EP 464 | The Tiny 106 Waitlist That Outsold My 11,000 Subscriber Email List
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How our black friday waitlist converted at 17%
78% of our Black Friday sales came from the waitlist, not the sales emails. In this 6-minute de-brief, I walk you through how we used a strategic waitlist to qualify buyers, handle objections early, and create a group that was ready to buy before the cart ever opened.
What if the tiny waitlist you're overlooking could outsell your massive email list?
In this de-brief episode, Allison pulls back the curtain on her recent Black Friday launch, where 78% of sales came from just 106 people on a waitlist, not her full 11,000 subscriber list. Allison breaks down how qualified, pre-sold email subscribers did the heavy lifting before the cart even opened, and why that’s the real secret to conversions.
TAKEAWAYS:
A strong waitlist strategy can dramatically outperform a large, unqualified email list. Allison’s 106-person waitlist converted at 17%.
Your sales emails don't need to do the convincing when the decision is already made during the waitlist phase.
Timing and positioning beat urgency and pressure, every single time.
The most important sales work happens before anyone ever clicks a “buy” button.
Selling to fewer, more qualified people often creates more predictable and profitable results.
Resources:
Want to watch the full waitlist strategy de-brief? Click here to access it.
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Transcript:
Hey, hey. Welcome to episode number 464 of the Email Empire Podcast. I'm your host, Alison Hardy. Welcome back. So if you've ever spent hours perfecting a sales email. This episode might make you angry. You've been warned. All right? Because sales emails are rarely the reason why people buy. Now, in today's episode, I'm gonna be sharing a debrief of my Black Friday launch.
And the reason why I wanna do this is because 78% of the sales during that launch came from the wait list. Not from the open cart emails, not from the reminders, not from the last Chance email. The wait list did the selling.
And in this week's episode, I want to talk you through why that matters and invite you to watch a six minute debrief of the ins and outs of this wait list strategy. So here's the numbers. I had 106 people on a wait list. I had 23 total buyers for our Black Friday launch, and 18 of those buyers came from the wait list.
So that's a 17% wait list to sale conversion rate. Now in the online marketing space, a seven to 10% wait list conversion rate is considered healthy. 17% is. Not normal, and quite honestly, it didn't happen because of hype or urgency or sending more emails.
The truth of the matter is, is that this is where most people jump to the wrong conclusion. They hear stats like this and they think, wow. Those sales emails must have been really good. The thing is, the sales emails weren't really any different from my usual sales emails. The sales emails didn't convince people to buy.
They didn't overcome objections. They didn't educate. They just showed up with a link because by the time the cart opened, the decision had already been made. The real work happened before the cart even opened.
In the wait list phase, expectations were set, objections were handled. The offer was positioned crystal clear and people self-selected in. That's why the wait list outperformed the entire email list. That's why 78% of the sales came from that group. That's why the sales emails didn't really have to work all that hard.
It's also why so many people. So many entrepreneurs feel like their sales emails have to absolutely be perfect and do all of the heavy lifting, when in reality a primed and qualified email subscriber will buy faster than any beautifully written email because the work has already been done before they even get that pitch because the work has already been done before they even get that very first pitch email.
I recorded a six minute video debrief walking you through my entire strategy. In it, I shared how the wait list was positioned.
I shared why timing mattered way more than urgency, and I shared how qualification changed the outcome. I did not include the actual emails in that video on purpose. I know that's the thing that everyone always wants because what I want you to see first is how to think about wait lists differently. If you've ever thought, okay, I have an email list.
But yeah, sales feel really unpredictable. This will connect a lot of the dots for you, so when you watch the debrief, you'll walk away understanding why selling to fewer people can produce more sales. Why Timing always, always, always beats pressure.
And why Qualification beats louder marketing. It's not about Black Friday. This is about how to prep your buyers for any offer, whether it's evergreen, a traditional launch. A flash sale, whatever it is that you're doing, and once you see this, you're not gonna be able to unsee it. So here's what I want you to do next.
I want you to watch the debrief. You can find it through the link in the show notes. It's short. It's literally six minutes long. It's clear and it will change how you think about where sales actually happen. Again, that link is hanging out for you in the show notes, and once you watch it, you'll also see the next step if you want the actual emails.
And the deeper breakdown. But first, you gotta start with the video. That's where the real shift happens.
