Waitlists don’t work for online courses (and what to use instead)

Kristina A. Sparks

Launches

Hey my friend 👋

In this edition, you’ll learn:

The exact strategy that helped me make $12,541.04 in a single day (and how asking questions helped me do it.)

Type: 🚀 Launches

I’m sure you’ve seen posts like this (or maybe have posted this yourself):

“I’m opening enrolment for my course soon, join the waitlist”.

And then there’s usually a form to add an email, plus maybe a name that you submit to join that amazing waitlist.

The creator is happy seeing the growing number of subscribers and dreaming about all these people joining his/hers upcoming program 🤑

But once ‌enrolment opens, they hear… crickets 🦗🦗🦗

That’s when the truth hits:

Waitlists don’t work for launching online courses.

(at least not the way you think 😉)

But why waitlists don’t work?

It’s just human psychology at play:

When someone is not committed, they won’t act.

Just adding an email in the form is NOT a commitment.

Even more:

Registering for a waitlist can create the illusion that the problem is already solved — even though nothing has actually changed yet.

Here’s what you can use instead of waitlists

A strategic message miner to get people more committed AND get the golden nuggets to use in your marketing.

That’s the exact strategy that helped me make $12,541.04 in one day:

Here’s what a message miner does for you:

🤩 Attract the perfect clients who’ll be happy to jump in your course right away when you open enrolment

🤩 Get valuable information that will help you build the most transformative learning flow for your clients

🤩 Have the best ideas for your marketing content that will attract even more ideal clients to your course

💡 How the message miner works:

Instead of just a signup form, use a Google Forms or something similar with strategic questions so that when people fill it in, they crystallize the following important things:

👉🏻 The problem they’re facing

👉🏻 What they’ve already tried to solve this problem and why it didn’t work

👉🏻 What specific things they need help with to solve the problem they’re facing

👉🏻 How much they’re ready to invest in the course if it helps them solve that problem

Why the message miner approach works

It all comes back to marketing and sales psychology.

From the marketing perspective, you’re getting the exact words your potential customers are using to talk about their problem you’re looking to solve.

(For my SEO friends: think about them as keywords).

From the sales psychology perspective, this is the Commitment & Consistency principle in effect.

I’m excited to dive into this powerful principle it in the next issue of the Honest Creatorpreneur 🔥

Today’s lesson:

Ask people for a small commitment of filling in a form to pre-register for your course instead of just asking for their email.

P.S. In the next editions of the Honest Creatorpreneur:

Sales psychology Lesson: Commitment & Consistency
Your course content doesn’t matter (shocking, I know, but hear me out)
The winning messaging formula for your course tagline
How to build freedom by building leverage
Ideas of digital products you can launch in the next 90 days