“I want to start building a waitlist for my fall launch. Is it too soon? Too “summery”, since everyone seems to be offline?” — a ​Council​ member in this week’s Decision Clinic.

My non-equivocal answer: NOPE, not at all. Start now; yesterday, if possible.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever seen with launches: people work on something in complete silence, surprise their audience with a 100% complete product, with all the bells and whistles, then wonder why they make far fewer sales than they expected in that tiny one-week window they allotted for the launch.

Let’s assume you have exactly two months until you open the cart and talk about what you need to do starting right now.

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What are you selling (in as LITTLE detail as possible)?

Please PLEASE don’t build the whole thing. You don’t need to. All you need is to know the outcome you’re promising so you can start talking about it.

For instance:

  • A cohort-based program that teaches people how to generate more sales from their newsletter.
  • A mini-course on nutrition for people over 50.
  • A community for people who want to relocate to Greece.
  • A program for overachievers who feel stuck in their current role/business.
  • An app that helps people strengthen their relationships.

That’s it. You don’t need any more than this.

In fact, it’s better if you DON’T build the whole damn thing

Your job in the pre-launch phase is to gauge interest. I’m advising you to refrain from building everything because, at this stage, you can ask questions and refine the offer until it’s what your audience needs, not what you think they need.

So, if your idea is half-baked, run with it. Don’t create the whole curriculum or record the course YET.

Note: if you already have the whole damn thing and it’s validated, you’ll have even more energy for the marketing side of things.

For instance, you may want to turn a course into a live cohort or vice versa. That’s a valid path and the launch plan below works just as well.

Your 8-week launch plan

I asked AI to create an infographic from everything I wrote below. You can save this image to refer back to it but I encourage you to read the whole thing, so you have the entire context.

Week 1: Ask your audience if they are interested in your idea

All you need is a couple of sentences that you post across your channels (email, social media, others): “I’m thinking about teaching everything I know about making sales through email in a live program. You’ll have my full support and that of the group. Would you be interested in that? [Click here to join the waitlist.]

That’s it.

In an email, you can assign a tag to everyone who clicks on the link. On social media, you can create a poll or ask people to comment on your post — and then you’ll have to DM them manually or add them to your waitlist (with permission, of course).

Week 2: Validate interest

How many people do you need to convert for what you’re building to be worth it? 10? 50? 1,000?

By now, you should have some people on your waitlist. If you have a history with waitlists, you know how many of the early hand-raisers convert. If not, assume a 5-10% conversion rate from the waitlist (depending on your risk appetite).

If 5-10% of the early hand raisers convert, are you at least halfway to your goal? If so, start building. If not, try asking again (perhaps with a different value proposition).

For the purpose of this essay, we’ll assume you’re very close to that goal, and you can move on with the launch.

Week 3: Keep building up that waitlist and start asking questions

This week, you need to keep reminding people that you’re building something new. At the same time, you need to talk to the people who raised their hands first.

Ask them questions like:

  • Which areas of [the outcome you promised] do you struggle the most with? Give them 3 options.
  • What’s ONE thing that’s preventing you from getting [outcome]? Free-form answer.
  • What would success look like for you if you [joined the cohort/took the course/bought the app]?

These questions are designed to do two things:

  1. Help you build the best possible product. Based on those answers, you can stop assuming and start addressing your audience’s real needs.
  2. Give you language you can use on your landing page/sales copy. You can lift your respondents’ exact language for this.

Week 4: Start emailing waitlist people about what you’re launching

By now, you should have two critical things:

  1. People who have explicitly said they’re interested in your new product’s promise (waitlisters)
  2. A better understanding of what people expect from what you’re building (based on the answers to the questions above)

It’s time to start building the offer and to speak more about it, especially to waitlisters. You can also split your waitlisters into different segments based on their answers to the questions above, especially the multiple-choice one.

You can do this very easily in ​Kit​ (aff) and in other email platforms too. Here’s ​how I did it for a launch last year​ (the article also has pre-suasion and persuasion content ideas that you can use for your own launch).

Keep adding people to your waitlist until the very last week. Think of it as a funnel: start with a low commitment (get added to a [new] list) and then ask for more — a purchase.

Weeks 5-7: Keep emailing your waitlist

1-2 times a week is enough at this stage. I really, really don’t recommend emailing people more than this. I know some do it, but I also know that most people unsubscribe from too many emails.

Also, give them an option to unsubscribe from this specific campaign. A couple of sentences should do the trick: “Don’t want to hear about [PRODUCT_NAME] anymore? Click here to unsubscribe from these emails. Don’t worry; you’ll still get the regular newsletter.”

Lastly, make sure each email you send has a purpose and builds up anticipation gradually. A few ideas:

  • Why I’m building [PRODUCT_NAME]
  • What you can expect from [PRODUCT_NAME]
  • What people who have been through [PRODUCT_NAME or similar product] got out of it
  • Pricing reveal
  • Maybe a discount for early bird buyers? (This doesn’t apply to all offers, so choose carefully).

Again, you’ll find more topic ideas ​here​. Or you can grab my ​5+1 launch email sequence​ and use those emails (with light editing).

Week 8 (launch week!)

This is when you can finally stop building your waitlist and focus on emailing them more often. The cadence is up to you. Personally, I’ve never gone above thrice a week, but you can definitely do more emailing.

This is also the week when you should look beyond blasting everyone with the same message. A few ideas:

  • Are you connected with some of the people on your waitlist on social media? DM them and say “I saw you’re interested in [PRODUCT_NAME]. If you have any questions, I’m here. I want to make sure you make the right decision.”
  • Know that some of the people on your waitlist are the perfect fit for what you’re launching? → Email them individually and start a human conversation.
  • Ask your friends/network to refer clients to you. Offer an affiliate/referral bonus to sweeten the deal.

Quick note: this plan focuses on email only. BUT you should absolutely mirror this strategy on your social media channels too!

✋ Limitations

If you’re selling a premium, very high-touch product, I suggest talking to people individually. For instance, if your waitlist has ±10-15 people, this is very doable and it works infinitely better than blasting everyone with the same message.

Is this YOUR launch plan?

It could be. But if the dates don’t match for you or if you have a preference for different channels, I encourage you to tweak away. There are two reasons I think this is a valuable plan:

  • It gives you enough time for a proper launch
  • It doesn’t rely only on blasting your sales copy to everyone in your audience a million times. It also emphasizes high-touch, truly personalized communication.

Keep these two in mind, then tweak away until it’s YOUR plan.

The Council Bulletin

It’s summer; it’s hot. Yet ​The Council​ is buzzing. Most members take advantage of this low season to do BTS work. Here’s what I’m excited about:

  • At least three members are launching new offers soon, and we’re all helping and providing feedback.
  • People are also launching new newsletters (YAY!) and building amazing landing pages.
  • You may have already seen (or will see soon) amazing proprietary research coming from Council members. I’m so excited for this!

​Wanna join us?​ We don’t have cookies, but we do have exciting projects and ultra-smart, helpful members!