How 7-figure Course Creators Build Evergreen Courses

Imagine a scenario where a visitor enters your online teaching website and reads one of your blog articles. A few weeks later, when checking your email, you stumble upon a message saying one of your highly-priced courses was purchased. You sigh with satisfaction, while practically, you haven’t done anything special during those few weeks. Sounds magical, doesn’t it? 

The evergreen course sales funnel you built did just fine!  And this is what most successful course creators work on to make the “work smart, not hard” strategy come true. Let’s explore how exactly 7-figure course creators create evergreen course email funnels and find evergreen topics so that you can do that too. 

Why did they shift from launch courses to evergreen? 

If you have been following the launch model, you know it has specific open and close dates. You put too much time and effort into a course that is not going to sell steadily from some point on. 

• Many online creators mention it caused them a lot of stress and pressure. While they have worked for months, they still are not sure how the online course is going to work out. 
• They do not really have that security and stability of the results. 
• Setting a  specific date for the launch means all the students join the course at the same time. And you will agree it is hard to support all of them at one time. 

On the other hand, evergreen courses eliminate the pressure of coordinating a big launch and allow you to focus on improving and marketing your course continuously. By establishing a system for ongoing enrollment, you can create a reliable income stream that doesn't rely solely on the success of a single launch. Based on the existing business case results, you can earn a minimum of $4640 monthly with one evergreen course. 

These are just a few reasons why other online course creators start to shift to evergreen courses. This strategy has worked perfectly for Amy Porterfield, Ramit Sethi, & Neil Patel. So, there is a huge chance you can make a 7-digit income as well! 

How did creators make a working evergreen strategy? 

In this part of the article, we will dig deeper into how our creators developed an evergreen course strategy that sells. You will definitely find steps that resonate with your situation. So take a piece of paper & a pen, or whatever you need to take notes, and let’s start exploring. 

Amy Porterfield’s evergreen email funnel 

Amy Porterfield is an online marketing expert and an influential online course creator. Her courses guide creators through the process of designing, marketing, and launching their own courses, enabling them to reach their target audience and generate significant revenue. 

Amy also holds a podcast called “Online Marketing Made Easy,” where she shares valuable insights to help listeners excel in their businesses.  Offering her courses to more than 50.000 students, she has earned $82 million. 

You will get an offer to download a free guide as you enter her website. Obviously, you need to enter your email; this is where you become a part of her sales funnel. And that is just one step in her evergreen course strategy. The guide is not the only way she gets her clients to travel through an optimized sales funnel. In her podcasts, she encourages listeners to visit her website to take a quiz and get detailed results.

Amy believes one cannot directly go evergreen, and you need to do at least 2-3 live launches. This is her starting point. Afterward, she continued her journey by choosing a platform that also has email marketing functionalities. The platform helped her conduct evergreen webinars, send pre-webinar emails, and build marketing funnels. Her next step is building a sales page to convert her webinar attendees into buyers. 

Once the page was created, she moved to the essential step for selling evergreen courses - email campaigns. She then sends approximately 13 emails over an 8-day period. Her first email with the subject line “You are in!” confirms that the student registered for her webinar. Her other email tactics include urgency emails, FOMO emails (Fear of missing out), and reply emails. To make her offers truly irresistible, she offers expirable bonuses.

Amy’s email funnel closes after 8 days for each user. (However, you can run your campaign for 4-5 days as a beginner). What’s great is that her evergreen business strategy is not limited to evergreen courses. She also created a membership, especially for her academy graduates. 

Key takeaways from Amy

• Start with launch courses so that you can receive real-time feedback and become a better marketer. 
• Find your ways to get a steady flow of leads (like quizzes and guides as lead magnets for Amy)
• Pre-write, plan, and start sending automated emails 
• Think about what will happen after the campaign is over.
• The mistakes you make during a launch course will provide a solid ground for you to be a successful evergreen course creator. 

This is what helped Amy Porterfield gain a revenue of $82 million.

Ramit Sethi’s evergreen email funnel 

Ramit Sethi is an author, entrepreneur, personal finance expert, and course creator. He is known for his book, "I Will Teach You to Be Rich," which offers advice on personal finance and investing. Sethi's work focuses on helping people live rich by making smart financial decisions. 

His email list includes more than 800.000 subscribers. So, it’s worth looking at how he operates the emails and makes user navigation through a pre-designed funnel seamless. 

When it comes to writing emails, the essential thing is to provide reasons for the subscribers why they should accept your offer “now.” In his emails, Ramit emphasizes why the opportunity is limited, which encourages people to take action. 

He understands how important it is to build relationships with customers and those on his email list before offering any of his courses and programs. When you are already on his email list, you get 7 emails for 8 days, including a confirmation email. However, non of these emails force his programs & products. Instead, he builds trust by sharing tips and arousing curiosity toward what he does. 

Afterward, the time for sales emails comes to close the deals. Now that the subscribers have seen enough social proof, examples, & stories, introducing the actual course or program becomes easier. What’s more interesting is that he segments the users, so they go through different funnels depending on how they appeared in the email list. 

At this point, Ramit starts sending 2 emails a day. Even if people do not take any action, the cycle doesn’t end. Ramit then builds his emails around a different pain point, and the cycle starts again. 

Key takeaways from Ramit

• Remember to create a sense of urgency for people to take an action
• Do not push your evergreen course with the first email, first build trust and provide value
• Have another plan for the users who didn’t accept the offer with the first email campaign. 
• Consider how people “respond” to the emails and adapt your tactics

Sunny Lennurdizzi’s evergreen strategy

Sunny Lennurduzzi is a social media strategist, entrepreneur, and YouTube creator who offers courses and coaching on building a successful online presence. She is known for her expertise in video marketing and has helped many individuals and businesses grow their online brands. 

Her online courses and programs include “YouTube for Bosses,” “Authority Accelerator,” and “The Boss Collective.” 

Sunny Lennurdzzi’s strategy to get leads and gain organic traffic differs. She mainly uses YouTube as a channel to convert leads into clients. YouTube is also how she gets free traffic and a steady flow of leads. We can agree it requires lots of time to create a separate piece of video content, but it is also a great means to provide value to your students & build trust over time. Her website and YouTube channel work hand in hand in this regard. 

She is able to convert her leads much faster, as at the time the searchers find her videos to solve the problem, they are already warm leads.  You can find videos for cold, warm, and hot leads on her channel; the latest group is what she focuses on. 

So, what exactly does she do to make sure this strategy works? Sunny Lennurduzzi goes through her existing courses and picks a subtopic or methodology she can further elaborate on in a YouTube video.  Afterward, she uses these videos to supplement her course, thus getting leads through another channel.  

Pro Tip: You can analyze the popular video section in a relevant YouTube channel to understand what topics your students are more interested in. They will make a great evergreen course idea. 

Key takeaways from Sunny

• Look for ways of getting steady leads from not only your website but other platforms as well. 
• Find how you can provide additional value before pushing your evergreen course.
• Think big. Do not just focus on the “now,” as evergreen courses require seeing the big picture. 

How to build YOUR evergreen funnel 

Watching other creators running their evergreen funnels is inspiring and exciting. But creating your own funnel is challenging, and it is a whole different business. Let’s quickly review what YOU should do to bring the spark of success into your evergreen course strategy. 

Determine the course topic 

The first step to getting started is doing research and choosing a topic for your evergreen course. This topic should stay relevant for your audience for an extended period rather than being outdated after some time. You can adapt a topic from one of your existing courses or come up with a new one.  

After analyzing your audience, you will get an idea about what topics they are most interested in. However, this cannot be the sole indicator and doesn't mean the topic will work for an evergreen strategy. You should also conduct research on the competition, check the search volume, and ensure it’s a long-term trend. 

You can track the results of existing videos, podcasts, and blogs about the topic and determine whether it will work well for you. 

Create compelling lead magnets  

“Well, I did create a lead magnet, but still, it doesn’t get me the number of leads I need,” you may think.  There are certain things you should take into consideration to make it truly work for you and your audience. 

• Your lead magnet type. You may be using a quiz, a free tutorial, an eBook, a downloadable template, a case study, a webinar, an exclusive offer, etc.  But what provides crazy results for your colleague may not work for you, depending on the niche. For example, a step-by-step visual tutorial may work better than a mini guide if you offer online cooking courses. When you get clear with the type, specify the topic as well. 
• The placement. Where you offer the lead magnet is not far less important. For this, you should do a thorough research. Is it on the homepage of your website or on a landing page? Is it on top of the page or at the button? Every little detail matters. 
• Distribution & promotion. In some cases, placing the lead magnet on the website is not enough. Perhaps you should promote it in your podcast or speak about it on your YouTube channel or during a webinar. Promote it whenever you feel like it relates to your topic. 

Work on a suitable design & targeting; the leads will soon be in your pocket. 

Spice up your landing pages with strong CTAs 

They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” However, this strategy does not quite work when it comes to sales & landing pages. You may have the perfect website structure, email, and design, but wisely crafted Call-to-actions play a crucial part in driving results. 

In fact, personalized CTA buttons have 6.5% higher conversions than images. Moreover, using targeted CTAs increases your chances of converting leads by 42%. This doesn’t mean you should sprinkle those buttons in every block. Ensure there is enough space between those blocks. A strong CTA should: 

• Have a personal touch 
• Create a sense of urgency
• Include a verb
• Be written in first-person
• Be persuasive for the reader 

All these points will give your call-to-actions a magic power. 

Create materials to provide additional value 

Yes! If you plan to play big, you should have something more than an evergreen course in your armor. That “something” will help you build trust & relationships with your future students, increase your credibility, and make you an authority in the industry.  

Think about what else you can offer as an additional value. Perhaps, you could create tutorial videos, run a podcast, create a library of downloadable resources,  discussion forums, webinars, etc. And the important point is it should be for FREE. 

• This is how your future students are going to find you. 
• This is how you convert visitors to leads and leads to customers. 
• This is how you differentiate yourself from other creators. 

So, invest in something genuinely helpful for your students. After some time, you will find yourself being a magnet, pulling your target audience toward you. 

Pre-write the emails for several cycles  

You have spent weeks or months racking your brains to create converting emails. Then you start an email campaign, and after a few days, it is over for a person in your email list. 

So, what is your strategy afterward? What emails have you prepared for people who accepted your offer and those who didn’t? You are not going to sit idly and stop sending emails to those who did not take any action. Running the same campaign for the second time is not the best option either. In this case, you can continue emailing them tips and sharing helpful content to keep in touch.

So, you need to have a pre-designed strategy for every user segment and get all your emails for them ready before announcing your big offer. Do not forget to check your email statistics. Analyzing and improving based on current results should be your primary goal. 

Keep the students “busy” after the course 

Building an audience and a huge email list is one thing. Another thing is keeping them engaged. After the students successfully finish your evergreen course, you still need to keep interacting with them. You can make your graduates become a part of something special by offering them discounts, memberships, and exclusive deals.

These are all the primary steps you need to do before throughout the whole evergreen course creation journey until your next big announcement is ready. 

Be ready to go evergreen 

When your evergreen course is finally ready and the emails are written, you will also need a platform to manage the whole process efficiently. With a platform like Uteach, you can have a website, send automated emails, and promote your evergreen courses all from a single place. 

The best part is that you do not have to be tech-savvy to build converting sales & landing pages. All that becomes a reality with a drag & drop page builder and pre-designed templates. Uteach offers other tools to run successful email campaigns, gain organic website traffic and engage your students with diverse content.

Explore Uteach features, and do not miss the chance to test your evergreen course & marketing strategy. 

Start for FREE