This is a transcript of episode 62 of the OMGrowth podcast.
I’m Lanie Lamarre and I received an email from Destini Copp asking if I would speak at her Evergreen Email summit about how to track and improve your evergreen campaigns and I was like, “Is Destini flirting with me?” Because I have my new book that is fresh off the proverbial presses called EMAIL MARKETING OPTIMIZATION which is available in the shownotes so the timing was on-point for us to yakeddy-yak all about evegreen emails and yakaddey-yak we did because there’s so much more to evergreen emails than just sales sequences and deadline timers – in fact, there’s enough to fill a whole summit so there’s also a link to join the Evergreen Email Summit in the shownotes as well which gets started on June 14th but in the meantime, you can tune into my chat with Destini Copp.
Lanie Lamarre:
Because it’s my favorite thing to talk about, how to track, how to improve your email and especially evergreen funnels, because I feel like they’re one of the easiest to optimize, but it seems so complicated. I think that’s the case with the setup of evergreen emails in general, the whole funnel. It seems really complicated, but I don’t really think it is. So when are evergreen email funnels appropriate to use?
Destini Copp:
So first of all, Lanie, you were flirting with me, but I was flirting right back because I absolutely love what you do and how you make data fun, which is, kind of be difficult for a little bit for some of us, including myself, but I know the importance of it. So to answer your question specifically, evergreen funnels are definitely my jam. I think every single online business owner needs to have one set up in their business. It can be very, very simple to set up and going into kind of what you do, it can be one of the most simplest things to track in your business to see if they’re performing well.
Destini Copp:
So at a minimum, what I’d like everyone to have is a simple lead magnet type funnel, where somebody comes to your website, they go to your landing page, they sign up for your free lead magnet, and then you start your evergreen nurture sequence from there. You could be welcoming them, telling them a little bit more about you and what you do, but also promoting your services, promoting your digital products through that funnel. If you are asking where to start, that is where I’d recommend that everybody starts.
Lanie Lamarre:
I think people have this misconception that putting an evergreen email sequence or a funnel, whatever you want to call it, in place has a sort of sleazy feel because there’s scarcity and sometimes false scarcity and things like that. But I feel like it’s really overlooked in terms of a tool to just get people to know what you have to offer. Just building that relationship a little bit, creating that engagement for people to feel welcome to reaching out to you and finding out more about what you have to offer rather than it always being pitchy.
Destini Copp:
Yeah, you’re right. I mean, truly evergreen funnels or just funnels or email marketing in general can get a bad kind of vibe, but there are ways to set them up so you’re being authentic. You’re not being sleazy and you’re really, truly just welcoming people into your world and allowing them to get to know you and you getting to know quite frankly, them better too. So having that two-way conversation in there.
Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. I always, when I’m making videos or something like that, where I know that I’m not going to be able to engage with the other person, it’s like hey, when you click the social link, please slip into my DMs and engage with me, because I don’t want this to be a one sided conversation. I don’t want to be the only one doing the talking. I want you to actually engage with me. I like to be able to take the opportunities to make people feel welcome to doing that.
Destini Copp:
That’s a good point and that’s one of the things that I think all of us should be doing in our email marketing is encouraging people to interact with us, to go into our Instagram DMs and send us a private view message, or respond to something. If you’re doing a video, respond underneath to this video so I can answer your questions. Going back to you mentioned about kind of those deadlines that sometimes you see in these evergreen email funnels type thing, and the reality is you can still have deadlines, and those deadlines work. There’s a reason why we put those deadlines in our email marketing is to encourage people to take action and that’s not a bad thing.
Destini Copp:
Because number one, you’re helping them to solve something or a need that they have in their business, or in their life or something that you can help them with. So having those deadlines in there is not a bad thing. Lying to them and saying, you’ll never be able to get this again is a bad thing. So we don’t want to be doing things like that, but we do want to be authentic in our marketing.
Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. So how do you see an evergreen email sequence of a funnel, whatever you want to call it, where you have that sequence of emails that is designed to promote something that you have to offer, whether that’s paid or free, to someone who is either joining your email list or took some sort of action that just seemed to be aligned to that product that you had to offer. How is that different from a live launch?
Destini Copp:
So a live launch is, for me in my business, and I’ll just give you some examples. I have both set up in my business. I have evergreen sales funnels, evergreen through the email marketing that we’re talking about today. I have several of those set up in my business where people can jump onto my email list and kind of go through them and purchase my products or sign up for services throughout that. Then I do live launches. Generally we’ll do them about twice a year. Mostly I do summits. Sometimes in the past, I’ve done five day challenges or webinars and what’s different in those is it’s basically a short time period. With the summit that we’re talking about now that’s coming up here shortly, is the three day summit.
Destini Copp:
So we’re going to be in that Facebook group, all the speakers are going to be there. We’re going to be answering your questions live just like we would be doing if we were doing a live webinar or if we were doing a five day challenge where you’re in that Facebook group. So you are going to be in their live. It’s a shortened time period. There is generally a lot of excitement, because there’s a lot of people going through that process. We’ll probably have a thousand people or so coming through this summit.
Destini Copp:
It’s just different. In the evergreen sales funnels you don’t have that live component. I’m not sitting down on a webinar or in a Facebook group live with you answering questions. So that’s what’s missing in these evergreen sales funnels, in these email marketing. But like we’ve just talked about just a second ago, you can still get that interaction with folks through them.
Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. Yeah. What are the most common mistakes you do see someone making when they are putting an evergreen funnel in place or maybe problems or issues that you see being sort of the number one enemy when you’re putting these things in place?
Destini Copp:
Well, there’s so many of them, so I’ll try to kind of pull some of them off the top of my head. But one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is getting people on their list and basically ignoring them. They’re not taking that time to build that relationship with them. They’re not making those offers, but somebody’s just finding out about you. That’s the awareness stage.
Destini Copp:
Then they go down that buyer’s journey, which you can do through your email marketing, take them through that consideration stage. Then finally, to that decision stage and a lot of people just stop at that awareness stage and don’t really kind of help people move down what we call that buyer’s journey. So they’re not making their offers. They’re not continuing to warm them up doing other things. Maybe doing a Facebook live, or an Instagram live, or watch this recorded video that I made, or listen to my podcast. They’re not continually nurturing them so they can actually get them ready to sign up for one of their services, or enroll in their course, or buy some other type of digital product that they have. So those are some of the biggest mistakes that I see people make.
Lanie Lamarre:
You know what’s amazing to me about what you’re saying now, is it’s so true and you put all this time on social media, and the ads, and getting people on your list. Build your list, build your list, build your list. Then when they get on your list, you’re not building the relationship and the rapport that you need to make that worthwhile for both parties. Where the other person is interested or even knows about what you have to offer and then has the opportunity to get interested. Even if they don’t buy your products, if they know you as the person who has… That’s their jam, when they’re talking to their friends about whatever it is that you have to offer, they’re referring people to you. So being able to grow your list is one thing but actually growing those relationships is where I see the magic happening.
Destini Copp:
I agree with you and I’m not going to come out here and say it’s easy to do that, right? It’s not easy to do that. We need to produce content. Doesn’t mean that we need to constantly churn out content, but we do need to get them valuable content, whether it’s maybe blog posts that we’re doing, stuff we’re posting on social media and pointing them to, or podcast episodes. I mean, there’s a lot of ways we continue to nurture our email subscribers that will help us as we get down. Maybe if you’re ready to do a live launch in the future, or promote something else that you’re doing or doing a big launch with one of your services, it’ll be much easier for people to say, oh yes, I’ve been waiting for this. I trust her. I’ve been watching her for a while. I’m ready to do this and make a move.
Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. Yeah. I’m so on board with you for that. It’s not easy to manage any relationship. With a significant other, for instance, you still have to go on a date with them once in a while. You still have to have dinner and enjoy each other’s conversation a little bit to keep that magic going. It’s no different than the people who are on your list. That is a relationship. It requires maintenance. It’s not going to be easy and maybe it’s not the magical stuff that is the sexy stuff of attracting people to your brand, but it is what keeps things sustainable and going.
Destini Copp:
Yeah. If I could mention one more mistake, if you don’t mind-
Lanie Lamarre:
Oh no. Bring the mistakes on.
Destini Copp:
It just popped in my mind. I’m like, oh yeah, I got to mention this. So one other mistake that I will mention is evergreen sales funnels, a lot of people think, oh, I can just set it and forget it. Kind of going back to kind of what you do and what you help people with is really, once you set up one of these evergreen sales funnels that have all these great emails and everything in them that you have, you have to constantly look at the data.
Destini Copp:
The reality is you might need to go in and tweak a landing page. You might need to go in and look at your email stats and your email service provider to see what emails are getting opened. To see where people are clicking and go in, maybe it’s once a quarter to go in and kind of look at all of that and see where they need to make tweaks to it. That’s one thing that I think a lot of people do or think about. When they think about evergreen sales funnels, they think about, oh, I can just passively sell my products and services and you really can’t. You got to continue to look at the data and figure out what’s working and where you need to make tweaks to it.
Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. Yeah. I will be teaching at the summit coming up. I’m going to be teaching you not only how to look at what your email marketing service provider is telling you, but also what are they doing on your page once they click through? What happens after the click through? Being able to track that even with the iOS updates, even with all this stuff, you can still very easily track what people are doing once they get to your sales page and seeing are they staying on my sales page? Are they scrolling? What are they doing when they get there? And which one of the emails is causing the most engagement, which one is causing the most sales?
Lanie Lamarre:
So being able to hone in on that data is what I will be speaking at at the summit. So tell us about the summit because it is going down I believe next week. We will have links to everything in the show notes. So you can click through on those to join us. But you said there are a lot of problems and issues with evergreen email funnels and I believe we will be talking about a lot of those at the summit, right?
Destini Copp:
Yeah. So first of all, your presentation is going to be at the top of my list because that’s definitely something that I personally want to get better with. I want to know. So I cannot wait, wait, wait, wait to watch what you have. But for this summit, we’re going to be talking to all about evergreen sales funnels. Really in everything that you need to scale your business with evergreen sales funnels. So definitely check us out. We’re going to be talking about sales pages. We’re going to be talking about email marketing. We’re even going to have some mindset and accountability coaches in there for all of us who need that little extra push to kind of get in there and get really motivated to tackle a lot of the challenges that we have in our business.
Destini Copp:
So June the 14th, it starts. So make sure that you click on the link that Lanie has in her link in the podcast and sign up and get enrolled today and we’ll see you there.
Lanie Lamarre:
I’m all about talking about email marketing and being able to track that a little bit better, especially with everyone being very chicken little about, oh, well we can’t track email tracking anymore. This is not true. You cannot do it necessarily within your email marketing service the way you used to be able to do it. Open rates are not a metric you can use as a benchmark anymore, but that doesn’t mean that engagement can be measured. If people are engaging with you, that can be measured. So we will look into that at the summit happening June 14th to 16th. I’m so excited about this Destini. Thank you so much for being a guest, for inviting me and I hope to see you all at the summit as well.
Destini Copp:
Yay. Thank you so much Lanie.
Lanie Lamarre:
Thank you.
I love how versatile the use of email automations can be and I’m excited to learn more at the summit – again, a link is in the shownotes to sign up to event, you’ll also find a link to my new book EMAIL MARKETING OPTIMIZATION and I mean it when I say that I don’t want these conversations to be one-sided so there are links to my social media in the shownotes as well so slip into my DMs, say wassup and what you’re up to and into, and let’s talk soon- baiiiieee!