A waitlist strategy helps you successfully launch new products and services by sharpening your ideas in the market, not in your mind. Using it to test the market’s appetite at every stage of the process saves you time, resources, and money – even before you start production. If it’s not going to work, best to find out as quickly and cheaply as possible!
A waitlist helps you mitigate the risks of bringing your new idea to market, capture qualified leads, and refine your offering by incorporating the insights from all that lovely data.
Now you need to look after those keen beans in a way that makes them feel personally escorted all the way to the till. For this holistic view of lead generation, you need 2 specialists: a quiz lead generation platform and a robust email automation tool.
Forget Batman and Robin, meet the only power team that matters…ScoreApp and ActiveCampaign.
ScoreApp is where you build your entire waitlist strategy: scorecard, landing page, data analysis. ActiveCampaign is one of the best email marketing tools on the market.
And, like every great couple, they:
- Complement each others strengths and weaknesses: They’re both experts at what they do, but they don’t do the same things
- Fit together perfectly: No coding, no glitches, just a seamless connection
- Work towards the same goal: Grab your audiences’ attention and keep it = an oversubscribed waitlist!
You’re only 5 steps away from harnessing the combined powers of this perfect partnership!
Step 1: Set up your waitlist with ScoreApp
ScoreApp isn’t just a ‘design a quiz’ software – it’s a lead generating machine!
Everything is downstream from lead generation and a ScoreApp waitlist funnel scaffolds each part of that process.
ScoreApp waitlist benefits
- Warm leads: By joining the waitlist your audience is giving you strong signals of interest in your new product or service. You’re not wasting time on leads that are unlikely to convert and you get a good baseline number for predicted sales.
- Actionable insights: ScoreApp collates all the metrics from your waitlist quiz to give analysis that you can use to refine your offering and messaging – even before you’ve produced a prototype!
- Build trust: As people sign up to your waitlist, they divide themselves into different segments through their answers. You can use this to strengthen your connections with personalised messaging that speaks directly to each group. (This is where your partnership with ActiveCampaign is crucial – more on that later.)
- Shareability: Signing up to a waitlist means that you’re looking forward to the launch of the shiny new thing. It’s such an easy emotion to share, ‘Oh, I can’t wait for…!’ A waitlist is ideal for quick, easy sharing on social media – for you and your subscribers. Leading to lots more like-minded lovelies signing up!
- Sales!: The ultimate aim of your waitlist is that when you launch the perfect version of your new product or service – people are literally queued up ready to buy it! And if you’ve achieved an oversubscribed waitlist, you’ve got people lined up to take the place of any last minute dropouts.
You can set up a free ScoreApp account and get access to 100+ free templates straightaway. You just need to put in your name, email and create a password – we don’t even ask you any questions! You don’t need to enter any credit card details.
Waiting list question ideas
Understanding your audience’s buyer psychology underpins your ability to create products or services that meet a real need, and to sell them effectively. A waitlist funnel doesn’t just collect basic name and email address data.
By including a few carefully chosen questions you get deeper insight into who they are and what they really think.
Here’s a few question ideas, to get you thinking:
- Demographic information: Like age, gender, geographic location – whatever’s relevant to your new product or service.
- Industry: Your product or service may be useful to multiple industries, it’s useful to hone in on the subtle differences and develop brand personas for each one.
- Job role: If you typically sell to a buying team, this gives you the opportunity to check out the nuances of priorities and aims for each member.
- How interested they are: On a scale of, say, 1-10
- Budget: This is really useful for entering the market at the right price point
- Their timeline: Is there urgency around when they need to make a purchase?
- Would you prefer [new thing] or [new thing]? If you’re still weighing up different possibilities for your new product or service, ask the people who’ll be buying. For example: Which of our new ice cream flavours are you most looking forward to trying? Basil / Rosemary / Coriander / Yuk!
All of these lend themselves to quick answers that your audience doesn’t really have to think about – which leads to a higher completion rate and more juicy insights for you!
Step 2: Integrate ScoreApp with ActiveCampaign
We’ve made it really easy to integrate ScoreApp’s platform with ActiveCampaign.
*Cheesy voiceover* ‘Here comes the science bit…’
How to connect ActiveCampaign to ScoreApp
Go into your ActiveCampaign account and find your API URL and key. Click on ‘Settings’, then ‘Developer’.
Now open your ScoreApp account and go to the integrations section. Click on ActiveCampaign and enter the information where instructed.
How to map quiz data to ActiveCampaign
You can define how the data from your quiz responses is mapped across to custom fields in ActiveCampaign. This ensures that particular metrics trigger the correct automated email stream.
ScoreApp integrates with a whole range of other platforms and email marketing tools. And if yours isn’t on our list, you can use Zapier to connect the two.
Step 3: Set up a waitlist segment in ActiveCampaign
Now you’re all connected, you can create a new email marketing list in ActiveCampaign just for people who complete your quiz and join your waitlist.
Within that, you can also make custom fields in ActiveCampaign to capture specific information from the quiz questions.
Automation time!
This is where the real magic happens! Get rid of the laborious time-suck that is keeping track of your email sequences. In ActiveCampaign you can set up automated lead capture that triggers a particular email response when someone completes your ScoreApp waitlist quiz and submits their information.
Your trigger works in one of 2 ways. If you’ve got direct ScoreApp-ActiveCampaign integration, use their ‘Submits a form’ trigger. Otherwise use a tag-based trigger, if ScoreApp applies a tag to the contact.
The final steps are self-explanatory. ‘Add to list’ means that your contact joins the waitlist-specific segment of your email list. ‘Send confirmation email’ is just that – a confirmation email is automatically sent to your new subscriber, thanking them for joining and sharing any additional information.
Step 4: Nurture your waitlist with carefully crafted emails
Subscribing to a waitlist is a bit like your host sitting you at the bar, while you wait for your table. Picture it…you’re in elegant surroundings, on a glamorous yet comfortable chair, a friendly bartender hands you the perfect cocktail, and the kitchen sends you a little complimentary amuse-bouche to tantalise your tastebuds (and silence any tummy rumblings!).
Your host checks in a couple of times to see if you need anything. Then, just as you’ve finished your drink, you’re escorted to your table and the main event.
The wait was a pleasurable experience in itself. The attentiveness of the staff made you feel looked after and all your needs were met, even if you didn’t verbalise them. (You didn’t actually say ‘God, I’m starving’ out loud.)
This is how you want your waitlist subscribers to feel. They don’t just sign up and then get ignored until 3 days before the launch. You’re not there to do this in person, but you can make your audience feel nurtured with the waitlist email sequences that you design in ActiveCampaign.
These emails give you the opportunity to teach your audience more about your product or service. And get them all hyped up in anticipation of its launch. There are different kinds of waitlist email sequences, you need to decide what will resonate most with your readers.
3 main email categories and their vibe
1. Welcome emails
Vibe: ‘How lovely to see you! Come in, let me take your coat, sit down’
Immediately send a ‘welcome to the waitlist’ email, with more details about the process and gift to say ‘thanks for subscribing’ – like a discount code or extra asset. It’s a good idea to establish correct expectations here, like a confirmation of the launch date, how often you’ll be in touch and the sorts of things you’ll be sharing.
2. Engagement emails
Vibe: Check this out! This is why we love making this for you! Shhh, we’re not telling everyone this but… We know this is annoying, so we fixed it! Isn’t this amazing?!
Here’s where you share: updates on the design and production, how something will work, sneak peeks at details no-one else will see, insights about other subscribers from your waitlist data, who else is sharing the waitlist, your ‘why’ stories. All this adds to their anticipation of how much they’re going to love ‘it’ when it’s finally launched. Tidbits of insider info are also a great way to trigger some gossip (waitlist) sharing.
3. Countdown emails
Vibe: OMG! It’s nearly here! Can’t wait for you to see the launch party fabulousness we’ve planned for you! (Channelling Will Ferrell’s Elf – ”Santa’s coming!” levels of excitement.)
These are the ones you send as the launch date gets closer. Build the hype, reinforce the not-to-be-missed date, add any extras for your loyal waitlist subscribers.
Shoutout for segmentation!
According to Hubspot’s 2023 ‘State of Marketing Report’, segmented emails get 30% more opens and 50% more click throughs than unsegmented ones. And 78% of marketers said that the most effective email marketing strategy in their campaigns is subscriber segmentation.
There’s no point having all that lovely data from your waitlist quiz metrics if you don’t use it. Segment your waitlist and personalise your email content accordingly. For example, if you’re releasing a new Sleep app, your waitlist quiz might include questions like:
- Do you usually look at a screen in bed, before you try to fall asleep?
- Do you often eat your main meal after 8pm?
- Do you have a regular bedtime?
- Is your bedroom clutter-free, quiet and dark?
- Do you regularly exercise after 7pm?
Your subscribers just have to answer yes or no to get their ‘sleepytimes score’. Your ScoreApp metrics give you their breakdown of the answers to each question. So you can send different emails, depending on how they answered.
For example: ‘In your sleepytimes test, you told us that you usually eat your main meal after 8pm. This is likely to negatively affect the quality of your sleep. Here’s a podcast that might help, where a nutritionist explains to me how to change your eating timetable – and the surprising benefits!
But another audience segment that mostly answered ‘Yes’ to ‘Do you regularly exercise after 7pm?’ would receive a different email.
For example: ‘It’s great that you’re managing to fit exercise into your busy schedule! But you might not know that exercising this close to bedtime can negatively affect your ability to get to sleep. I know, it feels like you can’t do right for doing wrong. Here’s a webinar that might help. It’s a panel of experts discussing how they create a manageable daily schedule that always includes time for exercise.’
Step 5: Monitor and optimise
Of course, you don’t just set up email sequences and cross your fingers! Use all the performance data at your fingertips to your advantage.
ActiveCampaign’s analytics let you track open rates, click-through rates, and other crucial metrics. If you see something isn’t working – you can refine quickly. You can make evidence based decisions about email content, frequency, and targeting to boost engagement and conversion rates.
Remember – it’s not just about the numbers. This real feedback from real people helps you understand them better.
Use this knowledge to build stronger relationships with your customers, build better products and services, speak to them in a shared language, and give them a brilliant experience every time they come into contact with your business.
Create a sell-out launch with ScoreApp waitlists
ScoreApp and ActiveCampaign – the dynamic duo that’s going to keep and hold the attention of your audiences.
Powering your lead generation with both of these tools means that you don’t just have a room of interested people with politely raised hands – you’ve got a crowd of fans ready to break down the door on launch day!
Who doesn’t want that? Link up your ActiveCampaign account and create your ScoreApp waitlist for free, today!
