Even as we’ve been discussing the big problems with live launching and evergreen, you might still be thinking, “but my challenges/webinars/launches ARE working…just maybe not as much as I’d like…” or “maybe I just need to lean into those tactics more.”
So here’s my critical question for you: Is it *really* that you haven’t leaned into them yet? Do you still believe that there’s one magical, elusive tweak that’s going to make them perform?
For a lot of (misguided) years, I thought live launching was the only way to go. Of course, it can work to an extent—SOME people buy. But not the number needed to have a sustainable, scalable business.
Here we dig a little deeper into why those marketing strategies don’t work long term and what *will* work to sell your product online—without the chaos of live launching or the dismal conversion rate of evergreen.
1. Catch Your Customers at Their Peak Excitement
It may sound obvious but selling at peak excitement works. The problem with this is that most people don’t know when that peak excitement is. They think it’s when they launch their product or maybe when they’re nurturing buyers to get them excited first.
There’s a natural, predictable moment at which everyone who interacts with you is going to be at their peak level of excitement. And that moment is when they first discover you and your solutions. That is where they are most excited about the solution you are offering to their challenges or their problems.
When potential buyers first interact with you is when they are at their highest level of excitement, motivation, and interest in what you have to offer. And we see this proven again and again. For example, when we look at our email open rates; the highest open rates are seen in the first emails we send out to people.
As peak excitement wanes, so does the motivation to act. If someone is at that moment of peak excitement and we don’t give them a compelling offer at that moment, we’re burning up that opportunity. We’re using up their excitement and motivation, which is inevitably going to decrease.
The Problem With Nurturing and Live Launching
This is exactly the problem with nurturing and then live launching days, weeks, or months after someone first encounters you. Every day that goes by, you’re cutting that excitement and motivation in half. Your potential customers are thinking, “Well, do I really need/want this? I’m not that interested anymore.” They’re just not as compelled to make that purchase.
Sell and Nurture at the Same Time
Maybe you’re thinking, “Yeah, but the big, high-level pros do live launches!”
Definitely. And if you are the definitive leader in your field and people are willing to wait six months or a year to purchase from you, then go ahead and keep live launching.
But if you’re not, and I say this with so much love, while you’re preparing for your next launch, your audience is buying what they need from your competitors (that one stings, I know).
Lots of what we digital marketers believe so deeply simply isn’t true. (See our post, ““Why Tactics That Work for Digital Marketing Masters Won’t Work for You,” for more information.)
For example, we’re taught to nurture first. But you can nurture and sell at the same time! You can sell and send them emails that nurture them throughout that whole process. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You *can* do both simultaneously.
Nurturing Without Selling Erects a Barrier to Purchasing
What most digital marketers are taught is to say, “I have a solution, but we’re going to talk about that later. First, we’re going to talk about me, why I got into business, and why I’m so passionate about this. Then, we’re going to talk about some of my clients who had the same problem as you and have found success. And then the day after that, we’re going to talk about other stories.”
All this nurturing process does is keep our newly acquired follower or subscriber from the solution that they want. They’re coming to you saying, “Hey, I’m interested in this. Tell me more!” But we put up barriers between them and what they want under the guise of “nurturing”.
If we are holding people back from purchasing the solutions that they want, we’re either burning up that motivation and excitement or encouraging them to buy from our competitors.
People will buy something if they want it badly enough, but it’s also not their job to figure out that they want it. It’s our job to explain what makes it so fantastic to get them to want it and to buy it.
This is not about tricking people. We’re talking about how to effectively help people understand why this is the best solution for them. And when someone understands that and why it’s so valuable to them, they will purchase it.
2. Allow People to Buy When They Want
I know a lot of business owners who’ve been adamant that their program had to be live…until they started thinking about it in a different way.
What if you gave people the freedom to get through your program on a schedule and a pace that works for *them* instead of making them adhere to your schedule?
If someone is ready to buy but their next opportunity is several months down the line, could you build them back up to that peak excitement? Probably not.
Maybe you’ll get them excited again in that launch mode, but you’re still making them adhere to YOUR schedule. You’re not allowing them to buy when they want to buy. You want them to buy when they first encounter you—when they are most excited.
We shouldn’t be putting up barriers for our potential customers or making it difficult for them to purchase.
Evergreen Isn’t the Solution
*Now, to be clear, I’m NOT saying the solution is going “evergreen.”*
It’s true that the way people do “evergreen” (or letting them buy whenever they want) leads to dismally low conversion rates. If people can just buy whenever, then they’re not going to. There’s no urgency and no incentive to act.
People don’t take action unless there’s a deadline. There’s a reason why coupons always have a deadline on them. There’s a reason why you have to return your library books by a certain date.
The automated evergreen funnel seems easy, but it’s not the solution. What you’re doing is essentially burning up their excitement. It’s a really effective way to get people on your list and to lose their attention very quickly.
Live launching and evergreen simply don’t allow people to buy at their peak excitement.
3. Don’t Teach—Give Solutions
Everything that we’re told in the digital marketing industry is about teaching and giving away a ton of content for free. You’ll hear that teaching will give them a small win, so that they’re going to be inspired and want to buy that big win.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Small Wins Aren’t Winning Sales
If people get a small win, they often think, “Well, I’ve got this small win, that’s all I need.” Or they might get the small win and think, “Now I pretty much understand this. I’m pretty sure I can figure out the big win on my own, so I don’t need to purchase this entire program.”
Either way, teaching gives them the small win but actually encourages people NOT to purchase.
Avoid Burnout
On the other hand, you have people who are learning all this information and they just feel burned out. You’re probably exhausted from teaching, teaching, and more teaching, and your audience is equally as exhausted from learning.
You might even start planting seeds of resistance in their minds to say, “If this was the free thing, can I even do the full thing? Do I have the energy? Do I have the bandwidth?” And these objections didn’t exist before!
Lastly, business owners tend to forget that learning isn’t necessarily exciting. Sometimes if you get the win, you’ll feel a little energy, but it’s tiring. You burn up a lot of energy doing something that is very mentally taxing. The process of learning is physiologically an exhausting experience because your mind is taking in new concepts and that drains energy.
Through teaching, you’re putting a further drain on their excitement, inspiration, and motivation. Instead of teaching, you want to give people breakthroughs to help them understand new concepts without breaking down the “how” in detail.
4. Offer Breakthroughs & New Ways of Thinking
Breakthroughs build excitement because they offer hope. They provide the feeling of finding out something that they didn’t even know was possible. It’s exciting for people to imagine their own breakthrough in their life and what the possibilities could be.
Our Circuit Sales System students know these breakthroughs as “paradigm shifts”. The concept is that we’re saying to people, “Look, you always *thought* it was this way. Or maybe you’ve been told it was this way, but guess what? It’s actually NOT that way at all.” And then you explain that concept to them and make your solution clear.
Rather than sucking their energy with teaching and learning, you can infuse energy with breakthroughs. It’s your chance to tell your audience: “It’s not your fault if you were not successful doing it this other way because the other way is wrong.”
That gives them a moment of hope and enlightenment and allows them to believe in YOU and what you’re saying. It switches on a lightbulb in their mind as they start to understand why they haven’t been successful yet.
And, as our CSS students know, we have a lot of other ways and very specific methods of supporting that breakthrough and making it even more powerful to get them to take action.
5. Build Trust in Your Expertise
It’s that lightbulb moment which not only allows them to understand something new, but also helps them to buy into you. Once they understand that things are not the way they thought they were, they start to realize that you have the solution, and you are someone they can listen to and trust.
As you talk them through the breakthrough and it makes sense to them, all of a sudden they understand that you have a level of expertise that they need (which is totally different from everything else they’ve heard that didn’t work).
Because they understand that breakthrough, they’re listening and they’re willing to hear all the other things that you have to say. They believe you because you are the one who turned on that lightbulb for them.
It builds trust in what you have to offer because you you’re showing that you understand exactly where they are and what they’re going through, which they probably haven’t experienced until this point.
Go Your Own Way!
I get it: When you’ve already put in so much work, it’s hard to let something go.
In fact, there’s a term for this because it’s a problem that our little human minds deal with a lot. It’s called a “sunk-cost fallacy” and it means that we tend to keep doing something because we’ve invested time, money, and/or energy into it—even when it’s not working.
Spending more time doing something that isn’t working doesn’t mean it’s going to start working—it just means that you’ll have wasted more time before finding what does.
If you were driving across the country and realized you were going in the wrong direction, would you keep going just because you’d been driving for so long? Of course not! You’d get a good map and change directions.
There are a lot of strategies that the bigger digital marketing people say you “have” to do. But they’re not necessarily in the same place that we are. The same tactics aren’t going to work for us that work for the big names in the industry because people *will* wait six months or a year to buy from the big name.
And if you are one of those big names—awesome! Keep doing what you’re doing. But if you’re not, you have to connect with your potential customers in a totally different way, and you have to catch them at their peak excitement and make it easy for them to purchase from you.
And remember: teaching what you already know is not marketing your product or offer—it’s just…teaching. Yes, that’s a valuable part of your program or your course, but you only give it to people who have paid you for it!
So, if you’re ready to explore another way, our CSS helps you take your business to the next level WITHOUT the chaos of live launching and the sad conversions of evergreen, but WITH all the excitement and hands-off, predictable, and scalable sales!
Your Turn!
Have you tried selling your online product using evergreen or live launching? What were your results? Tell us in the comments below!