Want to generate leads and customers for your online courses and digital products while you sleep, travel, or spend time away from work? Then consider using an evergreen webinar or automated webinar marketing strategy.
Never heard of them before? No problem.
In this article, we’ll tell you what evergreen webinars are, why you should use them, and how you can automate your online course business using the best webinar automation software.
Let’s dive in.
What Is An Evergreen Webinar?
An automated or evergreen webinar is a pre-recorded video that looks and feels like a live webinar but runs continuously in fixed time slots. They appear like regular live webinars to your audience and contain user engagement features like polls, quizzes, live comments, and emoticons.
Your audience signs up for automated webinars like any live webinar and chooses its preferred time slot to attend your session. Once the automated webinar begins, it plays in real time so your viewers cannot skip sections or watch the parts they’ve missed.
This cycle keeps repeating itself, which means the same automated webinar keeps playing for new subscribers in their chosen time slots.
Marketers use evergreen webinars to automate their lead generation, user engagement, and sales processes. It allows them to free up time and get nearly all the benefits of a live webinar without presenting it themselves.
Here’s an example of how Anik Singal, a well-known marketer, uses automated webinars.
The main video at the top of the page invites the viewers to sign up for Anik’s free live masterclass by clicking “Save Free Seat”. But the masterclass isn’t live because it uses three automated webinar sessions that seem like live videos but play at the subscriber’s chosen time.
The viewers get a live-webinar-like experience with automated webinars without needing the webinar presenter to be live simultaneously.
So, it’s a win-win situation.
How Evergreen Webinar Funnels Work?
Evergreen webinar funnels are a series of landing pages, recorded webinars, and email campaigns that work on autopilot to convert traffic into leads and customers for your online business.
Webinar funnels typically start from a landing page that pitches your webinar and converts visitors into webinar attendees through a registration form.
Once an attendee signs up for your evergreen webinar event, they start getting automated emails on pre-defined conditions.
For example, they get a webinar registration email with your event’s link and other necessary attendance instructions. Then, they get another email with the event’s link once it goes live.
Then the attendees get follow-up emails with links to the core offer pitched in your webinar. For example, if you pitch a premium online course in your webinar, the attendees get an email immediately after the event with a link to your sales page where they can purchase your course.
If the attendee signs up for your premium course, they get a thank you email. If they don’t, you might trigger a follow-up sequence that tries to convert them.
There can also be other email sequences, as we’ve described in our guide to creating email sequences for online courses.
But all of this happens automatically.
You only need to drive traffic to your landing page from where your evergreen webinar funnel kicks off.
In many cases, even the traffic generation part is automated using Facebook Ads, SEO, affiliates, and other traffic sources.
So, in short, using an evergreen webinar funnel allows you to create a fully operational money-making online course business passively.
Benefits Of Using Automated or Evergreen Webinars
Webinars are among the most effective content types, with numerous benefits for your online business. According to the latest B2B content marketing benchmarks report, 47% of marketers say webinars drive the most impressive results.
Let’s discuss some of the most prominent ways automated webinars improve your marketing performance.
Evergreen Webinars Free Up Your Time
Hosting a webinar is time-consuming. First, you must spend hours preparing and finalizing your presentation and script. Then, you need to ensure you have the necessary tools and tech resources to run your webinar.
And finally, you need to present the webinar live, engage with your audience, and respond to their questions. Plus, you need to do a ton of work after the event to ensure your hard work doesn’t go in vain.
Evergreen webinars save all that time and give you back hundreds of hours in the long run. You only need to record your webinar once and then automate the rest of the process to use the same content repeatedly at any stage of your marketing funnel.
Optimized Production Cost
Evergreen webinars drastically reduce your content production costs because you only need to record your webinar once. After that, you can place its recording on a landing page to drive countless leads, engagement, and conversions for your business.
Highly Scalable
Live webinars are excellent for user engagement. But you can’t scale them easily because hosting five, ten, or twenty webinars a day is impossible.
Automation solves this problem and makes your webinars highly scalable. You can run the same content hundreds of times automatically without getting involved yourself.
The whole webinar funnel is automated, which means you can build a fully passive income source that generates money while you’re away from work.
Polished Content And High-Quality Videos
You can forget your script, go off-track or make other mistakes during a live webinar. Plus, your live webinar’s picture quality adjusts according to the viewer’s internet speed. This means every viewer has a different experience in a live webinar.
But since evergreen webinars are recorded, you can easily remove unnecessary parts and use the highest possible video quality to ensure your viewers get polished content. This removes distractions from your content and improves your audience’s learning experience.
Higher Attendance
More people watch automated webinars than live sessions. Why? Because a live webinar happens only once. So, people from other time zones usually don’t make it. And even those in the same time zones miss out because of other commitments.
But with evergreen and automated webinars, the viewer can choose the time slots that work the best for them. As a result, they’re likely to show up when your session starts.
Live Webinars vs. Evergreen Webinars
Before discussing evergreen webinars in more detail, let’s quickly compare live and automated webinars so that you know exactly how they differ.
Live webinars are among the most effective ways to engage your audience and persuade them to buy your offer. They allow you to communicate directly with your viewers and immediately respond to their questions.
For example, if you’re hosting a Q & A session or interviewing an influencer and inviting questions from your audience, hosting a live webinar makes more sense.
Live webinars are also ideal for selling high-ticket educational programs, customized software solutions, and consultancy services.
But they require more time and resources, and you must prepare well for every live webinar to deliver flawless content.
In comparison, automated or evergreen webinars are ideal for lead generation and selling low-mid ticket digital products and online courses on autopilot.
They address the most common questions of your audience and allow you to provide them with an engaging webinar experience without dedicating your time. You can use them at the top and the middle of the funnel for sharing presentations, product demos, and answering frequently asked questions.
You can fully automate your evergreen webinar funnels, allowing you to generate leads and sales for online courses while you spend time on higher-value activities.
Apart from sales, automated webinars are also an excellent way to engage your internal teams, onboard employees, and share product updates.
In short, both live and evergreen webinars are essential in the online course sales process and work well when used at the right time.
Examples Of Using Evergreen Webinars In Your Marketing Funnel
There are numerous ways to use evergreen and automated webinars to engage your audience and drive business results.
Let’s discuss the most common use cases of evergreen webinars.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #1: Lead Generation At Scale
Evergreen webinars are among the best ways to attract email subscribers and generate leads for your online business at scale.
According to research, 73% of marketers consider webinars the most effective content type for converting traffic into leads.
Why do webinars have such high conversion rates? Because people still perceive webinars as high-value content. They believe webinar hosts are subject matter experts whose advice is more credible and authentic than a generic blog post.
This is why pitching a free webinar is guaranteed to convert cold traffic into subscribers and leads.
Bushra Azhar’s webinar landing page is an excellent example.
Remember, your audience doesn’t know the difference between live and recorded webinars. An average internet user only cares about the knowledge you’re sharing.
But once you automate this process and take yourself out of it, it frees up your time and allows you to scale lead generation by promoting your automated webinars to thousands of people in different time zones.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #2: Low-Mid Ticket Product Sales
High-ticket sales often involve customized solutions and frequent Q&As with the prospects. But entry-level and mid-tier digital products can be quickly sold through automated webinars.
By building an evergreen webinar funnel, you can generate leads and persuade them to buy your product without engaging with you live.
This makes automated webinars ideal for selling eBooks, online video courses, memberships, and other forms of digital products.
Amy Porterfield’s automated webinar funnel is an excellent example.
She attracts relevant leads and converts them into customers using this automated webinar funnel by pitching her entry-level product in her session.
The webinar runs like a live event, so if you join late, you can only watch it from the start once the replay is available. This improves event attendance and user engagement.
Once the session ends, the viewer gets an automated offer email with a special discount on the premium offer pitched in the session.
All of this happens automatically, so Amy doesn’t have to dedicate her time to it.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #3: Upselling And Cross-Selling
Once a webinar viewer signs up for your entry-level premium offer, you can use evergreen webinars for pitching upsells and cross-sells.
For example, if you sell a PDF workbook or template as your entry-level offer, your upsell offer could be a 30-minute video training or a one-on-one call.
Again, using a webinar funnel, you can automate this process and send customers directly to the upsell offer page once they purchase your entry-level offer. The upsell or cross-sell landing page can have a webinar explaining how it works and benefits the customer.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #4: Affiliate Marketing
Evergreen webinars are an excellent tool to promote and sell affiliate offers.
Why? Because they allow you to explain a product’s benefits, features, and pros & cons in detail. Unlike cheap affiliates who hard-sell affiliate products for a quick commission, you can outline the pros and cons of a product and show your audience the different ways they can use it to achieve business results.
And since you’re using evergreen webinars, you only have to do this once. Then, you can simply place the webinar on a landing page or website where your prospects can watch it and purchase the product you’re promoting.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #5: SaaS Product Demos
Enterprise software customers like to get detailed product demos before making a purchase decision. But only some customers are hesitant to schedule live demo calls on their first interaction with a software solution company.
So, automated webinars are the perfect solution to this dilemma.
Instead of committing to a live demo session, customers can sign up for a free product demo webinar that explains its core benefits and features and demonstrates its use cases.
If customers think it matches their needs, they can schedule a live sales call to discuss their specific challenges and customization requirements.
Evergreen Webinar Use Case #6: Customer Onboarding
If you want people to renew their subscription to your product, you must help them get the most value from it.
Again, evergreen webinars can be an excellent tool to achieve this.
Once a customer signs up, you can route them to a series of automated webinars explaining your product features and how to make their best use. In addition, you can share customer success stories and common use cases to help them see what is possible.
The more value they get from your product, the longer they stay subscribed to it.
How To Create An Evergreen Webinar
So, what’s the process of creating an evergreen webinar? Let’s discuss all the steps one by one.
Step 1: Finalize Your Goal
What do you want to achieve with your evergreen webinar?
Why should anyone sign up for it?
What problem does it solve?
What value does it offer?
What do you want your audience to do after watching your webinar?
Where does it fit in your overall webinar funnel?
You must answer these questions to create an effective evergreen webinar. Your webinar can have any of the following goals.
- Build your email list
- Grow your brand authority
- Generate leads for a premium course
- Sell a low/mid-tier product
Being clear about your goal is critical because it determines your webinar content, topic, tone, and where it fits in the overall scheme of things.
Step 2: Choose Your Topic
The next step is to choose a webinar topic.
If you’re doing a lead generation or brand-building webinar, never focus on your product. Instead, target a core problem of your audience that your product solves.
For example, if you’re generating leads for an email marketing tool with automated webinars, create a webinar on building an email strategy or writing winning subject lines.
As a rule of thumb, your webinar should be valuable even if you sell it as a standalone product. This can only happen if you pack it with value instead of selling your offer.
Step 3: Structure Your Webinar
Structuring your automated webinar is critical. You need to clearly understand how long your introductions will go, how much time you’ll spend discussing the core topic, and when you will pitch your offer.
Generally, you should cover your main topic (benefit-driven content) for 80% of the session and dedicate 20% of your webinar to pitching your offer.
Step 4: Write Your Webinar Script
A script allows you to stay on track during your webinar and focus on the most critical points in your presentation. Ideally, you should have a detailed script that covers most of the content you want to present.
But even if you don’t go for a word-by-word script, highlight the key sections of your webinar and list the main points you want to cover in them. Also, add timestamps to your script so that you know precisely when to cover a topic in your webinar.
For example, here’s how you can outline the main points of your webinar with timestamps.
Introduction – 0:00 – 2:00
- Background
- What you’ll learn
- How will it benefit you
Section 1 – 2:00-10:00
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
Section 2: – 10:00 – 25:00
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
Section 3 – 25:00 – 30:00
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
Sales Pitch + Offer – 30:00 – 40:00
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
- CTA
Conclusion – 40:00 – 41:00
As you can see, this script would only help you write down the main points to cover in every section. It’s enough to keep your webinar on track and help you finish on time.
Step 5: Record Your Webinar
Now that you’ve done all the preparation, it’s time to record your webinar content. First, ensure you have the right production tools, like an HD camera, a professional mic, proper lighting, and a branded background to make your video look professional.
You’d also need the right video recording software to create an engaging webinar. We’ll talk about different automated webinar tools later in the article. But you can also use Zoom, Loom, Camtasia, Screencast o Matic, or Screenflow to record camera-only, camera + screen, or screen-only videos.
Step 6: Edit Your Webinar Video
Evergreen webinars are pre-recorded, so you can edit them to remove unnecessary sections, add annotations, links, graphics, or anything else that makes them more valuable for your viewers.
The video recording tools I mentioned in the previous point also offer advanced editing features. So, you can create the final polished version of your evergreen webinar using any of them.
The Best Evergreen Webinar Tools
Once you’ve recorded your webinar video, you need to set up your automated webinar funnel to drive sign-ups, serve your content, and convert your viewers into customers.
To do that, you’ll need to use a webinar automation tool that manages the following:
- Webinar delivery
- Landing pages
- Funnels
- Email marketing
In this article, we’ll briefly discuss the best webinar automation tools. For more details, read our dedicated comparison of the best webinar tools based on features, pricing plans, and use cases.
EverWebinar
EverWebinar is among the best webinar automation tools created specifically for evergreen webinars. It comes packed with automation features like funnels, landing pages, email marketing, SMS marketing, and audience engagement features.
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is among the best marketing automation tools in the world that allows you to set up fully automated online businesses using the power of marketing funnels.
It’s not a dedicated webinar tool but offers webinar funnels and landing pages, using which you can automate your webinar delivery and get all the benefits of evergreen webinars.
EasyWebinar
EasyWebinar is another excellent webinar platform with dedicated evergreen webinar features. You can use it to offer evergreen and on-demand webinars and create a fully automated funnel that includes registration and thank you pages.
It doesn’t have email marketing features but integrates with all the leading email automation solutions to help you drive customer engagement.
BigMarker
BigMarker is a world-class virtual events platform with automated webinar management features. It stands out for its high-quality audience engagement features and video quality.
LiveWebinar
LiveWebinar offers live and automated webinar management features that allow you to set up evergreen webinar funnels and generate leads on autopilot.
It also offers landing page templates, registration forms, and various audience engagement features to make your webinars more effective.
Take Your Business To The Next Level With Evergreen Webinars
Evergreen or automated webinars help you scale your online education business and make money online even when you’re away from work. And thankfully, the best webinar automation tools have made it pretty straightforward for anyone to build an evergreen webinar funnel. So, if you have an offer or a valuable product at the end of your funnel, evergreen webinars can help you sell it on autopilot. Let me know if you have any questions.
ABOUT YOUR HOST
Learning Revolution founder Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business.
Table of Contents
