Four waitlist emails, ready to copy.
A waitlist needs only a handful of emails, and each one has a single job. Here are the four that matter, with what each one should do and a template you can adapt. Swap the parts in square brackets for your own.
The confirmation email
With double opt-in, this is the first email people get from you. Its only job is the click on the confirm button. Send it the moment they sign up, keep it short and leave everything else out.
Use your product’s name as the sender and a subject that says what to do. Put the button near the top, so people see it without scrolling. Add a line for people who didn’t sign up, so they know they can ignore it.
If the email doesn’t arrive, people sign up again or give up. The page after signup should say who the email comes from, and that it may land in spam.
The welcome email
Once someone confirms, send a welcome. This is the email people keep, so tell them what they joined, where they are in line and what happens next. Write it so it still makes sense months later, when someone searches their inbox for it.
It’s also the place for the share link if you run referrals, and for one question. Asking people to reply with what they hope the product will do gets you answers in their own words.
Send the welcome once. If someone signs up a second time, they shouldn’t get a second welcome.
A short update
Between signup and launch, people forget. A short update every few weeks keeps the product in mind, so the invite reaches someone who remembers why they joined.
Keep it concrete: what you built since the last email, with a screenshot, and when the next invites go out. Ask for one thing at most, such as a reply or a vote. A newsletter layout with many sections is more than a waitlist needs.
Send updates only to people who confirmed, from the same sender as the other emails, with an unsubscribe link at the bottom.
If there’s no news, skip the update. An email with nothing in it teaches people to ignore the next one. A rough screenshot of something new is enough.
The invite
The invite is the email the whole list waited for. Make the next step obvious: one button, a clear expiry date and what to do once they’re in.
Make the link personal and single-use, so a forwarded email doesn’t let someone else in. Say when it expires, and how to get a new one if they miss it.
If people haven’t heard from you in a while, say in the first line why they’re getting this, such as when they joined the waitlist. Send it from the same sender as every email before it, so people recognise it in a full inbox.
When each email goes out
Timing matters as much as the words. Here’s when each one goes, with two optional extras:
- Confirmation: the moment someone signs up
- Welcome: right after they confirm
- Position update, optional: when referrals move someone up, at most once a day
- Update: every few weeks until launch, when there’s news
- Invite: when their batch opens
- Reminder, optional: once, a day or two before the invite expires
Send them from your own domain
Every waitlist email should come from an address on your product’s domain, such as hello@yourproduct.com. People recognise the name, and mailbox providers are more willing to deliver mail from a domain that’s set up properly.
Waitlark sends the confirmation, welcome, position update and invite emails from your own address, in your brand and in each person’s language. Whatever you send with, check these:
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up for the domain you send from
- The sender is an address people can reply to, and someone reads the replies
- Every email has an unsubscribe link that works in one click
- People get emails in the language they signed up in
- You’ve sent yourself a test of every email and opened it on your phone