Two traditional, standard marketing tactics have proven successful—to a degree. But they have significant drawbacks, particularly when it comes to predictability and business planning.
Here we look at live launching vs. evergreen selling tactics and dig deep into why these strategies often result in chaos and low conversions.
Why Live Launching Offers More Chaos Than Success
Many business owners struggle when they stick with following the marketing tactics of what “everyone does.” These strategies are deeply flawed and filled with bad advice and misinformation.
For example, you can’t do what everyone else is doing just based on the fact that everyone else is doing it. (Your mother may have once told you, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you, too?” Good advice! Don’t be a sheep and follow the flock blindly.)
Also, you can’t do what the big gurus do. Most of them will only live launch once a year. But they can do that because they have the platform with their name already. Until your audience is as robust as theirs, live launching once or twice a year won’t work. (See our post, “”Why Tactics That Work for Digital Marketing Masters Won’t Work for You,” for more information.)
Live launching isn’t the end-all, be-all marketing strategy. It’s difficult, problematic, and emotionally draining. It’s also super risky. Why? We dig into the risk factors here.
We’re not saying to give up on live launching altogether, however. It can work. Lots of business owners have a successful launch that hits goals. But subsequent launches in which they do the same things don’t see equal success—which is very common. Live launching is massively unpredictable, making it nearly impossible to run a business.
A successful launch followed by a less successful one shows just how unpredictable this tactic is. There is no continuity, making it nearly impossible to plan your business for the quarter—or even a calendar year. You have no idea of revenue, income, the ability to bring on a team member, etc.
Not to mention the unbelievable stress that comes from live launching! If you’ve ever tried live launching, you know about the emotional toll that comes from not knowing how your live launch will perform and not having control over the future of your business.
Let’s not overlook that if live launching doesn’t work, you also start to question the validity of your business. It’s most likely the method you’re using to market your business and not the business itself. But how are you to know that?
Business owners who live launch put in their all—and it can still not generate the results they expected or needed.
An underperforming live launch also removes the opportunity to live launch again because you told your audience it was their one opportunity to get in.
Live launching is like gambling. Gambling with your business revenue is a setup for failure. It’s risky to gamble your money on the one time that a live launch works.
Any delays between the audience finding a solution and waiting for a solution will significantly decrease the likelihood of making them into customers.
Lastly, live launching is a disservice to business owners. The infrequency of live launching—and the long lag time between live launches—removes the ability to gather data and refine your messaging. You’re caught in a cycle of always being behind and in the dark. Messaging is the most important thing for your business. You need to get it right and test it quickly.
Why Evergreen Results in Low Conversions
Evergreen seems like an easy strategy to get potential customers to buy. However, it has been shown to result in low conversions, low energy, and low enthusiasm.
(Read more about what an evergreen offer means here.)
There are two main reasons why evergreen doesn’t work.
Ability to purchase at any time. If people can buy anytime, they’re not going to. People need deadlines. There’s a reason why coupons have an expiration date! Deadlines make people take action. Endless chances to buy mean there’s no excitement. (To learn more, check out “Fakes Deadlines Are Damaging Your Brand—and Sales” and “Why You Need to Give Your Customers Deadlines.”)
The nurturing myth. Evergreen funnels don’t work because it’s a fallacy that you need to nurture people before you sell to them. You can do so simultaneously! You can still nurture them at the same time you’re selling to them.
Evergreen doesn’t convert because the strategy has low excitement. People are at their peak of excitement they first encounter you and your offer. That excitement wanes the longer you spend nurturing them before they convert into purchasers.
While you’re busy nurturing them with endless email communications, potential customers who know there’s a solution out there may find it elsewhere if they haven’t purchased with you yet.
Or they may get tired of your emails and just unsubscribe. They didn’t get a solution from you—just more communications! They’re the ones pursuing you. Don’t push them off with more nurturing emails!
There is one more problem to evergreen: Evergreen funnels often give one chance to buy and if they don’t, the opportunity is lost. There are some people who aren’t ready to immediately purchase. Some will, but some won’t. The standard evergreen funnel “gives up” on people and is a major disservice to both you and the buyer.
You Need an Evergreen Sales Funnel—But Not How Most People Do Evergreen
Our potential clients need our offer. We need to give them what they want, when they want it, in the way they want it. Live launching and evergreen actually dissuade people from making purchases.
We don’t want to be the roadblock! We want to be the solution.
If you’ve been following these marking tactics unsuccessfully, it’s not your fault! You’ve spent your energy on your live launch—not giving your best to your paying customers! It’s not fair to them and it doesn’t make any sense to invest all that energy into a typical 1-2% conversion rate.
Give your energy to those who have already paid you to get the solution your product offers. As business owners, we need to focus on the customers who have already bought in (literally!) to our solution.
Also, your ability to scale your business is severely limited when you’re always planning for the next launch. Your head is always down. You can’t look toward the next offering you can give your paid customers.
It’s time to limit using these marketing techniques and find a more predictable, scalable alternative to make sales on autopilot!
The Circuit Sales System teaches you how to power up your messaging, energize your audience, and electrify your sales—all automatically!
Get the free video here to learn more.
Watch More
In the first episode of the Energize Your Online Business podcast, hosts Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz explore the difficulties of live launching and why it can be hard to plan for the future when you don’t know how much revenue you’ll drive. They discuss why live launching has become so popular, the importance of deadlines for customers, capturing the excitement of potential customers, and providing context and support for sales.
Your Turn!
Have you used live launching and evergreen and experienced any of these setbacks? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Leave us a comment below!