Kristen Doyle 0:00
So your evergreen funnel is built and ready to go. But how do you put it out into the world without all of that traditional launch, open cart, close cart, kind of frenzy? If you’ve been following along in our funnel series, so far, we have talked about what funnels are, why they’re important, and how to build them.
Kristen Doyle 0:23
Now, your funnel’s ready to go, and it is time to launch. When I say launch, you might be thinking, Yeah, but I don’t want to do that big push, cart, open cart, close thing, because that sounds exhausting, and you’re right. It is.
Kristen Doyle 0:40
As someone who has launched that way and other ways, I can definitely attest that it is a stressful and exhausting way to launch, but it is not the only way to launch your funnel. Today, we are diving into how to launch an evergreen funnel and keep it rolling smoothly.
Kristen Doyle 1:03
Are you a digital product, or course, creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process.
Kristen Doyle 1:30
Things like SEO, no-stress marketing, email list, building, automations and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 1:42
An evergreen funnel is one that is available year round, as opposed to opening and closing cart during those short launch seasons that you might be a little more familiar with. Evergreen offers are out there, everywhere, if you start to look around for them, and there’s a good reason for that.
Kristen Doyle 2:00
They are great for buyers because they allow buyers to purchase whenever they have a need for your offer, instead of having to wait around for something that they want right now, they’re also great for you because they are the anti hustle way to sell your offers.
Kristen Doyle 2:17
It’s a lot less live work that’s involved, because once you set up your evergreen funnel, it kind of runs on autopilot. Now you will want to go back down the road and check the data and make improvements over time, but we’ll talk about that in next week’s episode. Let’s start with setting up your funnel for success.
Kristen Doyle 2:38
Now, even though this is evergreen. I want you to treat this very first rollout kind of like a mini launch. You want to make sure everything is as smooth as possible before you start sending traffic to your funnel. And that means your first step is to test every single component.
Kristen Doyle 2:57
First things first, you have to make sure every link on your sales page works. Ask me how I know! It is so easy, especially when you have multiple links on the page, to click one, see that it works and ignore the rest, and then sometimes you have a broken link there. So go ahead and make sure every link is working. The emails are triggering when they are supposed to.
Kristen Doyle 3:23
That means signing up for your own opt ins and your own funnel sequences so you see those emails coming into your inbox over time and make sure that your sales page is functioning properly. I recommend that you run through the whole funnel yourself, or, even better, ask a friend to do it from start to finish.
Kristen Doyle 3:43
There is nothing worse than launching something and realizing after you put it out there to the world that people are getting stuck halfway through because a link is broken or your checkout process isn’t working smoothly. I really recommend that you purchase your product with actual dollars, rather than testing in a sandbox checkout mode or with a fake credit card number, because purchasing with real dollars is going to give you the exact same experience your buyers will have when they go through your funnel.
Kristen Doyle 4:14
If your platform supports coupons, you can make yourself a 99% off code so that you don’t have to pay the full price for the offer. But even if you can’t do that, keep in mind this is a business expense. You can always refund yourself later if you need to.
Kristen Doyle 4:30
Now, even though your funnel will be on evergreen, I do recommend you pick a date to make it official. This will be your launch date for your evergreen funnel. This helps you set a goal, give yourself some deadlines so that you get everything done and you can kind of mentally treat it like a big launch day.
Kristen Doyle 4:51
Plus having that launch date gives you a reason to create some excitement around it in your audience. Speaking of which, you also want to spend some time before you send those launch day emails, warming up your audience. Let them know that you are working on something new and valuable. You don’t have to go full on launch mode, but sprinkle in teasers in your emails, in your social media posts, polls as you are working on, creating things so that you can refine the offer to what they like.
Kristen Doyle 5:24
Are great for social media, for building excitement and getting feedback. People love a good sneak peek at something new you’re working on, and especially on social media, it’s fun sometimes to add a countdown to when your new thing is going to be available once you get closer to that launch date.
Kristen Doyle 5:41
You can also drop a couple of lines in the emails you’re already sending that say things like, keep an eye out for something new, maybe even teasing what the topic is. That way, when you’re ready to make that announcement, they are already curious and they’re excited to see what you have up your sleeve.
Kristen Doyle 5:58
If you want to go a little further, you can also start creating content, whether that is blog posts, podcast episodes, social media posts or emails, creating that free content that builds awareness of the pain point your offer solves. You want to get people thinking about the fact that they have this problem and that they need a solution for it, so that when you provide that solution, they’re excited to check it out.
Kristen Doyle 6:24
Okay, so now that your funnel is all set and ready, you’ve done your prep, let’s talk about putting it out there with some excitement, but without all the stress. Here’s the deal. Just because this funnel is on evergreen and it’s going to be available all the time doesn’t mean it can’t have a big debut. Think about how you can build excitement and get people talking once you launch.
Kristen Doyle 6:48
Plan it out like you would if this were any other type of launch with email announcements and social media posts to put it out there. I recommend you send at least a couple of emails to your entire current email list, something like I’ve been working on this behind the scenes, and it’s finally here, and I’m excited to share it with you and then introduce them to the product and the problem that it solves.
Kristen Doyle 7:15
You don’t have to do a full on sales email sequence, but just enough to get them interested and get them clicking over. Social media is great for this too. Those same things we did to build excitement with those behind the scenes, moments and countdowns. You can transition those into posting on social some sneak peeks inside your new product, talking about that pain point and how your product solves it.
Kristen Doyle 7:37
Now, one of my favorite ways to make this first launch exciting is to offer some limited time bonuses, maybe an early bird offer for those first couple of days. Make it something really simple, something that is easy for you to deliver. Maybe you give them an extra resource for free, or a discount on an order bump if you have one.
Kristen Doyle 7:59
One of my go to favorite early bird bonuses when I have an order bump on my paid offer is to make the order bump $1 for the first day or two. This really helps create that initial excitement, and it gives people a reason to act sooner rather than later. Because we all know when people put things off, we forget about it, and that dollar price for your order bump is such an easy way to leverage something you already have as an early bird offer.
Kristen Doyle 8:29
Now I know when we are thinking about launching a lot of times we’re thinking about finding new people for our offers, but the first place I want you to focus your efforts is your warm audience. That’s the people who already know you, they know like and trust you, and they are more willing and more likely to engage with your funnel and make purchases right away, which can really help give your funnel some momentum and also give you some valuable data about how your sales page is converting and how your emails are doing and feedback about the process and maybe even the product that you’re offering.
Kristen Doyle 9:04
When I say warm audience, I am talking about the people already on your email list, your social media followers, your past customers. Make sure that you are launching your offer to those people first, and make it easy for them to share it with their friends. Include social sharing buttons, or maybe even give them a little bonus if they spread the word. Run a little contest if you want to get fancy with it, but find ways to use that existing audience to kick off your funnel and get it some momentum.
Kristen Doyle 9:38
Once the initial excitement dies down. Don’t just let your funnel sit there and hope for the best. If you do, I promise it will just start to die off, because I have seen it happen in my own funnels when I got distracted and didn’t continue promoting over time.
Kristen Doyle 9:56
You need a plan in place for keeping your funnel running smoothly. And keeping new traffic directed to your funnel over the year. Now, the beauty of evergreen funnels is that they are so easy to automate. You set it up once, and it continues to work, but you do have to keep it visible. One way to do that is by automating that visibility.
Kristen Doyle 10:20
So for example, if you have new subscribers who join your email list, not through this funnel, they could be automatically sent into this evergreen funnel after their initial freebie delivery or welcome email that you’re sending them. This keeps traffic flowing right to that funnel without you having to manually direct people there.
Kristen Doyle 10:39
If you have a welcome sequence already in place, you might want to add this funnel to it, so that every single person who gets on your list, no matter how they get to your email list, is automatically directed to this funnel, and you are constantly sending traffic there.
Kristen Doyle 10:56
Another great way to continue sending traffic to your funnel is to add in some casual mentions of your funnel in your regular content. Let’s say you’re sending out a weekly email, and maybe the topic of your email this week is related to that pain point that your evergreen offer solves. You can add a PS at the end like “PS. Did you know I have this thing that helps you with that pain point? Here’s where you can check it out.”
Kristen Doyle 11:23
You can do that very casually without feeling super salesy, but it’s a great way to just continue reminding people that you have this or you could mention it in a podcast episode. For example, this is probably a great time for me to let you know that if your website isn’t working for your business like you want it to, I can help with that. Go to Kristen doyle.co/guide to get my free guide to eight reasons your website isn’t converting and how to fix them. See how easy that was?
Kristen Doyle 11:55
You can do that too in your podcast, in your emails, in social media posts, anywhere that you’re talking about relevant content. Now, another way to keep your funnel going is by repurposing the existing content that you have. So we’re talking about blog posts, podcast show notes, YouTube videos. If you have content out there that is relevant to the funnel, then go back into that content and edit it so that you are driving traffic from that content over to your funnel.
Kristen Doyle 12:29
You can add a link mention the offer directly, or even embed a call to action or an email opt in, depending on how you have your funnel set up at the beginning. This way you’re not having to constantly create new content. You are using what you already have to continue driving people into your funnel.
Kristen Doyle 12:48
And then the fourth way that you can send traffic to your funnel on a regular basis is, of course, to use ads. I am a big fan of using ads to get people into your world. I know it’s not always where you want to start. In fact, I don’t recommend starting a brand new offer with ads. I recommend starting with these more organic ways of getting traffic, like we just talked about, so that by the time you start spending money on ads, you already know that you have an offer that is converting well. Because you don’t want to send people to an offer that doesn’t convert.
Kristen Doyle 13:24
You want to go ahead and make those tweaks, get your conversion rates up and then start paying for ads to send people there. But once you have your offer and your sales page and everything dialed in, you can use retargeting ads to remind people who visited the sales page but didn’t convert yet. That’s a really great hands off way to nudge them back over to something maybe they just got busy and forgot about.
Kristen Doyle 13:50
You can also use lead ads or low cost conversion ads to drive cold traffic to your offer and try to grow your audience. All right, so even though an evergreen funnel doesn’t have that typical launch open, close kind of window, it is still important to make sure you set it up right, and you give it a great start.
Kristen Doyle 14:10
So treat your launch like a launch. Pick that launch date, keep it visible and remind people that it’s there over time. If you’ve been thinking about launching your evergreen funnel, then now is the time! Set that go live date and start your launch runway where you’re getting your audience excited now.
Kristen Doyle 14:34
Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, I would love for you to rate and review the show. It really does help other people find the show so they can grow their hustle free businesses too. Next week, we are going to talk about optimizing your funnel so you can make sure it’s performing at its best over time. I’ll see you then.
