Show Notes

Live Launching vs Evergreen, which is better?

I’m diving into the pros and cons of these two distinctly different marketing models. Is there really a right or wrong way to market your product, service, or solution? And how do you figure out what works?

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Hey there. Thanks for listening and welcome to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you're looking to grow your business, increase your revenue and scale your impact all while staying true to who you are and the people you serve. This is the show for you. I'm Jennifer Tamborski, digital marketing strategists, fractional CMO, and founder of Virtual Marketing Experts. My team and I work with six and seven figure coaches, consultants, and online entrepreneurs who are tired of playing the guru game of one size fits all marketing. They're ready to create a business and marketing strategy that actually builds relationships with their ideal clients creates massive shifts in their business and rapidly increases their revenue. As your marketing matchmaker, I'm going to help you find the perfect marketing match for you. This show will teach you how to reach your ideal client, connect with your audience, build that perfect relationship and generate more revenue. All through a process I like to call dating your ideal client. Now let's go have some fun!

Hey there, welcome back to Marketing Matchmaker. I’ve been having a conversation with a couple of my clients lately about what the best method to bring in their ideal clients are. One of the questions that keep coming up is Live launching vs Evergreen, which is better? 

So Let’s say you like one of my clients and have just put the finishing touches on your first or new online course or group coaching program…

Your next step? Getting it out there to your ideal clients who need the transformation you provide. But do you go the live launch route? Or use an evergreen model?

As a marketing strategist, I get asked this question all the time. I’ve created a sales funnel for both live launches and evergreen promotions. Here’s the thing I want to dispel right now. Neither is better than the other, they both have pros & cons and it really depends on your business model. 

Let’s start with explaining the differences between Live Launching and the Evergreen model of funnels. I’m going to be very transparent in exactly what it takes to run both styles of marketing and then you can decide from there what will best suit you. 

Let’s start with Live Launches. I think there is a big misconception here about what it takes to run a live launch and do it exceedingly well. A Lot of people think that I’m just going to throw up a live webinar or 5 day challenge and that’s going to bring in all the people and sell out my product or service. 

And while this is an option, this is not really what a live launch is. 

Launch means that you are opening your doors for a specific period of time. You’re actively selling to your audience live, on social media and emails. You are reacting to your audience’s comments and feedback. 

Here’s the thing, a live launch should be as meticulously planned out as your evergreen funnel. If you’ve planned it well, you have a full month launch plan that unusually incorporates pre-promotion, a launch trigger of some kind, like a webinar or a challenge, a sales period (generally between 5-10 days depending on how long you want your cart open and then finally your delivery phase. 

This is the biggest mistake people make when it comes to launching. Often they’re like I need to sell this product so I’m just going to throw up this webinar and launch this tomorrow. The problem with that is that live launches still require an audience to sell too. You can either get lots of paid traffic and increase your email list and followers in a short period of time. OR if you plan ahead and you already have an audience you want to make sure you’re developing and delivering content prior to the launch that warms them up. 

This way when you open the cart they are already focusing on their problem and understand why you are the best solution. 

Planning all of these things out ahead of time will really save you time and energy during the live launch. Because let’s face it, doing a live training takes energy. 

Which means that you’re going to be doing things like Start to Warm Up Your People!

Plan out and schedule social media posts related to your course topic. Choose your best value content that aligns with your launch to use for engagement ads to quickly warm up the audience. 

Do weekly content that relates to the topic of your course between now and when you start inviting. Start running engagement ads to the value content that you have already done and new weekly content.

2 weeks before the launch of your free training you’re going to want to do things like:

• start inviting warm audiences to register for free training 
• post on social media to sign up for the free training 
• send email to the general list to sign up for free training 
• start running ads to the registration page to warm audiences

Live launches can be very fun and productive, they’re especially good if you have a product or service that has a limited period of time that people can join, like a mastermind or a group coaching program. With both of these models you really want to avoid adding people mid-stream to avoid disrupting the flow of the coaching and more importantly the building of the community. Live launching makes a lot of sense in these models. 

I have a client who excels at live launching. She’s excellent at planning it out and even better and really understanding what her audience needs to hear, learn, know in order to be ready to buy from her. And being able to pivot her launch based on the feedback she’s getting from her audience. That my friends is where live launching really shines. When you’re able to pivot based on the feedback, comments and reactions you’re getting from your audience.

You're actively engaging during a live launch. So you can help combat and overcome obstacles when they happen in real time. 

Live Launches mean getting a lump sum of money at specific periods of time. This may or may not be good for your business model. If you are looking for predictable income over the long term, evergreen launching might be more up your alley. 

An evergreen funnel leverages technology and automated systems to sell your course 24/7. That means that fresh leads are constantly coming into your sales funnel. They’re nurtured toward the sale and, with timely and strategic messaging, your leads make a decisive purchasing decision, day or night.

Evergreen funnels means that your cart is always open for a specific product or service. And you're running traffic through a funnel consistently to get people to buy. Now, generally these funnels are automated, but they are built and designed so that they feel like they're live. 

Evergreen funnels can be phenomenal if you want predictable and scalable and repeatable income. Generally you are using paid traffic to run people through this funnel. So what that means is that you can look and say, oh great. I know that if I spend $2 on Facebook ads, I'm going to get X amount of leads into my funnel and X amount of leads going to convert. And that's going to make me X amount of money. 

That’s the theory around evergreen funnels. The other good thing about evergreen models is because you’re not actively participating in them you can take a step back and really view the data on what is working and what isn’t and make tweeks along the way. Over time you get to create an automation that consistently and effectively sells your product, service, or solution. 

Once you have an evergreen funnel that is working you can really let it run and kind of forget about it, which is why people love evergreen so much. That’s everyone’s goal to have money coming into their business while they sleep.

However just like live launches there are cons to evergreen funnels. 

1st it can take time and money invested in this model to test and tweak before it’s working at maximum efficiency. And when I say time I mean more than a month LOL. Sometimes it can take 6-12 months to really crack the code to what is going to work time and time again. This can be quite discouraging for people to be investing so much time and money into something that is not returning the investment immediately.

 An evergreen funnel requires just as much planning as a live launch does. You’re looking at your ideal audience and really thinking about what they are struggling with, what they need to see, hear, learn before they’re ready to invest in you. And then planning out every step of the customer journey so that by the end they’re ready to buy. 

One of the things that I encourage my clients to do is try live launching for a while. Get it down to a science AND THEN turn it into an evergreen funnel. Here’s a big secret though, sometimes those evergreen funnels stop working and then you get to start again from the top. 

When you look at the industry, you’re going to see the big players doing both live and evergreen models. Some have perfected opening group programs once or twice a year and making millions. Others are killing it with evergreen funnels that are bringing in revenue on the daily basis. 

The reality is there is not right or wrong with these 2 types of funnels. It’s a matter of figuring out what works for your and your audience and making that work in the best possible way. 

Thank You for listening to the Marketing Matchmaker podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to iTunes and leave a review so we can hear from you. And if you are a coach, consultant, or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income, and scale your impact connect with me at yourmarketingmatchmaker.com. I look forward to hearing from you.