You’ve done it! You went from zero to users. The trouble is, your app isn’t available to everyone yet or you’re serving a 2-sided marketplace and only one side is open for business. You’re about to have a retention problem, but a little engagement and expectation-setting can go a long way.
Here are three high-touch ways to keep your waitlist engaged:
1. Send a Nurture Email
Nurturing campaigns help keep relationships alive. New and beta apps get traffic spikes and signups from both press and word-of-mouth. It’s easy for people to forget they signed up to use your service, especially if it’s not available when they were most interested in learning about it.
Depending on how long the wait is (weeks or months), craft a nurture email campaign to reach out to your waitlisted users 14-20 days after sign-up. You can easily convert this list and format into a monthly newsletter later.
Here are some ideas for your content:
Thank you - Write a brief thank you and be sure to include a one-sentence reminder about what the app does and how it will make life more amazing.
Thanks for signing up to join #terrificcompany! We’re excited to make …. much easier for you.
Context - Include a reminder that the user signed up to use your service
Our service isn’t quite ready for prime-time, but we appreciate your patience and support wanted to check in and share some updates.
Update - Share updates on how things are going back at HQ, link to blog content.
We’re working hard to make sure you get your invitation soon. We’ve been shipping code and polishing the design, you’re going to love it. In the meantime, meet our team . . .
Social - Even though your app isn’t ready, you can keep people engaged in your company’s personality with brief updates about progress. This also helps to manage expectations and demonstrates an enthusiastic team who is hard at work.
We’ll also be updating Twitter, Facebook with news. Be sure to keep checking back so you don’t miss out.
Extra Credit: Here’s a sample email I wrote for a pretend company, please copy, fork, and polish for your own use.
2. Share by Blog
You’re busy trying to ship an app, but blogging your team’s progress and about your team is a great way to create content that you can you use across engagement channels (social, email, etc.).
Here are some ideas for your content and sweet, sweet examples:
- High-level overview about what your app does or, will do! (great examples: Instagram, Codeacademy, Lift & Sprint.ly)
- Quick intros/background about the founders and team (great example: Branch & Codeacademy)
- Funding and jobs information (great example: Codeacademy)
- Lessons you’re learning (great example: Sprint.ly)
- Insight into the technology you’re using (great example: Github‘s early days, before commit access & Umano)
- Previews of the artwork/design (great example IFTTT‘s new logo)
- What it’s like to bootstrap a business or be a part of an incubator (great example: Airbnb’s post on being accepted in YC)
- Feature development (great example: Github)
Extra credit: Zach Sims, Codeacademy, is a master at creating startup content. Check out his first three blog posts on the Codeacademy blog (scroll to the very bottom and read upwards).
3. Gently Gather Data
You don’t want to come across as a selfish lover, but as a secondary call to action in your nurture campaign ask for simple data. Basic user research will help you to provide better services. Your audience might not be who you think they are, get to know them, they’ll appreciate it.
Create a single-question or multiple choice survey or even ask users to sign up for a user interview. Survey results can also provide you with blog and email content. Obvious Corp’s Lift did a medium-sized survey at launch.
Here are some survey ideas:
- Which feature or platform is most important to you? (list as multiple choice)
- Are you more interested in A or B (e.g. selling something, buying something – this will help you optimize for your most eager audience)
- Demographics (male/female/age)
- Where did you learn about us? (list as multiple choice)
- Brand awareness (list two statements about your app, see which one your users select, this will help you optimize messaging)
Extra credit: Read, “Writing Surveys that Work” by Diane Loviglio & Rebecca Weiss
By the way, great job on going from zero to users! Good luck!
