058: How to Make Passive Income Online With Evergreen Funnels in 2021

Kate Kordsmeier 0:00

Welcome back to the Success with Soul podcast. I'm your host, Kate Kordsmeier. And today we are talking all about evergreen funnels. So this is a solo episode, I'm excited to dive deeper into this because evergreen funnels are something that I implemented in my business when I went on maternity leave with my daughter, Gemma back in May of 2020. Actually, she was born in May, I started my evergreen funnel in April 2020. And it was interesting because I had live launched in January, and I had had a six figure launch. So it was great. But afterwards, I was beat, I was exhausted, I was so tired, I just needed like months of rest to recover from the energy and time and effort and money that goes into live launching. And I knew that I would be having a daughter in May, and add that I couldn't live launch again, I didn't think I could fit in a live launch before she was born. And so I thought, well, maybe I can try this evergreen funnels thing. I don't really know how it works. But let me figure it out, learn from some people who are doing this effectively, and and see what I can create. And in that first month, we earned about $15,000 with our evergreen funnel. And by the end of the year, we had made almost double what we we had made almost double from our evergreen funnels than what we made in our six figure live launch. And I didn't have to do anything. Yes, it took some work to set it up on the front end. But after that it was totally, totally passive. You know, when people talk about like making money while you sleep. This is that I was making money on maternity leave literally not working at all and bringing in 10 to $20,000 a month on autopilot. Because of these evergreen funnels, it was truly mind blowing. So towards the end of the year, I thought I bet we could make this even better I was back at work. I wanted to grow the company and scale a bit more. So I took some trainings on some new evergreen techniques. And I went back to the drawing board, I rewrote all of the emails, I redid the sales page, I redid the webinar started everything from scratch, we turned it on. And in January of 2021, we made over $60,000 from our evergreen funnel. And I am full on a convert now. And I mean I was before but now that I see the true power. And the craziest thing get this 80% of our traffic 80% of those sales came from organic leads meaning not Facebook ads. This is not an instance where we were spending 1000s of dollars a month on Facebook ads and then barely breaking even with our profit. This was 80% profit. So I'm really excited to share some of this technique with y'all. And if you're interested in learning more about evergreen funnels after you listen to the episode, I would love to invite you to apply to the Success with Soul incubator. So if you go to successwithsoul.co/apply, you can learn all about the program, which is kind of this hybrid course meets mastermind meets coaching. It was designed specifically for intermediate entrepreneurs, so somebody who has a course or a program or a membership or something to sell and they want to take it to the next level, scale their business and do so with evergreen funnels. So if that sounds like you and you're interested in learning more, head over to successwithsoul.co/apply. It's easy, it'll take you less than five minutes and there's no obligation to enroll. Plus after you apply, you'll get access to an advanced training, which is my exact six part framework for maximizing your time, energy and income with evergreen funnels, organic content marketing, feminine energy and holistic systems. So the only way to access this training is by applying to the incubator so head on over to successwithsoul.co/apply. And now without further ado, let's talk evergreen funnels. You're listening to the Success with Soul podcast with Kate Kordsmeier ex journalists turned CEO of a multi six figure blog in online business. But it wasn't that long ago that Kate was a struggling entrepreneur who lacked confidence, clarity and let's be honest money. But all those failures, experiments and lessons learned helped Kate create a thriving business that impacts 1000s and brings freedom, flexibility and fulfillment to her life. If you're ready to do the same and make something happen with holistic, soulful, step by step strategies from Kaden other experts you're in the right place. Here's your host writer, educator mom recovering perfectionist bookworm and soon connoisseur Kate Kordsmeier.

So one of the first things I want to cover because I think this is a very frequently misunderstood thing about evergreen is that there is a difference between being evergreen and having an evergreen funnel. And so we'll go over those. And like I said, some of this may be things you already know. But just in case we'll start from the beginning. So when you have something on evergreen, that means that anyone can go to your website at any time and buy your product, the doors are always open, it's always available. Now, if you compare that to live launch, you know, that's when people are only opening the doors during select times of the year. So people have to participate in your live launches in order to buy your product. This is like the Amy Porterfield method, right. And then an evergreen funnel is kind of this hybrid between the two where your product is not available for sale on your website at any time. It's only available when somebody gets into your funnel, they'll have a limited time offer window to buy your product. But if somebody just went to your website and typed in like successwithsoul.co/6FBA, they would not be able to just buy six FBA. However, with an evergreen funnel, I'm still able to sell it 365 days a year 24 seven. So it's the funnel piece that sort of this gatekeeper and what separates it between just being evergreen, and I know like I had a friend who she said, Oh, I'm going evergreen. And then after she did it, I was like, Well, yeah, you are evergreen, like anybody now can buy your product at any time. But she's not using a funnel, there's no nurturing, there's no limited time, you know, whatever. So there's a big difference. And generally speaking, especially when you're talking about online courses, and products that are over a couple $100. Doing it, just the straight evergreen way is not going to be your best marketing strategy. And we'll get into that. But basically, a good evergreen funnel is just a collection of videos, landing pages and emails, that's going to build a relationship with your potential customer, it's going to lead them through this journey. So they start off at the top, and you're like we you know, there's the actual funnel, and you're leading them through this journey in a very non salesy way. And it's always on, it's always working for you, this would be different from like a closed funnel that is only active a couple times a year, which is that live launch model we talked about. So the reason why I want to specify the difference here is because like I said, just going evergreen is not going to be a great marketing strategy. But using an evergreen funnel, can really like 10 next year results. And so I want to go over some of the benefits of doing an evergreen funnel and why this is so important. So the first part is, because you're building this know, like and trust factor. So if you just send someone directly to your sales page, even if they're a warm lead, you're not really nurturing them, but especially if you're like running Facebook ads or something, and it's just going straight to your sales page, you're gonna have a very low conversion rate, if any at all. Because there's no nurturing there. And when you're selling anything, particularly something over $500, but even if it's $100, or more, really, it's going to take a bit of nurturing to get them to trust you enough to buy from you. So that's where the funnel comes in. And of course, content marketing, as well as a great way to be continuously building that know like and trust factor with your blog posts, or podcast episodes, or YouTube videos, etc. Obviously, we talked about that in another season. But for evergreen, this funnel is really what's going to build that know like and trust factor, which is going to increase your sales. Plus, it's kind of this win win because yes, it's better for you. But it's also better for your customers because you're able to meet people where they are. So if you only live lunch, you may be forcing people to make a decision that's not right for them in that moment. Like I know that I've joined courses because I know they're only offered once a year. And it's really not the right time for me, I'm about to go on maternity leave, or I have the big you know, vacation coming up or whatever. It just is not right for me at that moment. But I don't want to miss out. And so I end up like being almost forced into this decision. That's really not right for me, because I know that's my only chance. And I don't really want to do that to my customers because when I've been on the receiving end, I know how shitty it feels. By the same token, you may not be able to meet their needs. So for example, let's say you have a course that's focused on pregnancy or you have a program that helps people through a divorce or something like that when they need that. support, they need it now, like you're only pregnant for nine months. So if you only open, you know, if I missed your window and you open a year later, 810 months later, it's like, well, I don't need this anymore. Yeah, so you can't really meet their needs when you're only doing this like one two times a year launch. And I also just think about, like, if you only launch once a year, you're probably have your cart open for like a week. And what if somebody is on vacation, or they just had a baby or it's COVID. And what for whatever reason, they're just not ready. So evergreen is going to give them more opportunities to give your audience what they want, exactly when they want it, they don't have to wait months to be able to get the solution they're looking for. They want it right now. So I really like the fact that it helps, it's better for your customers as well. And along those same lines, I think that it's when you give people this limited time window that they can purchase. And I think it actually and this is what one of my mentors Mariah cars has taught me is like, it's really one of the kindest things you can do. Because by giving them this limited decision making window, it forces them to make a decision one way or the other, rather than keeping their minds constantly going about like, oh, should I do it should I not. And you know how, like, I've been in that Limbo before where it's like, I could do it any time. So I'll do it never, or I'll do it tomorrow or, and then it just like in that limbo. And when you are using an evergreen funnel, and you're giving people a limited time offer you like, end the madness for them, basically. So then, of course, one of the best reasons to do an evergreen funnel is because you'll make more money. So not only will you be able to make money every single day versus a few times a year only, but when compared to having your product available to buy at any time, you'll sell way more using limited time windows. And then finally, I feel like there's so much leverage that comes from an evergreen funnel that allows you to actually enjoy your work and your life more, because instead of constantly preparing for the next launch, or feeling like you're always having to sell to your people, you know, you're always having to remind them to like, hey, go check out my course, hey, go do this thing. You've taken out all those variables. Now you've got an automated system that sells your courses year round every day. So your job isn't pitching and selling all day. Now it can be creating fun new content for your audience or getting new people into your funnel or even not working and doing whatever else it is that you want to do with your life. Knowing that you're, you're still making sales in the background. And it's all done in advance. So that's the power of evergreen funnels. I couldn't love them more. And like I've said before, I used to do the live launch method, and I did about three live launches. And then when I went evergreen, which was purely a strategy so that I could take maternity leave, and I fully intended to live launch again, once I came back at once I saw how amazing it was, I was like I am never live launching again, if I can help it gets you out of that feast or famine growth cycle. And it's just so much more consistent and stable and easy. You don't have these extreme highs and lows. Once you get it going. It's much more predictable, and you get that sustainable growth that I think we're all looking for. We know that live watching is really exhausting and depleting and it taxes our central nervous system because you're constantly going up and down, up and down and live launching results in that feast or famine cycle. And it's just hard. But just being evergreen and not using an evergreen funnel is gonna result in viewer sales. So you need to give people a reason to buy now. And that's where creating authentic scarcity and urgency comes in.

Attention ambitious, heart centered female business owners, ready to say goodbye to the hustle stressful live launches and feeling like you have to choose your business or your family. If you're ready to create more time and income with a business that serves your bank account, and your soul, then I have a special invitation just for you. The Success with Soul incubator is a one stop shop for building a sustainable business and life. Instead of buying a dozen different courses on business strategy, feminine energy blogging funnels, email marketing, affiliates, team building and more. The incubator includes everything you need to build a wildly lucrative business all in one spot while intentionally serving your spirit. This is a course meets mastermind meets group coaching program designed specifically for intermediate entrepreneurs who have had some success in their business and are ready to take it to the next level. If that sounds like you and you're interested in learning more, head over to successwithsoul.co/apply. It's easy and there's no obligation to enroll after you apply. Plus, if you're accepted, you'll get get access to a private invite only advanced level workshop where you'll learn exactly how to scale to 50k a month on autopilot without live launching paid ads, social media or selling your soul. The application only takes five minutes and there is no obligation to enroll. Once your application is accepted, you'll learn my exact six part framework to grow your traffic organically scale your passive income with evergreen funnels, and do it all without burning out. I'll explain everything you need to know about the incubator program. So come on over and apply. Now. Again, that's successwithsoul.co/apply.

Remember, people will delay making a decision until they absolutely have to buyers do what their instincts tell them to do, which is to act immediately on what is important and urgent, and to acquire what is limited, which is the scarcity piece. And there's a lot of you know, psychological and marketing things that go into this. But I just kind of like to think of it as human nature is doing nothing is so much easier and less risky than taking action. So I think of that when I'm like trying to figure out okay, what's the deadline? Why am I doing this? What How do I ethically, you know, and authentically create this urgency and scarcity that we know works. I just remember like what human nature is, is like, we want to give them a reason to take an action. So in order to do this, you need to use a tech tool that allows you to give every individual person their own unique deadline and timer within your funnel. So for example, if Molly enters my funnel on Monday, March 15, and we have a seven day cart open window, her offer window is going to expire on Monday, March 22. But if Suzy enters my funnel on Wednesday, May 5, her offer windows going to expire on Wednesday, May 12. So every single person is going to have a different cart, open window, and cart, clothes time and everything will be unique to that individual person. And one of the things that you have to make sure you're you're doing in order to make this really work and to do it authentically. And to feel an integrity like you're not just cheating your customers or tricking them into buying something is that after the offer expires, you need a reliable way to ensure it's actually no longer available. Because you don't want to create fake urgency, you don't want to say, hey, Molly, your cart closes on Monday, March 22. And then on Monday, or you know that the next few days later, Molly goes and clicks the link and she can still buy, that's going to leave a horrible taste in her mouth, it's going to lose all that trust. And so you have to have a way to do this that is authentic, this is true urgency, dead so that you're not manually having to keep track of all of these people. Because if you imagine at a certain point, you're gonna have hundreds of people going through your funnels at all times. And you can never keep up with that manually. So the good news is that there are two software tools I know of that do this really complicated work for you, and they do it really well. Now, the first one is called deadline funnel. And it works with almost all email service providers. If you don't have one, I have two email service providers that I recommend. And if you're going to go the deadline funnel route, I would recommend using Active Campaign. However, I use kartra. I recently moved to the system and 2020. And as Caroline knows, it is an all in one platform. It does all of this and so much more for you. And it makes it so much easier to have it all in one place. And we'll kind of get into the tech in a little bit. But the gist here is that there is there are these two tools available that allow you to create this real urgency where you're making an offer, you're specifying a deadline, and you're removing the offer when that deadline comes. So it's real, but you're using automated tools to implement it. So that is one of the best ways to create true authentic scarcity and urgency. Some other ways that I like to do this inside of the funnel itself is by adding in some bonuses. So some great bonuses can be like early bird bonuses or fast action bonuses. These are great ways to authentically increase that urgency and reward people for taking action. And to me I like that the psychology of it better because it feels like you're rewarding people for taking action rather than punishing people for not taking action. So that would be something like card opens today and if you buy in the next 24 hours, you'll get this bonus or this discount or whatever it is that you it's something extra that you're going to give people if they purchase in that window. So that would be on top of the fact that the course is only or your program is only available during that time. So at the end, you have to figure out well, so what goes away at the end of the deadline. And there's a few different ways that you could do this. The way that I do it now, and this is after testing a few different ways, is that they're in the cart, open window, let's say it's seven days. And at the end of the seven days, what happens? So for me, I think the most effective thing to do is that your product itself goes away, they cannot buy your product at all anymore until you open it up again. And there's an automated way to do this as well. So we'll we'll get into that too. But there are other ways you can do this. And I know, for example, Amy Porterfield has her list builder society, it is on an evergreen funnel, technically, you can purchase the course at any time. But if you are inside her funnel, she offers special bonuses. So at the end of her deadline timer, your bonuses expire, but the product is still available to purchase, you just don't get the bonuses. So that's another option. A third option would be maybe you offer a discount inside of your funnel. So this is how I used to do things with six FBA, I would say, you could go to the website at any time, and you could purchase it at the time, I think it was for 1297. And then if you were inside of our funnel, you got a $300 off discount, if you purchased in those seven days. And at the end of those seven days, it was like your discount is gone. Now you can if you still want to buy the course you can. But you missed your the sale basically. This worked well. But I didn't love it because I felt like it created a lot of questions. And then sometimes people would write in and say like, you know, they don't understand customers are not going to understand your marketing funnels. So you get a lot more questions where people would be like, I thought the course was 997. Now it's 1297. Or, oh, I

just missed the window by three days, could you give it to me for this price still, and I didn't, I just didn't love the way that it felt. And I didn't like discounting my products and then teaching people to wait for a sale to buy my stuff. So I decided to try a different way with like, okay, it's just going to go away all together. And this is much simpler. Now I like it much better and reduces for sure the amount of questions and confusion that people have. But that is an option. And the note that I have at the bottom here is like a B test. If you're not sure what you want to do, and really sit with this and take time to think about what feels right to you. There's definitely no one size fits all. And so you need to do like what feels most in integrity with your values and what you feel like would serve both you and your audience the best. But these are some of the like most common options that I see, take the whole thing away, just bonuses expire or a discount expires, but the product is still available. So my vote simplest, most streamlined, everything just goes away.

Alright y'all, so there you have it, a introduction to evergreen funnels that I hope piqued your interest taught you something new. And hopefully now you're intrigued and ready to start implementing this strategy in your business. Now I did mention this is only one of the six phases of my six part framework that we teach inside the incubator. So the first step to get access to all of this goodness is to apply for the Success with Soul incubator, you can do that at successwithsoul.co/apply. When you do you'll also get access to a free advanced private training where you'll learn exactly how to scale to 50k a month on autopilot without live launching paid ads, social media or selling your soul. The application only takes five minutes and there's no obligation to enroll. So head on over to successwithsoul.co/apply to get started. Wait a minute. I know I know you're eager to get back to your life. But before you turn off this episode, I want to share something super quick with you. I know you're probably sick of hearing other podcasters ask you to leave reviews. But here's the deal. If you like a podcast, and you want them to be able to continue delivering you free episodes every week, we need your support. If you subscribe on the apple podcast, Google podcast, app Spotify, or wherever you listen, it makes it possible for me to continue to provide free helpful content and bring you amazing guests. And if you take it one step further by giving us a rating and review with your honest feedback, we can improve better serve you in the future. And you could even be featured on a future episode during our listener spotlights. Because if we don't get the reviews, we don't get the rankings and it makes it a lot harder to continue justifying the cost and time expense of producing a podcast every week and can I'm seeing amazing guests to come on the show. And of course your reviews are super helpful and motivating to me personally and I love hearing from you

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