41: 5 Key Elements for an Evergreen Sales Funnel (so you can sell your online course on autopilot)

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp. And in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my free webinar, the Funnel Fill up and Convert Formula, where you will learn the fastest way to find and convert your perfect students. And even if you're just starting out, you can sign up for this free webinar by going to destinycop.com and I will make sure that the link to sign up for this webinar is in the show Notes. And today we are talking about the five key elements you need for an evergreen sales funnel so you can sell your online course on autopilot. Now, my online course business primarily runs on autopilot. About once per year or so I do a live launch like a virtual summit with a webinar. But for the most part for the other marts, my sales are driven by my evergreen sales funnels. And I absolutely love evergreen sales funnels because they allow me to focus on what I do best, which is serving my students and creating content for them. And I want to walk you through exactly how to set up an evergreen sales funnel for your own online course business so you can sell your online course on autopilot every single day. The first question that you may have is what is an evergreen sales funnel? And it is simply a sales funnel that that runs in the background of your business on autopilot. So when a visitor comes to your website or they come to the landing page for one of your lead magnets and then they sign up, you add them to your email list and then they are added to your email nurture sequence which promotes your online course. Most successful evergreen sales funnels also have paid ads running in the background to keep their offer at the top of their prospect's mind, answer any objections that they have and encourage purchase with an evergreen sales funnel in your business, you don't have to constantly do a live launch like a webinar or a five day challenge which keeps you stressed and exhausted from all of the work involved. So basically an evergreen sales funnel is just an automated system using your website or any landing page builder that you have like Leadpages and your email service provider to sell your online course. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Evergreen sales funnels are super easy to set up, especially if you're just taking your content from your live launch where you've had success in selling your online course and converting this content into an evergreen sales funnel. Your sales funnel does the selling for you. And that means that you don't have to have a live launch constantly with four live webinars in it or a challenge that goes on for five long days. So have I convinced you yet? So let's talk about what you need and in your evergreen sales funnel so you can sell your online course on autopilot. And the first thing that you're going to need is a lead magnet that is worthy of a Facebook ad. And I don't want you to create just any lead magnet for your evergreen sales funnel. I want you to create one that you would feel confident and comfortable running a Facebook ad to. And there is a difference between a low value lead magnet and one that delivers true value to the end user. So I want you to consider this. How many lead magnets have you signed up for in the past and didn't even download them? I'm also a big fan of lead magnets that require the end user to invest their most valuable asset, which is their time. When someone is willing to invest their time, that means that they are truly interested in what you have to offer and are willing to commit to solve the problem. These are what I call future students. They are not just freebie seekers out there. They are action takers. And freebie seekers are people who are just looking for free stuff. They are not the ones who will buy your online course. So if you want to stay away from just freebie seekers, I want you to consider a lead magnet. That's much, that's much more than just a simple cheat sheet or a checklist. Or if you want to have a cheat sheet or checklist, you can include some type of video training to go along with it. Because if somebody's going to be willing to invest their time to watch your video, that is going to be, that is going to be an action taker that we're talking about. And also forevergreen sauce funnels for higher priced courses especially. I'm a big fan of using webinars to instantly build that know like and trust factor. And if you're stuck on what kind of lead magnet that you, you know, would feel comfortable or you want to make sure that it's subtracting those action takers, I want you to follow these steps. The first thing I want you to do is research your industry and your competitors and just look and see what they are using. And I don't want you to copy what they're using, but you're going to Use this for inspiration and guidance and then I want you to look at some examples outside of your industry and pay attention to the Facebook and Instagram ads that are in your feed. Are others using for lead magnets to grow their email list? Then sign up for their email list what does their lead magnet look like? And then I want you to ask yourself what are the top questions that you are being asked by your ideal customer? What are your ideal customers pain points? Think about what their migraine is, what do they want to accomplish and how can you help them get there? If you need help with creating a lead magnet that is worthy of a Facebook ad, I want you to check out my magic attraction mini course and I will make sure that also that that link is in the show notes here. And if you have a higher price course, I'm going to say one that's maybe above $500. Anywhere from like 500 to $2,000. I want you to consider consider offering a webinar as one of your main lead magnets. And if you need help with creating that, I want you to check out my ultimate launch bundle, which is a bundle that I have for helping you launch your online course. And it has a webinar template in there, basically a plug and play webinar template in there along with a sales script which will help you create that webinar. So now that you have a lead magnet that's worthy of a Facebook ad, let's move on to your landing page. So the next thing that you're going to need in your evergreen sales funnel is a high converting landing page for your Facebook ad worthy lead magnet. So this is the website, it's also called a landing page that your prospect will go to to sign up for your lead magnet. The one thing I do want to say is that I highly recommend that you use a landing page builder for your lead magnet. And the reason for this is that is that these pages have been proven to convert and the last thing that you want to happen is to spend money and time driving traffic to a landing page and have these people leave without signing up. There are a lot of different landing page builders out there. I personally use the one in Kajabi that I use for my online courses and they have some really great landing pages there. But you can use lead pages instapage, unbounce, get response. So there's a lot of options out there for you. So the thing that a couple things that I want you to remember with your landing page is that your call to action on your landing page should be in the first person. For example, sign me up or I want this or send this to me now. And also don't forget to include a link at the bottom to your privacy policy on your landing page. So if you're going to be running Facebook ads to your landing page, that is something that will be required. And only ask for information that you need like their email, email address. And you can ask for their first name too if you want to. You don't really need anything else on or to ask for anything else on that landing page. So after someone registers for your lead magnet, you're going to direct them to your thank you page. And on your thank you page this is just really going to be, it can be really a simple thank you page that says thank you signing, thank you for signing up. Go check your email for your login information or you know, whatever you're getting them or the link that you're giving them for their free gift. The other thing that you can do at some point in the future is that you can transform this simple thank you page into a digital offer. So basically what we call those are Tripwire offers. So basically you've probably seen them in the past or may not have realized that you were seeing them. So you sign up for somebody's lead magnet. On the next page there's something that says wait, you know, go check your offer for or go check your email for your free gift gift. But I have this really great special offer that I think you're going to be interested in. And what I love about Tripwire offers, especially if you're going to be running Facebook ads to this is that it can help you recoup your cost for your Facebook ads. So Tripwire offers are great. The other thing I did want to mention here and, and this is not in all of my evergreen sales funnels but, but in some of them on this thank you page I actually go ahead and just give them takes them directly to the link for my recorded webinar training. And also underneath it I have basically I have at the top and I will show you how this is done. I'll have a link in the show notes you can actually see this. And also if you sign up for my funnel fill up and complete convert formula webinar training, you can actually see this in action. So you can see exactly how it's set up. So basically after somebody says set signs up for the free webinar on the thank you page, at the top of the thank you page you will see the recorded webinar training. And underneath it, directly underneath it, you will see the sales page. And so that gives you an example of how you can set up some of these evergreen webinars. Okay, moving on. The next thing that you are going to need in your evergreen sales panel is an email nurture sequence that takes your prospect through the buyer's journey. So once the new subscriber is on your email list, the first email that you will send them will contain their free gift. So, whatever, if it's a recorded webinar or some type of, you know, maybe you're giving them a project plan. I'm trying to think of some of my lead magnets, a project plan with a video on how to set up that project plan for the online course launch. So there's a lot of things that you can do there. Then you're going to be, you know, begin your email nurture and sales sequence. This is also known as a welcome sequence, but really the goal is simple. You want to start building that know, like and trust factor with your new email subscriber. But most importantly, you're going to take them on what we call in marketing, which is the buyer's journey, and you're going to set all of this up in your email system so that the emails are sent automatically, which allows you to scale your online course business. Also, sales ads, which are also known as retargeting ads, should be done during this stage to promote the sales process. And with your sales ads, you're encouraging your prospects to go back and review your sales page. You're highlighting your testimonials for your online course. You're answering any objections that they may have about purchasing your online course. But keep in mind, these sales ads and the reason why they're called retargeting ads are only shown to those who have signed up for your webinar or have visited your sales page within a certain amount of time, like 10 days. And you know, you're targeting the people that haven't purchased. Okay, so moving on. The next thing that you need in your evergreen sales funnel is a sales page that erases objections and closes the sale. So unlike the landing page for your lead magnet, which is really just designed to get signups for your webinar or your lead magnet or whatever you're doing, your sales page is designed to convince your perfect student to buy your online course. And this will take some extra convincing and sales copy that speaks the language of your ideal student so that when they read your sales page, they are thinking, oh, my gosh, yes, this Sounds exactly, exactly like me. And you are going to need to include testimonials, you're going to need to convey social proof. You will need to have benefit driven copy on this sales page. And like I mentioned earlier, you can have your sales page, especially if you're doing like a recorded webinar, you can have your sales page right under that recorded webinar to keep driving people back to that webinar, driving them back to that sales page throughout your entire email nurture sequence. And also with the ads that you are doing, the next thing that you need, and this is probably one of the most important things that you need in your evergreen sales funnel to have a successful evergreen sales funnel. And this is a traffic source which continues to fill up your funnel. And the secret to making your evergreen sales funnel work is that you need traffic, which traffic is just referring to people going through your sales funnel. And I want you to think about it this way. In evergreen sales funnels, you need volume. Because not everybody who signs up for your lead magnet or attends your challenge or watches your webinar going to buy from you. In fact, only a small number of people will buy. Even with the best marketing and typical funnel, conversion rates run anywhere from like 1 to 5%, especially with what we call cold traffic, which is people who don't know who you are. Now, if you're doing a live launch and you're launching to your email list with, which may be a very warm audience, people who know you, you, you're going to see some conversion rates that are a little bit higher. But if you have cold traffic coming through this funnel with people who don't know you, it's going to be, the conversion rates are going to be a little bit lower. So what this means is like for every, let's just say every hundred people that go through your funnel, only a handful of them will buy from you. So when you do the math, there, about one to five people out of every hundred will buy when you're talking about that cold audience. Now here are some ways to find your perfect students and fill up your funnel. And I've used all of these and all of these work. And one strategy is free pr, such as being a guest on someone's podcast, another traffic source. And this is, you know, again, one of my favorite ones is through content marketing and SEO. So this includes, includes like blogging and driving traffic to your website through Google and Pinterest. In fact, the majority of my website traffic is now coming through Google and Pinterest because I've spent a good amount of time over the years building up that SEO traffic. You can also use affiliate marketing to find your perfect students. And that's, you know, that's also one of my favorite ways, access, especially if you're just starting out and you don't have a large email list. So if you're going to do affiliate marketing, basically what that is is you're going to find somebody who has an audience like yours and you're going to allow them to promote you and your lead magnet, like your webinar, like your recorded webinar. And then for any students who purchase through that particular affiliate promotion that you have, you're going to pay them a percentage of your quality course sell. Usually that's going to be around 40% of your course revenue. However, after testing out all of these options, what I have found is that hands down, the best way to find the perfect students for your online course are Facebook and Instagram ads. And if you are interested in learning about the ads for your next launch, I want you to register for the funnel, fill up and complete convert formula. Well, I'm going to show you the fastest way to find and convert your perfect students, even if you're just starting out. And it will walk you through also how one of these evergreen sales funnels look like. But you may be asking Destiny, you know, what about the ads for my evergreen sales funnel? So what I want to say is like a live launch and evergreen ad campaign is just a series of ads that take your prospect on the buyer's journey. In fact, the ad campaigns for a live launch are similar in almost exactly the same in what you would run in an evergreen sales funnel. So basically what that does. So let's just say I'm going to kind of walk you through what an evergreen ad strategy would look like. So let's just assume for the sake of argument here that you're doing a recorded webinar. So basically it's a webinar that you did in your live launch. You've taken that webinar and you're going to evergreen it. So you're going to run ads to this evergreen webinar. So they go to your evergreen webinar registration page, they sign up and then on the next page you're going to have the sales page, you're going to have your record recorded webinar at the top, and then you're going to start your retargeting ads and your emails. So basically what that will be is throughout whatever your cart open is, let's just Say they sign up for your webinar and you're going to keep your cart open for them for like seven to 14 days. During that period, you're going to be targeting them with these ads on Facebook and Instagram and you're also going to be sending them emails and you're going to be targeting them until the cart closes. So that's basically how that works. So let's talk a little bit about these retargeting ads. They're also called sales ads and these particular type of ads. The reason why we do that is that they're going to improve your email open rates and your sales page views. These ads are only going to be shown to the warm audiences. So in this case, it's going to be people who have signed up for for your evergreen webinar. And there's a lot of different options that you can, you know, do for your sales ads. You can point them back to watch the replay. So that's something you would do in the early stage. You can showcase your customer testimonials with the case studies with links back to that sales page that I'm talking about. You can answer any objections that they have. Maybe you do a video ad where you answer objections and again, you're pointing them out to that sales page. And then like three days before your cart closes, you can say, cart is closing soon with link to the sales page. So there you go. Those are the five elements that you need for a successful evergreen sales funnel. And I want to thank you for joining us today. If you have any questions about your ads for your evergreen sales fun funnel, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Facebook or Instagram. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Would love for you to rate and review the podcast on itunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.