Business owners are often left to the whims and caprices of external forces. For most entrepreneurs and marketers, doing business is a wild roller coaster ride.
Nothing is genuinely predictable, stable, or repeatable.
Marketing is in the hands of constantly changing Facebook and Google algorithms, market trends, industry updates, and more.
According to CBInsight, 14 percent of startups fail as a result of poor marketing.
But with evergreen campaigns, you can finally breathe some fresh air of predictability and stability in your business.
Where Can You Apply Evergreen Campaigns?
At any point in your marketing process,
- Improving content engagement
- Capturing leads and subscribers
- Converting email subscribers to buyers
- Driving repeat sales from customers
- Turning customers into advocates
- Gathering user experience data
- Boosting course or coaching engagement
- Initiating chats with leads or visitors on your site
- Requesting quotes, and more
You can remove bottlenecks with evergreen campaigns — especially using deadline campaigns.
Luckily, Jack Born of Deadline Funnel is in the house tonight.
Yes, there’s no better person to talk to about using evergreen campaigns.
In case you’re new to evergreen marketing, read on to close that knowledge gap quickly before we dive into the juicy stuff.
Evergreen Marketing
To some marketers, a marketing campaign is about giveaways, promotions, contests, and flash sales.
Those marketing efforts are effective while they last, but how does one sustaintain them?
Running launches multiple times in a year might be stressful and demanding, financially and physically.
That said, you want an ongoing marketing campaign that generates consistent results without draining your time and resources.
Evergreen marketing is any marketing that runs on its own with low maintenance. You could put an evergreen spin on any marketing activity:
- Email marketing
- Content marketing
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Remarketing, and more.
Evergreen campaigns always start with a trigger.
Visitors would take an action to initiate the trigger, thus entering your evergreen sales funnel.
I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of evergreen marketing. But to give you a glimpse into the workings of it, let’s explore evergreen email and content marketing.
Content Marketing
Like all evergreen promotions, evergreen content helps you avoid limiting your content asset’s relevance to a specific period.
For instance, if your title says what you wrote is relevant for 2019, it makes it irrelevant in 2021. But with evergreen content, you keep reaping benefits from a piece of content even when you’re unable to create new content.
In practice, when creating content, consider topics that will be relevant years after you’ve written on them.
For instance, nearly half of the adult population in the US will be obese by the year 2030, and a quarter of this population will have severe obesity. So having contents around the topic will keep you in demand for a long time.
Email Marketing
The idea of writing weekly newsletters may be interesting at first. However, the time you spend doing it can be channeled into making sales and growing your business.
You can create a series of weekly emails that your visitors and customers can trigger through different actions on your site.
This is where an evergreen deadline funnel comes in. Your lead would trigger the deadline offer if they clicked on your deadline funnel campaign.
Let’s explore how this works.
Using a Deadline Funnel
Deadline offers come with a timer to prompt your audience to act on your offers instantly.
They trigger scarcity and FOMO. A scarce item is more desirable to the buyer and no one wants to miss out on a juicy opportunity.
This is one of the features that make Jack Born’s Deadline Funnel stand out.
Since the timer, in this case, is real and they actually lose the offer once the timer stops, your ideal customer is forced to decide quickly.
Each visitor gets the same deadline that starts counting when they click the opt-in button or link. Someone’s timer can start counting today when they opt-in, while another person who opts in two months or two years after activates theirs then.
If you’re confident that your customers’ responses would be overwhelmingly positive, you can use shorter deadlines. Here’s a sample CTA button for a deadline offer.
This deadline offer tells visitors, “This Button Will Disappear Once You Leave this Page” to encourage instant action.
Key Takeaways from the Interview
- New businesses should focus more on leads and conversion because cash flow is the lifeblood of a business.
- The biggest value of evergreen client acquisition systems is to help your business grow as smoothly and predictably as possible.
- Acquisition-powered businesses have restrictive growth. But predictable revenue growth gives you a longer time horizon for planning, so you don’t jump from launch to launch.
- Depending on your goal, launching might be your ideal tool.
- People sometimes dive into automating marketing processes before testing if it works.
- To some, your offer might not appear exciting, but to the right person, it can be an opportunity of a lifetime.
- Before automating a marketing process, do a live version and get feedback. This shows you areas that you’ve overlooked. Now you can fix those issues and automate your best version.
- The best time to introduce a deadline is when your marketing is perfectly in line with what your audience wants and needs.
This eye-opening interview shows the importance of understanding your ideal leads and how to convert them to customers.
My Conversation with Jack Born
1. Please introduce yourself and tell us about Deadline Funnel. How, why, and when did it all start?
My name is Jack Born. My team and I are committed to helping entrepreneurs sell more and automate the process. We want our clients to be able to reach a bigger audience while scaling their business through our technology.
I believed there had to be a way to personalize the deadline to each person and make it real
It started over 6 years ago when I was looking for a way to add a real deadline to an automated email sequence. I believed there had to be a way to personalize the deadline to each person and make it real.
I couldn’t find anything that came close to what I wanted… so I created it.
That’s how Deadline Funnel was born.
2. Who are your favorite experts? Who do you allow into your inbox and why?
If you are asking who my favorite marketing experts are: Andre Chaperon, Perry Marshall, Seth Godin, Rich Schefren, Doberman Dan… to name a few. Each is a storyteller in their own way. And each is a bit of a contrarian.
But because I operate a software company I also have been impacted by thought leaders of Lean Startup such as Eric Ries. I’m also inspired by the principles put forth in Jeff Bezos’ letters to shareholders.
On a week-by-week basis I try to take in a broad diversity of topics from an equally broad source: books, articles, podcasts. And most of what I consume is recommended by peers. It’s fairly common I’m listening to a podcast by a host I’m not very familiar with interviewing a subject matter expert I’ve never heard of before.
I try to keep my radar on for connections between topics and ideas that at first glance don’t seem related, but actually are.
3. Will evergreen campaigns eliminate the need to hold launches or just reduce the number of launches that happen? If it’ll reduce the number of launches, by how much, typically?
Yes. Effective evergreen campaigns will reduce or eliminate the need to do launches.
However, launches are a tool. And sometimes they’re the perfect tool depending on your goal.
I don’t advocate for eliminating launches.
Instead, I believe the biggest value of evergreen client acquisition systems is to help your business grow as smoothly and predictably as possible.
With predictable revenue growth you’ll have a longer time horizon for your planning and not jump from launch to launch
If your business is completely or mostly powered by launches, that’s fine as long as you’re willing to accept:
- You’re going to be doing a lot of manual labor without the benefit of automation
- You’re capping your growth because launches restrict how much you can grow
I’m not aware of a single Fortune 500 company that only does launches.
Instead, they grow through predictable and reliable growth. Marketing and advertising every day of the year. Testing different ads and different landing page copy. Tweaking and improving the overall system again and again.
And with predictable revenue growth you’ll have a longer time horizon for your planning. You won’t be jumping from launch to launch, starting the next one before you’ve fully recovered from the last one.
You’ll be more confident to grow your team and to do so without rushing into hiring decisions.
You can be more strategic.
But in the same breath, I’d recommend using launches a few times a year to boost sales even higher.
And by the way, even if you’re not trying to grow your business, there’s another benefit to evergreen and that’s leveraging automation. So if you want more of a slower-growing business that fits your lifestyle goals then there’s another reason to make sure launches are not the only way you can find new clients.
4. How do you factor in and measure customer experience when running marketing campaigns? Won’t a deadline feel pushy if the customer isn’t quite ready to buy?
My answer to this one might make some people uncomfortable but it’s important.
If adding a deadline to your offer feels pushy then it’s a signal to evaluate two areas:
- Your marketing
- Your mindset
Let’s talk about mindset. Specifically, your mindset around your offer and the value you deliver.
If you don’t have 100% faith in your offer then of course you’re going to feel pushy by adding a deadline.
But if you do have 100% faith in your offer and the value you deliver then getting more people who are procrastinating to take action is doing them a favor.
I love to tell this story from my own life to really drive this home. And this is really important because if you’re thinking “Well of course I believe in what I offer… but I still feel pushy making people choose.” then what I’m about to tell you might shift your thinking.
A little over two years ago I was having dinner with my wife, a friend of mine named Michael, and his wife.
Six months earlier we’d made the move from Florida all the way across the globe to Australia.
When dinner was over, Michael pulled out his iPhone and showed me a video of an island adventure in Fiji he was leaving for in just about ten days. Words can hardly describe how amazing this trip looked: surfing, kite surfing, boating, fishing, yoga… a week in paradise on a remote private island.
Michael was buzzing with excitement.
He happened to mention that two people in his group had to drop out.
My wife asked him if I could take the spot.
A few minutes later after texting his contact he said “Yes. If you can find a flight, we leave in ten days.”
I couldn’t believe my luck.
Kitesurfing. Surfing. Boating. Fishing. 4 star chefs preparing the meals.
People literally wait for years to get onto this island.
I booked my flight that night. I paid my deposit a few minutes later. And a few days later I found someone locally to give me my first kitesurfing lesson.
It was the most incredible trip of my life (solo). And from that week onward I’ve been completely addicted to kitesurfing.
Growing up in Florida I’d seen people kitesurfing for years. I really wanted to do it but I kept procrastinating.
The trip to Fiji forced me to decide: I’d either be on the plane or not.
And that one decision forever changed my life for the better.
For some people, a trip to Fiji isn’t exciting. They don’t want to surf. They’re afraid of swimming. They hate the heat. They’re annoyed by sand.
But for the right person, this trip to Fiji is the opportunity of a lifetime.
And yes, it came with a deadline.
If you don’t have that same conviction about your product, then you need to adjust your mindset about the value you deliver.
But it’s also about marketing because at its core marketing is about filtering out prospects for whom your offer isn’t a good fit.
Your marketing should pull the right audience to see your right offer at the right time.
When your marketing is perfectly in line with what your audience wants and needs then giving them a deadline gets them over that inertia that keeps them procrastinating on the fence.
Your business changes lives. It delivers change in a positive way, right?
Change doesn’t happen from procrastination.
Deadlines get people the extra motivation to cross over from “prospect” to “client” and start to change their life through your product.
5. What metrics do your best users prioritize when running their Deadline Funnel campaigns and why?
We have a built in Analytics section in our Deadline Funnel admin that helps clients see the sales coming in from their Deadline Funnel campaigns.
And our system also automatically emails a consolidated report to clients.
It’s not meant to be a replacement for Google Analytics but it will help you see how well your campaigns are running.
Beyond our Analytics reports, I’d say our clients are tracking common indicators like
- ROAS
- Optin rate
- Earnings per lead
- Earnings per visitor
- Upsell percentage
- Cart value
6. Would you say that Deadline Funnel is an alternative to Clickfunnels? Why or why not?
Our platform is different than theirs because ClickFunnels attempts to be almost everything you need for acquiring a new client. Our platform is focused on being the absolute best in class for maximizing sales through urgency and deadlines.
I think a good analogy might be a multipurpose tool that has a knife versus a high-grade chef’s knife with an edge so sharp you could perform surgery. In this analogy, ClickFunnels is the multipurpose tool. And it’s great. But you can’t compare a little flip-out knife to a hand-crafted knife designed by a family of knife experts. They’re not the same.
Our platform is different than theirs because ClickFunnels attempts to be almost everything you need for acquiring a new client. Our platform is focused on being the absolute best in class for maximizing sales through urgency and deadlines.
If you want the best in class for urgency and deadlines then nothing competes with what we deliver. However if you want optin forms and sales pages too… that’s not what we even attempt to be.
7. What strategies do you trust and recommend for generating sales and increasing conversions with evergreen campaigns?
If you’re not using a deadline then you’re missing out on sales from people who were attracted to your message but didn’t quite take action. Both your prospect and you missed out.
So above all else, make sure you’re using a deadline.
The challenge with using a deadline in evergreen campaigns is making sure that your deadline is real and your technology supports it.
Your audience is reading your emails and interacting with your technology across multiple devices and multiple locations. You need to make sure your technology can accurately keep track of each audience member as they use different devices.
Next, I’d say to utilize “buying momentum” by adding an upsell to your order process. There’s a right way to do this that adds value for the client. Too often I see upsells that can leave the new client feeling negative about the first purchase they just made. But done correctly, your new client benefits as do you. Deadline Funnel can help here by adding urgency to the upsell page.
Too often I see upsells that can leave the new client feeling negative about the first purchase they just made. But done correctly, your new client benefits as do you.
And third, you almost can’t use too much proof. One place to start is with social proof. If you look on our Case Studies page you’ll see that I’m a huge believer in having a large quantity of social proof as well as a wide variety of social proof.
In January of 2021 we’re adding to Deadline Funnel a quick and easy way to add social proof to your website. It’s called Portal. If you want a way to bring attention to your special offer and present a deadline and show social proof of real time activity then Portal makes it simple.
My team has put a lot of time and thought into Portal and if you’re curious you should come to our site and see how it works. Once you see it I think you’ll have a rush of ideas about where you can use it in your marketing.
8. What’s the best thing anyone ever said to you about using Deadline Funnel?
It’s challenging to pick one single best remark, testimonial or case study. On our Client Success page, we have dozens of people who’ve had remarkable improvements.
But one that I mention quite often comes from Abbey Ashley who owns Virtual Savvy, an education company that teaches virtual assistants how to be amazing at what they do and also to find a great team to work for.
…Immediately after adding Deadline Funnel her business generated $60,000 per month in sales. No extra advertising.
Her coach told her to use Deadline Funnel. Prior to starting with us her business was doing $10,000 per month in sales. Then immediately after adding Deadline Funnel her business generated $60,000 per month in sales. No extra advertising. Just Deadline Funnel.
That’s not our most eye-popping testimonial but it’s one that I love because she’s not a well known marketing expert with a huge following. She’s very smart and very driven but she runs a business that has nothing to do with teaching marketing.
I think it’s important for me to say: your results will be different. Could be better. Could be less. I just want to be realistic… but I love her story.
9. According to a report, brand awareness is the top priority of digital marketing. Shouldn’t marketers focus more on generating leads and converting them to customers? If not, why? If yes, how?
The most powerful definition of a brand I’ve ever heard is: A brand is the emotional aftertaste of doing business with you.
That’s not the only way someone can perceive your brand. But for the startup entrepreneur I think this definition serves them well.
And it explains why.
So if you accept this definition then the answer to your question depends on what phase of business you’re in.
If you’re relatively new then focusing on leads and converting those leads to clients is most important. Cash flow is the life blood of a business. And most new businesses don’t have enough cash to push branding messages out into the market in the hopes of one day converting that awareness into sales.
If you’re relatively new then focusing on leads and converting those leads to clients is most important.
Focusing on leads and sales is a way for the entrepreneur to measure their results and make adjustments based on that feedback. This is direct response marketing 101.
But as you start to figure out your client acquisition strategy and tactics you would be wise to invest attention into the impact you’re having with clients.
- What’s the emotional aftertaste they have from that first sale?
- Are they hoping to buy more of what you’ve got? Or are they underwhelmed and confused?
- How you deliver (or over deliver) to your clients has a huge impact on your brand.
- Build a powerful brand with your clients and they’ll tell their friends.
- Build a powerful brand and you’ll make the second and third sale much more easily.
- Build a powerful brand and you’ll be more insulated from competition.
Most new businesses don’t have enough cash to push branding messages out into the market in the hopes of one day converting that awareness into sales.
Just understand that brand is a long term play. And when you’re just starting out you probably can’t wait for the longer feedback loop of starting with a brand awareness strategy.
10. Adweek says that 12% of marketers feel their strategies are under-performing. What common mistakes have you seen marketers make and what should they do instead?
Time is limited. You can’t focus on everything. So focus on the minority of leverage points in your business where you can expect to get an oversize result. You’ve probably heard of this referred to as “the 80/20 principle”.
Well a key 80/20 leverage point in your business is your offer.
Your product isn’t your offer. It’s just one component of your offer.
There’s Price. There’s payment options. There’s the guarantee. There’s the bonuses.
And of course… there’s the deadline.
An offer without a deadline isn’t a true offer.
So, put your attention where it can have the most impact. Start with improving your offer. And if you don’t have a deadline yet, then you don’t really have an offer. Test different offers but always use a deadline.
11. A recent study says that 80% of businesses using marketing automation saw an increase in leads when they used marketing automation software. What’s your recommendation on how to get the most benefit from marketing automation?
My answer above could be used here: use a deadline and then automate it (using Deadline Funnel).
But I’ll add this: automate what works.
It sounds obvious, but sometimes people dive in and try to automate a marketing process before verifying it works.
You might find that you have a point in your presentation where you lose half your audience. Fix those issues and then automate your best version.
And sometimes they get lucky.
But the safer way to get to an automated marketing process is to do the live version first.
For example, if you want an automated webinar you should perform your webinar live a few times and get feedback in the form of orders and live interaction.
You might find some objections you’re overlooking.
Or you might find that you have a point in your presentation where you lose half your audience.
Fix those issues and then automate your best version.
Jack Born is the founder of several successful software companies. He helps entrepreneurs market their products more successfully through marketing automation. Jack founded Deadline Funnel in 2015.