Easy Evergreen Sales Funnels That MAKE SENSE and MAKE MONEY with Mariah Coz (Transcript)
In today's I’m excited to have Mariah Coz share her brilliant strategy for building hyper-effective evergreen funnels that aren't super complicated.
Mariah is an expert at evergreen sales systems. She is someone who I have followed for a long time and consider a virtual mentor.
She is a veteran course creator and a marketing genius. She has a no-BS style and creates insanely high converting webinars, funnels, and launches for herself and her clients using cutting edge, innovative strategies that no one else is teaching.
This is a transcript of Work Less, Earn More, Episode 19. Listen to the episode here.
Gillian Perkins:
Hey there and welcome back to another episode of Work Less, Earn More. In last week's episode, we were talking all about courses vs membership sites, and I gave you a rundown of some of the pros and cons of each of them. I shared with you that I am quite fond of my membership site because of the recurring monthly revenue that it produces for my business. And that is one of my favorite things about it. But what if I told you that it's possible to generate recurring revenue with courses as well? Well, that is the power of selling with an evergreen funnel.
My guest today is an expert at these evergreen sales systems, and she's also someone who I’ve followed and considered a virtual mentor for a long time. She is a veteran course creator and a marketing genius. And today I'm so excited to have her here on the show to share her brilliant strategy for building hyper effective evergreen funnels that aren't super complicated. Mariah Coz, welcome to the show.
Mariah Coz:
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. That was the most amazing and nicest intro I've ever had said about me. Thank you.
Gillian Perkins:
Well, thank you so much for taking your time to be here today. I'm so excited to get to dive into this topic with you. It's something that I really geek out about and I'm just so honored to have you here on the show today.
Mariah Coz:
Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled. This is also one of my favorite topics. There's so many misconceptions out there. People love to overcomplicate this and think that it's way more complex than it needs to be. So I'm hoping that by the end of this, people can see how simple it can be and can kind of get started with their evergreen funnels because it's a total game changer.
Gillian Perkins:
Yes. Okay. Well, I can not wait to get into it, but before we do, I have to tell you a tiny little story about the reason why I'm so excited to have you on the show today. I don't think that I've told you this before, but a few years ago I wanted to start my online business. And so I do what I do every time I've got something that I want to do and I don't know how to do it. I go into research mode, major research mode, reading all the books, Googling, reading all the blog posts, listening to podcasts. You name it, I consume it to try to solve my problem and get that result I'm looking for.
And then I start building my online business and I set up my website and I start trying to build my email list. I make a course. I try to launch the course. Nothing is really working. And then as I'm browsing Pinterest one day I found this article that you wrote and I'd never heard of you before, but… You probably even know what article I'm going to say because I think it was one of your most popular articles. It was called something like, how I took my blog from zero to $100,000 in one year, or something like that. Do you know exactly what this was called?
Mariah Coz:
I think so. I think it's like zero to $100,000 a month or something.
Gillian Perkins:
Something like that. And in this article, I mean, like I said, I'd read a lot at this point, but in this article you broke things down in a way that I hadn't heard anyone else break things down. Everybody, all these other online gurus are always spewing advice and tips and tricks and the most important thing. But you just broke down this year when you scaled your blog from zero to 100,000 just blow by blow, everything that had went down, the good, the bad, the ugly. It was so inspiring to me and it really made the whole process seem a lot more realistic and I understood what I actually needed to do. And in the year that followed me reading that article, I took my blog from zero to 100,000.
Mariah Coz:
Amazing. That is the most inspiring story. And I just am so happy. I mean, just think about that. Just one single blog post can just put you on this trajectory. That's incredible.
Gillian Perkins:
Anyone out there who's wondering if their content matters, like should I make videos, should I write blogs, should I make courses? That is just such a good example of how big of a difference one piece of content that you make can have on the world. You spent a few hours writing that article and it changed my life.
Mariah Coz:
That's amazing. Wow. Thank you so much for saying that. I've had, I'm sure you've had this too, where people are like, “Oh my gosh, I watched that one webinar you did and then the next day I made $10,000.” Or like, “I went and implemented what you taught in that free workshop and this is the result.” It really is true that even with just your free content, you can impact people in such a huge way. It's amazing.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. So let's get into that more and talk about evergreen funnels because evergreen funnels are one way that we can put content out there in the world, both free content, because normally an evergreen funnel is going to involve an email or some educational emails or something like that. And it's going to lead people to your paid content where you can help them even more.
Mariah Coz:
Love it.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. First of all, can you kind of give the listeners a little bit of background to help them understand what these evergreen funnels are and how you use them in your business?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. An evergreen sales funnel is a fancy way of saying that there's an automated system for people to be able to buy your online course every single day, without having to wait for the next time you open up public enrollment. You might be used to these sort of open, close cart periods where people say, “Oh, we're opening the doors to enrollment for only one week.” Evergreen is sort of the opposite of that, where technically your course is available every day. But the way that it works is that for new people who are coming into your audience, they're getting onto your email list for the first time, they get the same fair chance to buy your course as anyone else that maybe went through the last live launch that you did or something like that.
So normally people come in, they opt in for your email list one way or another, and they have a five-day window to join your course before it expires or maybe the price increases or something like that. And it's all the things that happen in that five day window that make it really effective. But essentially we want to give every single person the same fair chance to buy your course as soon as they find you. The minute that someone finds you is really when they need your course the most because they found you through searching for a solution, right? So, we want to be able to give everyone the same fair chance to get your course immediately when they sign up to be part of your email list or to join your audience. And then they have a couple of days to join.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. Thank you for explaining that, that makes so much sense. And I'm really glad that you emphasize giving people a fair chance to join the program. Because while there is a lot that can be said for evergreen funnels and a lot of different reasons why people might be interested in using them in their business, they just have a lot of different advantages. One of the main reasons why I decided to switch to a primarily evergreen selling strategy in my business was because I realized that it was so unfair and just illogical really to be making some people wait, say maybe six months or even a year to join a program when they want to give me money right now. They want my help right now. And there's no reason to make them wait. It's really a lose-lose situation to make them wait an extended period of time when we could both be winning.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. Isn't that wild. I always say it's mean not to go evergreen. Because someone is saying, “Please let me buy your course. I really need this content right now. I really need this help.” And you're saying, “No, no. You have to wait six months.” Most people won't and they really shouldn't have to. I don't think that's fair to tell someone that they have to wait six months for you to just arbitrarily open your doors again. So you really want to help people when they want to pay you and when they need your help the most.
Gillian Perkins:
As, I think, most people, started out live launching. I think that that was just what I had seen other people do so that's what I did. But the longer I did it, the more I got frustrated with all the emails that we would get, where people wanted to the program and they were wondering when it's going to open up next. And sometimes I didn't even have a plan of when it was going to open up next and I didn't even know what to tell them. And we didn't have a system to let them buy it right then. It was just like, this is dysfunctional. We need a system that lets people buy when they're ready to sign up for the program.
Mariah Coz:
Totally. And it's so much better for you. It's so much better for your audience and for your customers. It's just, like you said, it's a win-win for everyone in this transaction.
Gillian Perkins:
So, from my understanding at this point, your business primarily uses evergreen sales funnels. Is that right?
Mariah Coz:
Yes. We've been primarily evergreen for the last couple of years. Really kind of made this shift, one thing at a time, over from being primarily launch-based, like you said, to moving into primarily evergreen. And I would say that for most people's companies, you might start out focusing more on live launches and then you, over time you'll see this huge shift in your business where it kind of becomes the opposite where like 80% of our sales are evergreen and 20% of them are from launches. So, it's definitely been like an interesting kind of shift over the years, but you get really good at consistency and I think that is really where you want to focus your energy, is that consistency. Like growing your monthly revenue every single month, month over month, rather than just saying, “Oh, I want to have these big launches twice a year,” which is not very fun or sustainable.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that we should also probably point out though, if anyone is thinking about switching over to evergreen and they're hearing all these benefits of evergreen, that there is still a time and place for a live launch. I think sometimes when you're first launching a program, you can really take advantage of that hype of a new product. And then also if you're running a program that you're going to run live, where you're going to be actually working with the students one on one, then it might make a lot more sense to live launch. That's actually what I'm doing right now. We're in the middle of launching a new program and I'm going to be working with the students for six weeks. So I have to close the carts because I can't have people signing up in the middle of those six weeks.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. That's such a great point. The way that we see it is that live launches and evergreen funnels work together beautifully. And I would say that the way we approach this is pretty different than anyone else I've heard talk about this. The way that I think about it is that you need both evergreen funnels and live launches, but the function of live launches changes when you have an evergreen funnel. And what it becomes is that your live launch is now an opportunity. Let's say that you've had your evergreen funnel on for six months and during those six months you've had 6,000 people go through your funnel. And out of that 6,000 people, 3 or 4% of them bought your course on the evergreen funnel. But then you still have this big list of people who went through your funnel once, but they didn't purchase.
And so that percentage of people, we really think of launches as a way to re engage those people, recapture and sort of reconvert the people who didn't buy during the funnel. What we found is that people's lives, or clients, their live launches get bigger and bigger and bigger the longer that their funnels are on because everyone going through their evergreen funnel is super warmed up and they're just kind of waiting for the next opportunity to join your course. So it's really a chance for you to re engage anyone who went through your funnel, didn't purchase, and now they're definitely ready to buy the next time you launch.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. Well, that's really interesting. So from what I understand, you're saying you recommend that you later do a live launch to the people who've gone through your evergreen funnel. Let me ask you this, why do that rather than extend your evergreen funnel so that say a month or two or three months after someone goes through the evergreen funnel, they automatically go through essentially just another version of the evergreen funnel.
Mariah Coz:
Totally. Yeah. There's a reason. The one thing that you can't replicate… I mean, you can replicate a lot of things in an evergreen funnel and we've gotten really, really good at taking the best part. I really truly believe that you can take your energy and all the best parts of what you do live. I truly believe you can put 90% of that into an evergreen funnel and it can be really, really effective and it can still have this great impact and this great energy, even though it's all prerecorded. However, the thing that you can't replicate in an evergreen funnel is the multiple touch points of everyone in your audience seeing a common deadline that you are talking about publicly about the same day, the same deadline, the same thing for every person on social media, in your stories, in your Instagram, on your Facebook lives. You can't replicate that exact element in an evergreen funnel.
I mean, you can replicate it to the point where they're receiving emails and maybe they're even seeing a retargeting ad or something like that. But imagine the difference between that and someone posting every single day on their social media for one week about a special promotion. That you can't do on a case by case basis when it's on evergreen. So we have found, we have this entire system that we call the waterfall effect, and we basically have two different types of customer. You probably are familiar with the metaphor of the turtle and the hare.
The turtles are the ones that need more of a nudge and more honesty, like kind of that social selling element of seeing all that hype and all of that fanfare happening around a launch. And so, it's really just that one little piece of it that's hard to replicate on evergreen and it's really worth it to do it once a year or once every six months to re engage all the people who went through your funnel and didn't purchase. If you just try to put them through your funnel again, like I said, you're not quite creating that same level of interest and engagement as you would be.
Gillian Perkins:
That makes so much sense. And honestly, that's something that I've never thought of, but basically it sounds like you're describing that there's two different types of buyers and that some people will successfully make the purchase from the type of selling pressure that happens in an evergreen funnel, but other people need that kind of bigger social proof element in order to feel comfortable to buy.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. And I wouldn't even call it pressure. So the way we think about it is, there's the turtles and the hares. I have a whole video about this. It's totally free. There's no opt in. I can send it. We can link it up later. It's a video that walks through how this all works. But basically the hares, they are fast decision makers, they're fast action takers. They already know that they want a solution to the thing that they're looking for. And they're literally, they're the people who are Googling looking for something to buy. They're like, “I am ready to purchase something, anything. Give me the solution to my problem.”
And so, those people are the hares and they're willing to take… it's not that they respond more to pressure because there's not really any high pressure in the funnel that we do. But it's more about, they just know that they're looking for their solution and they want to buy it immediately. They're very fast action takers. And then the other people are the turtles and they take a little bit longer to make a decision and they need to see the product multiple times for multiple months before they really decide. They kind of want to know that their friends have approved of it. They're just a little bit slower to make decisions. There's nothing right or wrong about each type of person, they're just different. And so the turtles are the people who buy during the next live launch.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. That makes sense. Thank you for breaking that down. I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves though, my fault totally. But let's back up and just talk about some of the reasons why people might be a little bit hesitant to get into evergreen funnels, because I know that personally, like I said, I started with live lunches and there were some things that held me back from launching my evergreen funnel. What are some of the most common reasons that you see that people are hesitant to go evergreen?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah, so many. The biggest thing is that people have seen evergreen funnels done really badly and it's kind of turned them off to the idea of evergreen funnels because they've seen so many people do it in a way that is just not good. And it makes you say, “Man, I definitely don't want to implement that. If that's what an evergreen funnel is, I don't want to do that because that really is not my brand and I don't want to do that.” They've seen it done in a not good way and that makes them want to write off evergreen funnels totally. But the thing is that there's actually a great way to do evergreen funnels that's superhuman and super kind and just really treats people as they want to be treated and is really an amazing experience for both you and your customer, the person who's going through the funnel.
Our framework for evergreen funnels is called the E3 framework. And that stands for the Enjoyable Evergreen Experience. And so, we want to kind of engineer this really enjoyable experience. Imagine if your potential customers literally told you that your funnel was delightful, that it was really fun and it was educational and it was entertaining and it was really high value. And like they were actually thanking you for sending them this information that's in your evergreen funnel. Whether it's through your evergreen webinar, your evergreen emails, all those things combined come together to create this Enjoyable Evergreen Experience.
But the problem is that people have seen these horrible funnels that are really bad. And so they kind of want to brush them off altogether. And then, I mean, there's so many other things. I think people have a lot of mindset limiting beliefs around evergreen funnels. A lot of people will say, “Oh, it sounds like a dream. It sounds too good to be true. I bet that that probably won't work for me or that only works for special people.” Or they'll say things like, “I got to work hard for every dollar that I make. I don't feel good if I'm not working really hard to earn the money that I make.” There's just a lot of mindset limiting beliefs, more so than any other topic I can think of.
Gillian Perkins:
I know that for me, I can think of probably like three big things that held me back from going evergreen. One of them was the fact that, like you were saying, I had seen people do evergreen funnels really bad. And if anyone doesn't know what we're talking about when we say that, what I'm talking about is when you get on a webinar and it has been scheduled for a particular time and the host is saying, “This is live. This is live. This is live.” And it's clearly not live. It's a recording, but they're clearly trying to trick you and make you think that it is a live launch. It's so sleazy. It's so scammy.
Mariah Coz:
It's so bad.
Gillian Perkins:
It's so bad. So that was the first thing.
Mariah Coz:
I hate that.
Gillian Perkins:
I knew I didn't want to do that. I knew that my brand wanted nothing to do with that.
Mariah Coz:
Totally.
Gillian Perkins:
It was completely not me. And then the next thing was just the overwhelm of the setup. I saw evergreen funnels as this huge process to set up. I started setting up a few of them and just got overwhelmed and bogged down and didn't finish them. But that's something that I definitely want to get into it a little bit here, because I know you have a simpler system that I think could be really helpful. And then the third thing that held me back was actually, I finally got one set up and it didn't work. And in retrospect, I realized that why it didn't work when I first set it up was because I had no traffic.
And so I'd set up this whole system and then I'm wondering like, why isn't anyone buying? And it was because nobody was going through my funnel, or such a small number of people were going through it that I wasn't converting anyone. But at the time it was just like, man, I did all this work and nothing's happening. And it meant that because I didn't have that traffic, I couldn't really test the funnel and tweak it and improve it. And so that was something that held me back because then I just ended up switching to live launching for a while. And then my audience grew. Now we use evergreen funnels really successfully. But, I think that sometimes people may have tried to set up an evergreen funnel and have had a similar experience there where it seems like it didn't work for them.
Mariah Coz:
Yes, that's so true. It's like they've tried it once and they may have used someone else's system that, again, is not the best setup and is too complicated or is just not designed well. And then they kind of write them off altogether because it didn't work that first time when most likely the way that I've seen every other person set up evergreen funnels is, I can't understand it for the life of me, but everyone creates these funnels with all these barriers. Like there's all these hoops you have to jump through. And no wonder people's funnels don't work when they set them up that way because it's kind of crazy.
Like you said, you have to choose this fake time in the future. Why would you do that? Why not just make it instant accessible on demand? Watch the video instantly any time of day. Or they make it so that you can't pause the video and come back, or they make it so that… I mean, just all these crazy things that I've seen people do in their funnels. I'm like, no wonder it's not working because you made it so complicated and you put so many barriers between the person and actually getting to your offer.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. So I guess my little piece of advice for people here is if you are interested in evergreen funnels, but you've tried and they haven't worked or you're worried they won't work, don't be afraid to just keep trying because… I'm so glad that I kept trying and that I came back to them because they are such an amazing asset for my business now. Iin my case there was one random thing that was essentially broken in my funnel, a piece I was missing. And once I fixed that one thing, then they started working and now we've been able to continue to improve them. So don't just write them off if they haven't worked for you quite yet. Okay. So now I really want to get into your simple system for evergreen funnels. Could you just kind of paint a picture for us, walk us through the basics, the big picture of how you set up your funnels.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. So specifically I'll focus on an evergreen webinar funnel right now. And we do have, we do teach a couple of different types of funnels just because depending on our clients, depending on their offer, there's a couple of other types of funnels that might work for them. But for the most part, like 90% of our clients are using our really simple evergreen webinar funnel. And this particular, this is like the same framework that our clients, some of our clients make $10,000 or $20,000 a month. We have a couple of clients doing like $80,000 a month with this funnel. It seems deceptively simple but it's actually really, really effective.
We basically have people opt in for, like I said, an on-demand, instant access, pre recorded webinar training. We're really clear upfront that this is prerecorded. This is on-demand. It's just a recording that you can watch at any time. And people really appreciate that. People appreciate being able to say, “Oh yeah, I can just watch this right now when I'm getting started.” So people can opt in, they literally get taken right to the page where they can watch the video instantly. The other thing that's different is that… and then we do have, once they opt in, they can watch the video instantly. There's no time they have to wait for or anything like that. But then we do start sending them reminder emails when they opt in.
The other thing that's interesting is that we don't do anything… If you've ever watched someone else's funnel, you've probably noticed that they take away all the controls on the video. You know what I mean? They don't let you fast forward. They don't let you rewind. Some of them don't even let you pause and it just, you get to the page and it autoplays and there's nothing you can do. I think this is insane. I mean, I think that people need to go pee and take a break. People need to be able to rewind, to me that's just crazy. So again, we try to do things in a way that is designed for real humans living their real lives.
Then they can watch the video on their own time. They have, like I said, five days where during those five days they're getting reminders where they can watch the video at any time during those five days. And then at the end of the five… and throughout that time, they are getting pitched about the offer as well. And of course if they watch through the entire video, they're pitched the offer on the webinar too. You can do something like have a special bonus for people who join during the five day period. Or you can just say, “Your chance to enroll will end after these five days. And if you don't enroll by then, that's fine, but you're going to have to wait for my next public launch to get your next chance.”
And the way, I think a lot of people, they're also turned off by evergreen funnels because they don't think that that urgency is real, right? They're like, “Oh, but if someone came back, they could just go back to that link and watch it again, right?” But the answer is no. We use this technology called deadline funnel that a lot of people use that creates authentic, real deadlines. You cannot trick deadline funnel.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. We use it too.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah, it legitimately redirects that page and makes it so that it expires for that person. So it's not just fake urgency, it is very real. And I think that's one of the things that people say, “Well, that's why I wouldn't set up a funnel.” Well, it's actually an authentic deadline. And so it's a very real thing that we're telling people, and we're not just going to let them go back to that page a day after it expires. That's not how it works.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. Let's just pause there for a moment. What is your favorite way of creating urgency? And I assume this is the same thing, like which way of creating urgency have you found works the very best in an evergreen funnel by having like a cart close where they cannot buy after that deadline is up or by using an expiring bonus or by using a price increase or something else.
Mariah Coz:
Price increase, always a price increase. Because like a dollar is a dollar, no matter who you are. When you use bonuses, bonuses are very subjective. Some people might value those bonuses and some people might be like, “No, that's not super enticing to me.” It's just super subjective. So to me, a dollar is like, money earned is going to have the same value across the board, whereas a bonus can just be really subjective. So the best thing you can do is a price increase. And then I would say the next thing would be just saying the cart is closing before. And if you want to join, the next time you can join is for a couple of months down the road.
Gillian Perkins:
Whenever I'm trying to make a marketing decision like that, I always try to look at my own experience and my own buying habits and see if I see a real world example for what actually worked. And so for example, the expiring bonus would be a lot like having a free gift with purchase that's going to go away versus having the price increase is like, there's a sale right now and the sale is going to end. I don't know about anyone who's listening, but personally I'm much more motivated by the fact that a sale is going to end than by the fact that I won't be able to get that free gift with purchase.
Mariah Coz:
Totally. That's how I feel too. I'm the same way. I like to say, well, what's motivating to me or what do I respond the most to, and try to just follow my gut with that stuff. And like I said, it is authentic, it's a real deadline. I think that people think, “Oh, you're pressuring.” Like you said, like it's pressuring people or you're convincing people. The way that it works is you're really just giving people the option. We're not forcing people. Our emails in our funnel are literally telling people like, “Hey, check in with your gut, check in with your intuition and see if this feels like a right fit for you. If yes, we'd love to have you. If no, that's totally fine too.”
Like enjoy the free training and here's some blog posts you can watch. Honestly there's not high pressure. We're just trying to give people the option and give them as much information as you can so they can make an informed decision. That's really our goal is to educate them and give them the information they need to decide what's right for them. It's not a high pressure environment. I think that's where people get confused or get it wrong. And of course it's like the thing that makes all of this tick and the reason that our clients have such successful funnels is like all the little nuances, it's like how you present your webinar, what you say in your webinar and how the replay page is structured and how the emails get sent out, what exactly the emails say and all that stuff is what makes it work.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. So going back to kind of the big picture overview, you've got this webinar that is play on demand. And then you're sending it to the people who signed up for it over the next five days. So I'm assuming you have a five day open cart, is that right?
Mariah Coz:
Yep.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. And during that five day period, could you give us an idea of roughly how many emails you send out?
Mariah Coz:
Oh, I send two a day.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. Every day?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. Most of our clients only send one per day. I feel like when you're starting out with marketing your course, you might not have the level of confidence to start emailing twice a day. So most people start with once a day, but then I've seen our clients really change their mindset and want to send… I mean, the emails are extremely valuable. They're extremely informative. Basically our entire theory about emails and our entire system is based on storytelling. So it's like you're telling these really great stories and you're giving all these great examples. People really love them. So once you see that storytelling is the key of writing these emails, I think you realize that they're not just boring pushy sales emails, and then people like them.
Gillian Perkins:
And just out of curiosity, since you do do some live launching, do you use the same frequency of emails when you're live launching or is it different?
Mariah Coz:
Yes. We're a twice a day to three emails a day type of person. For me personally.
Gillian Perkins:
And then just for context, how frequently do you typically email your list if you're not launching them?
Mariah Coz:
Oh, like once a week.
Gillian Perkins:
Once a week. Okay.
Mariah Coz:
Typically.
Gillian Perkins:
I just wanted a little bit of context so that listeners didn't think that maybe you were one of those proponents of emailing every day, all the time. And then during lunches, we are emailing two or three times a day.
Mariah Coz:
No, no. I mean, it depends. I know I'm not the most consistent person. So like I'll send an email when I have something good to say. It could be once a week, usually, maybe twice a week if we're feeling pretty crazy.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah. I have trouble with being consistent sometimes too. And so I hold myself really strictly to the once a week thing, because I know if I'm not strict about it, then it never happens. But then after that, then I will sometimes do a second or possibly even a third email, but only if there's something really good I want to share with people, like an awesome free opportunity or something like that.
Mariah Coz:
I love that.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. So let's move on and talk about some of the key things that you have really seen have improved your funnels or your clients' funnels. What are some things that you've maybe tested or some tweaks that you've made that have improved your conversion rates?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. There's so many things. I guess one of the other things that's really different about our funnel compared to other people's funnels is that, I don't know if you've ever opted in for someone else's evergreen funnel and you can't buy the product until the end of the webinar.
Gillian Perkins:
All the time.
Mariah Coz:
Yeah. And in most of them actually you can't even buy the thing that they're selling until the very end of the webinar. And so, it'll be this kind of software where maybe a button pops up at the end or, I don't know, or like there's literally not even a way to buy the course until the end. Maybe you don't even find out there's a different link that they give you in the webinar that you have to go to a different URL or something at the end. I mean, these things are insanity. Again. No wonder why no one's buying if you make them jump through all those hoops.
But the way that we do it is literally people can land on the replay page, the evergreen page where our webinar recording lives. They can land on that page and they can buy the course immediately. And so what ends up happening is we get a lot of sales from people who are like, wow, I've been following you for a while or I saw you on social media or a friend of mine recommended, whatever. They've already heard of you in some way. They don't have to watch a two-hour webinar in order to buy from you.
And so, we want to give… again, we're all about just giving people as many options as possible. So some people will come to that page and they'll buy the course after watching the first 20 minutes of the video, some of them will buy the course immediately without even watching the video. And some of them obviously want to watch the entire webinar, and it's there for them if they want that. But we're not going to tell someone, “Oh no, you're not allowed to buy until you've gone through the entire webinar,” because some people, just personality wise, they don't need to do that. So that's one thing that has really increased our sales, is again, it sounds really simple and obvious, but like make it easier for people to buy.
Gillian Perkins:
So on that webinar replay page, just give me like a picture of what I would see if I looked at that page. Is it just the replay video and then a button to buy? Or is it a replay video and then short form sales page underneath or long form sales pages underneath?
Mariah Coz:
Full sales page, which is also very unique. I do have a video that walks through screenshots of every page. So if you guys want, we can link to that video at the end of this as well.
Gillian Perkins:
Yeah, that'd be cool.
Mariah Coz:
That would kind of give you guys the visual to see, what do the emails look like and what does this magical replay page look like, and what does the opt-in page look like? There's so many different pages and different elements. And so, I have a video that walks through the step by step details and it has all the screenshots of everything. So that's helpful.
Gillian Perkins:
That sounds awesome. It sounds like you did the work I normally do for me because normally like you said if you ever subscribe to someone else's evergreen funnel, that's like my favorite hobby. I do that all the time. And then I take screenshots of everything in their funnel. So yeah, you just saved me a bunch of time.
Mariah Coz:
Totally. Yeah. I love to walk people through it because then they get to see that this is a different way of approaching things and I really want people to see that it can be simple. It can feel really kind and human. It doesn't feel icky or weird. And I think when people see it in action, they're like, “Wow, that feels really good and I actually really want to do that.”
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. Our time is coming to an end here even though I really would love to talk to you about this all day. Before we start to wrap this up, could you share with us one more big tip that you've seen has really improved your conversion rates?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah, I think, hmm. I mean, there's so many tiny things that we've done over time in terms of tweaking. I mean, sometimes it can be as simple as going in and tweaking all your subject lines, tweaking your calls to action. I would say, again, another thing that people would mess up would be that they wait too long to add a call to action. Let's say you have your email sequence that is coinciding with your funnel, right? Like your email sequence is going out over five days that people are allowed to watch that video. Some people, I think the biggest mistake they make is they don't start mentioning that they have a product for sale until the very end of the email sequence.
Whereas we talk about it right at the beginning. That's part of why our funnels convert so well is again, we're not trying to hide the offer till the end, whether it's in the webinar or it's in the emails or in any way, we're making the offers front and center from the first minute that you're there. You have the option of, you can read all the emails, you can go through the whole webinar, you can read the whole page, do whatever you want to do, but I'm not going to stop you from learning about the offer and actually purchasing the product. So we literally start talking about the offer in email number one. And I think that's obviously helped us, and we've been doing that for a long time, but it's very different than people who are waiting until email four or five to even mention the fact that they have something for sale.
Gillian Perkins:
I love your emphasis on making it easier for the customer to buy because it reminds me of an experience that I just had literally a few days ago where there was a digital product that I heard about that I was interested in buying. I went online to try to figure out how I could buy it, how much it costs, that sort of thing. And all I could find was the option to sign up for their webinar, which I did because I was interested, and it took me two hours plus.
It was a two hour long webinar that I could not pause, I could not fast forward, do nothing, and could not buy until I got to the end of it. I did not watch it because I did not have two hours to spare to watch this thing that I knew was just going to pitch me a product I was already interested in and tell me things that I didn't need to know. And so, I did a bunch of more Googling and finally found in the back corner of the web a link to their sales page where I could actually read about the product itself and decide if it was right for me.
Mariah Coz:
That's my whole thing. I mean, you just nailed it because my whole thing is like, why does everyone insist on doing it in this horrible way that just makes it so frustrating? All I can call it is just funnel frustration where you're like, “Please just give me the link to buy. I do not need to go through this whole process.” And so we've just really opened it up and made it, like I said, an enjoyable evergreen experience that actually delights your customers and makes them excited to buy from you and doesn't make them frustrated.
Gillian Perkins:
And I'm not going to name any names here, but it's someone who should have known better because they have a whole business all about funnels.
Mariah Coz:
I mean, honestly I'll just, every single time I'm just like, man, why are they making it so hard? It's like they hate money or something. It makes no sense. People are buying their product despite how hard it is to buy it.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay. So I think that that kind of answers one of the last questions I had for you, which was that I'm curious, this podcast is all about how can we work less and earn more? How can we use those strategies that will maximize our revenue? And so, I love that your funnel system is simple because whenever things are simpler, that means they're going to take less work, less effort, less time in order to execute and get off the ground. But I'm curious, do you use this system primarily because it's simple and it saves you and your customers headache or do you use it primarily because it actually converts better than a more complex funnel would?
Mariah Coz:
Yeah, I mean it definitely converts better, like 100%, because how can you even argue with either make it easy for someone to buy or make it really, really hard; and think about all the places there are for drop off in a traditional funnel. There's just so many places where people drop off and they don't even get to the next step because there's so many barriers. And so, our conversion rates are very much above average. And a lot of our clients, their conversion rates are high above average in industry average.
And so, we have seen that when we take away all the extra fluff and we just give people what they want, it is the best conversion rates and more profitable with… I mean, we've made tweaks to some of our clients' funnels and increased their revenue by 30%, but with no new traffic. You know what I mean? Same exact traffic and just make one tiny tweak and increase their conversion rates. So definitely it's more profitable, higher conversions and it doesn't hurt that it's also really simple to maintain and it only takes a couple of days to set it up.
Gillian Perkins:
That's amazing. Isn't that the best win? The easiest answer is also the best answer.
Mariah Coz:
I know, isn't that like, I think there's a scientific phrase for that.
Gillian Perkins:
I think so. I don't know what it is though, but it rings a bell for me as well. Okay. Thank you so much, Mariah, for everything that you have shared with us today. This has been amazing. If the listeners want to find out more about you and connect with you further, we will definitely be leaving links in the show notes. But where is the best place for people to connect with you online?
Mariah Coz:
Mariahcoz.com is my website and there's a lot of links to these different videos and things that we've talked about. Mariahcoz.com/evg is a great place to watch the video I mentioned with all the screenshots and the walkthrough of the funnel and all that good stuff. And honestly, I hang out personally mostly on Instagram. So if you want to follow me on @mariahpcoz, that's me on Instagram. You just search my name and send me a DM if you have any questions. I'm very, very active there and I'm always having conversations, in my direct messages.
Gillian Perkins:
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you again, Mariah, so much for taking your time to be here on the show today and for everything that you've taught us about evergreen webinars.
Mariah Coz:
Thank you so much for having me. This was truly a delight and I love nerding out about this stuff with you. So thank you so much.
Gillian Perkins:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Less, Earn More. Now, here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of the episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do that, make sure to tag me @gillianzperkins so that I can see that you're listening. Sharing on stories is going to help more people find this podcast so that they can learn how to work less, earn more, and take back their lives.
And when you share, I want to add it to my stories so that you can get some exposure that way as well. And if you really love the show, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave it a review to give the show a boost. Every single week I feature a review on the podcast and I would love to give you and your business a shout out. So, if you leave a review, it will help the show but it can also help your business as well. Okay. Let's wrap this up. I'm Gillian Perkins and until next week, stay focused and take action.
