The Golden Ticket Approach—and 3 more ways to use lines to build buzz
Here's why waitlists work so well
👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
For a visitor, there’s a lot to love about Japan.
Ramen so crazy hot it almost made this New Orleans girl cry… emphasis on the almost. Sushi so fresh you’ll swear you saw it move, and you probably did. Karaoke rooms so private that only your friends will judge your off-key rendition of The Little Mermaid.
Among many notable things, two stood the most.
First, the obsession with my husband. As a 6’2 Norwegian man with a beard—he definitely did not blend in to the crowds he towered above.
About ten minutes after getting off our flight, while we were trying to buy train tickets, a film crew approached him.
“Sir, sir, sir—what has brought you to Japan,” a smiling woman in a blazer asked, pushing a microphone towards his face. “And what do you think of our country so far?”
This was one of five times my Norwegian got interviewed by film crews on the street in the span of a week. Here’s he is, during one of his starring moments.
The second thing that stood out was the obsession with lines.
Lines to get into restaurants.
Lines to get into stores.
Lines to get into… lines?
One day, we had tea with a friend who had lived in Tokyo for ten years.
“Dude, what’s up with all the lines?” we wondered.
“It’s how you know a place is good,’ he said. “There absolutely has to be a line. It’s a make-or-break for a business.”
People in Japan place so much value on lines—that many stores will pay professional line-goers to stand outside for hours just to make it look like people are waiting.
In the US, the pandemic changed our relationship with lines. Suddenly, they were everywhere. And they seemed waaay longer than ever, due to their six-feet-apart nature. The presence of a line no longer indicated awesomeness—just openness.
But now that the vaxes are up and restrictions are down, we’re again entering an age where potential for coolness can be judged by a line.
I’ve personally fallen prey to many, many, many calls to action involving lines through the years…
The leggings with a 10,000 person waitlist? The deodorant 50,000 people want to buy? The trendy thingamabob that has sold out five times is back ins stock!?!?!? OMG SIGN ME UP AND TAKE MY MONEY NOW PLEASE.
But why do waitlists work so well—and how can brands best use them to their advantage? That’s what we’ll be discussing now.
The Mimetics of the Must-Have
Mimetic desire is a theory posited by the French historian, literary critic, and philosopher René Girard. It explains why we want the things we do—and it all comes back to imitation:
“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.”
We claim to make our choices in isolation—because something either:
Fits our unique preferences
Omg, that coat is SO me and my style! It speaks to me on a gut level. I have to have it!Seems objectively good
I’ve done the analysis—and concluded that these features and benefits far outweigh those features and benefits.
But according to the theory of mimetic desire, there’s always a model for our desires—someone on whom we are patterning our choices as an example. Maybe it’s a Kardashian. Maybe it’s your best friend. But the kicker is… it’s always someone.
So instead of being direct, our desires are triangular (I want something because someone else wants it). And we often end up competing for the same things.
Mimetic desire can very clearly be seen in the rise of influencer culture—people modeling lives that their followers in turn want to imitate
Looked at through this lens, the “in-person line” should be the most effective form of waitlisting—because it gives people not only the feeling that an object is scarce and desirable by many, but it gives an important view into exactly who is desiring the object.
If the people in line look like the type of people I want to imitate, then I’m much more likely to be interested. For example, I would personally be much more drawn to a line of cool looking young women than I would be to a line of skater boys.
In the digital world, one of the advantages of creating a waitlist for a DTC brand is the opportunity to collect people’s email addresses and market to them.
Something I haven’t seen yet is a brand ask to show the faces of or info about people on the waitlist. This could be a particularly powerful strategy for attracting more people to a brand—translating the “in person line” effect digitally.
Three Ways to Line People Up
We know lines and waitlists works to get your brand buzzing… here are three ways to think about using lines and waits to your brand’s advantage.
1/ The Scarcity Classic
For one of the reason lines and waitlists work so well on so many people, it’s helpful to think of the principals of persuasion. Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote the bible on persuasion—one of my favorite books:
In Influence, Cialdini identifies Six Principles of Persuasion that are proven to help guide human behavior. The first is scarcity: people want more of things that there are less of.
If there’s a waitlist, it means there is more demand than supply of something. And low supply naturally makes people want something more.
“There are only 100 in existence? I didn’t know I needed this, but I definitely do now!”
I call this The Scarcity Classic. The Scarcity Classic immediately ups the value of whatever you’re selling—whether or not you have a 10,000 person list yet or not.
This can make it a great place to start for any brand employing a waitlist technique—because odds are it’s going to take awhile to get those 10,000 signups to start bragging about.
And it’s easy to employ… just say that you’re making a limited number as the first release of something and BOOM, start a waitlist, baby!
2/ The Hot Young Thing
Another way to employ a waitlist to boost your brand sales is to position it as a novelty. For novelty-focused waitlists, the allure is getting the be the first to try something new and exciting.
Whether you’re beta testing or becoming a founding member, being “the first” acts as a CTA to early adopters—like a big lighthouse beacon that reads COME TO ME!!!
And this is a great thing. Because you’re always going to want to attract early adopters to your brand—they’ll be the initial ones to become your 1000 true fans and tell the world about you.
Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding platforms get their mojo from the Hot Young Thing approach: “You mean I get to be the first to know about this thing that is SO NEW it maybe is just a prototype? Sign me up please!” said the Early Adopter.
The meteoric rise of Clubhouse this year also owes a debt to The Hot Young Thing. The invite-only nature of the platform was like catnip for early adopters.
Not only is The Hot Young Thing great for building early buzz for your launch and getting early adopters excited—it’s a fantastic way to test your messaging. Market your waitlist to “testers” and see what works and what doesn’t… then refine, refine, refine before your big day.
3/ The Drop Squad
“Drop” is the trendy term for a new release of a product. The product is often a limited edition—likely to sell out as soon as it “drops” and the public can officially buy it.
People will sign up to get reminders about drops. And companies will send an email with a big live countdown clock that reminds you when the drop is coming.
Many brands who release products as drops on a regular basis do so at a certain day or time—so customers get conditioned to wait for it, Pavlov’s dog style.
The Drop Squad technique is where the brand Supreme reigns—supreme. This mega-popular lifestyle brand positions all of its launches around Droplists by date.
Customers can go online and give potential droplist items like sweatshirts and minifridges a thumbs up or down to indicate their levels of excitement for the product. Supreme also just launched a restock monitor, where you can check in hourly for the restocks of items you didn’t get to buy because they sold out during the drop.
This is the ultimate in FOMO-based marketing… combining the best of the scarcity and urgency and be-the-first motivators.
And it works like crazy—especially if you’re a brand like Supreme that’s able to consistently roll out covetable items on a timed schedule.
4/ Bonus: The Golden Ticket Technique
As a brand, one way to tantalize consumers on a waitlist is with a “skip the line” offer. This works in two ways:
You get the benefit of your product seeming covetable, because there’s a line.
You can get everyone wants to be a VIP take some kind of an action that benefits your brand.
Maybe it’s sharing something in social media. Or maybe it’s having them make a video that they submit to you (and you can use for marketing purposes later). Or maybe it’s quite literally a golden ticket—get them to buy a lower priced item, which could have a golden ticket inside.
A Note of Caution: Not all waits are created equal.
There’s a subtle and interesting difference between a a list or a line (in which people will patiently wait because they think the reward will be high) and a delay.
If my shipping is late, I’m angry… because it’s a wait I didn’t actively sign up for. If I know the wait is coming, it’s good. If the wait is unexpected, it’s bad.
Waitlists vs Presales
Depending on your goal for a product, you can choose to try a waitlist or a presale technique. There are advantages to both.
With waitlists, you’ll get more signups, because the barrier to entry is lower. This makes waitlists the way to go if you’re going to want to use your waitlist numbers as a marketing technique… because bigger numbers are more compelling.
With presales, you’ll get more actual sales, because people have committed dollars. And not everyone on your waitlist will return to purchase. This makes presales better if you need working capital to produce your product—or if you’re not banking on using your presale numbers as a marketing technique.
My Last Bit on Lines
In addition to being a waitlist-aholic, I’m also really into ramen. So, we tried a lot of ramen restaurants during our two weeks in Japan.
This bowl, which happen to be from the place with the longest line, was also my favorite.
I can never be sure if the wait made me like this ramen more, or if the broth really was that mind blowingly rich. And I never want to know.
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