How To Set Up An Evergreen Sales Funnel And The Benefits Of Launching One
Recently I’ve seen a lot of content on social media about evergreen sales. Specifically, how great they are and how easy it can be to sell a service using evergreen style marketing.
Now, although I completely agree that evergreen sales are a great way to market and can work really well for your business, in today’s blog, I wanted to address something that I haven’t seen spoken about very much and that is the effort that a successful evergreen sale requires!
That’s right, you still need similar launch-style copy when creating an evergreen sales funnel!
Because the fact is, even if it’s an evergreen offer, you still need to get people to that sales page! And to do that, they have to come in from somewhere (likely a personal invite or a sales funnel)!
Keep reading to find out how to set up an evergreen sales funnel and some things you must remember to do when you launch one! But before we get into that, let’s talk about all those benefits!
THE BENEFITS OF AN EVERGREEN OFFER
There are actually several benefits to having an evergreen offer instead of a traditional launch and warning…you might want to make the switch after reading!
The first benefit I want to mention is that launching in this way saves a lot of time. You only have to do one set of planning and then one set of everything else. Imagine…only one set of emails, landing pages, sales pages, carts, backend hookups, social posts…everything!
Whereas with the traditional launch method, every time you launch you have to create all of that content again (go live again, do a live challenge or masterclass or whatever you use in a live launch) and make it more exciting. Which takes a lot of work and a lot of time!
Another one of the best benefits is that evergreen launches often increase sales and it’s pretty clear to see why; Your funnel is there to capture people all year round or whenever they’re ready to buy! They’re more likely to work with you when they’re ready to solve that problem NOW rather than having to wait a few months (then something else might be their most pressing issue).
This way your offer is always available and you don’t have to worry about pitching at the wrong time. But with traditional launches, although people can (and do) have very successful ones, they are always accompanied by a lot of risks.
There’s the risk of people seeing your launch content and then forgetting about it, there’s the risk of getting something wrong and not being able to alter it, and there’s the risk of pitching at the wrong time when people aren’t ready to buy and then them moving on to someone else later on when they are ready.
After all, when we know we want something, we all have a tendency to be impatient. There is no guarantee people will wait for your next launch!
The final benefit that deserves a mention is the potential to scale your offer with more ease when using an evergreen offer.
Put simply, evergreen offers allow you to support more people over time and as you bring in more people you can scale the offer and expand your team to accommodate the need. Generally speaking, it’s a lot more flexible than the traditional launch funnel. Allowing you to change whatever you need, whenever you need, to accommodate your client’s needs and the needs of your business!
THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT EVERGREEN
However…Like I said at the beginning of this blog, you can’t just set up your evergreen sales funnel and forget about it entirely.
So as promised, here is a list of things you’re going to need to remember if you do decide to set up an evergreen funnel!
- Your traditional sales page format will need to change. This is simply because there are features of a traditional launch model sales page that aren’t relevant in an evergreen one. The most significant being there is no sense of urgency or scarcity. So remove any countdowns or scarcity language! (To read more about the differences between normal live launch sales pages and evergreen ones, read my previous blog!)
- You will need to analyze your data regularly. This is really important so you know where your clients are coming from, the journey they are taking and at what point they decide to work with you. Analyzing this data allows you to adjust as you need! (some people will be on your email list for a year before they decide to buy — but this way when they’re ready you have something for them).
- Make sure you have year-round customer support. If your evergreen funnel is bringing in clients all year round, that means people are going to have questions all year round! So make sure you can accommodate this.
- If your offer is a course or program, you’ll have to design any support so it can easily assist people at various stages of it (the same principle applies from the point above!). No one wants to feel like the new kid on the block, or like they walked into the middle of a conversation, so make sure your support allows for questions at all stages of your offer.
- Marketing and lead generation to your funnel will become a top priority. So although you won’t be stuck in a repetitive and draining launch cycle, you will have to maintain your evergreen one. However, you can just re-use the launch copy you created at the beginning and run things like your launch emails (especially if they are written well) every 6 months alongside some Instagram posts and stories! Because you never know, people who went through your funnel 6 months ago, might now be ready to buy!
- You might need to invest in paid traffic if you want to continue scaling the program. Naturally, after a while, you might need to use paid promotion to reach different and wider audiences. OR you will need to have other organic promotional strategies in place (podcast guesting, speaking at summits, etc.) to get in front of new people and grow your email list.
ELEMENTS OF AN EVERGREEN SALES FUNNEL
Okay, so now we’ve had a look at the benefits and things you might need to remember when you’ve set it up, I want to talk a little more in-depth about what needs to go into creating one!
First up, you need a plan. Ask yourself these questions before you start: What am I selling? How will it work? Is it suitable for my offer? How can I maintain the funnel? And don’t forget to make sure that your offer is validated — is it something your ideal audience even wants?
Once you’ve figured out the answers to those, you need to start creating the landing page for your introductory offer (You need to do this even if it’s a free offer! What is the first step they need to take? That first piece of information that will set them up to be successful in your program?).
Next, you need to create and write the sales page. This is a really important part of the process and although you can tweak it later on, it needs to stand the test of time and persuade people to buy, even without the scarcity element.
For more tips on how to write your sales page and optimize your conversions (without bro-marketing tactics) check out these three blogs, here, here and here.
Then you need to create the welcome emails and sales emails that can help move people who signed up for your introductory offer, to your larger offer. Again, these need to be carefully crafted and have your audience at the centre. (Hint: once your sales page is done you can use a lot of that copy in your email sequences — just add a personal story that aligns with each section you use).
After this, you’ll want to make sure that your cart and all the necessary integrations and automations are set up and ready to go (and remember to test the whole process!).
Once you’ve got everything in place you will have to create a series of launch content such as social media posts and videos. Although an evergreen launch is not the same as a traditional one, you still need to introduce it to your audience and create some awareness around it…otherwise, how will they know it exists?!
Each of these elements needs careful consideration and planning as it needs to be effective and be able to keep bringing in business. This is why it might be worth investing in someone to help you bring all of this together and write copy that you know will convert and speak directly to your audience.
It’s also worth remembering that your ROI for an evergreen funnel will be much higher than the ROI of a typical launch, as if you get it right the first time, you can just essentially set it and forget it! (with the exceptions I spoke about in the last section of this blog of course!).
So, if you’re ready to set your evergreen to funnel up and want to give it a go yourself, make sure you download my Sales Page Sanity Saver checklist (as the name implies, it’s vital in making sure your sales page doesn’t make you lose your mind!) to give you a good start when it comes to perfecting your evergreen funnel.
And if you’re after some expert copywriting help so you don’t have to worry about everything we just spoke about, then I’m the woman for the job! You can book a call with me here to get your offers blooming all year round!
originally published at www.kristenwestcott.com/blog
