches, but have data that I can look back on and help them understand what worked, what didn't, and we can tweak and move forward.
I could segment them really [:So you could get them excited by going, you know, "Just to let you know, this month," and as I speak at the moment, as I record this, we are doing messaging month within my community. We've been doing this about focusing on messaging, and this is what we're doing, and this is what I'm teaching. So you could give them some kind of sneak peek content that they wouldn't get anywhere else.
And then finally, let's talk about rewarding the people on the wait list. Like, what is the reason they need to get on that wait list? As I said right at the beginning, one of the mistakes is it's just so vague. It's like, you know, I'll tell you first. Well, that's not very exciting. So do they get an offer?
m a reward for showing their [:If you don't have a cart open all the time or something evergreen all the time and you want to use a wait list, it's not about whether you should have one or not, it's about how you use it properly. We need to keep that engagement high by nurturing them properly. We need to ask for some more intent and maybe ask them some more questions, and we need to give them a real value promise as to why they should be getting on the wait list.
