8 steps to create evergreen webinars that generate leads and sales on autopilot

Have you bought into the vision of sipping cocktails on the beach while your online business runs on its own?

If the beach isn’t your thing, an automated business model could allow you to spend more time with your family or travel the world.

As fun as daydreaming is, it’s good to focus on what it takes to get there. As more entrepreneurs strive for passive income, evergreen webinars have become an attractive piece of the online business puzzle.

What could evergreen webinars do for your business? You may not be enjoying your pina colada on the shoreline quite yet, but evergreen content can set your business up for long-term success as soon as today.

What is an evergreen webinar?

An evergreen webinar is content you record once and let people access whenever they’re ready. Instead of subscribers signing up for an event at a single, particular time, your audience can access an evergreen webinar whenever they’re ready.

The difference between evergreen and live webinars

Creators use live and evergreen webinars to grow their email list, connect with their audiences, and promote products.

While the mechanics of each—a video with informative content—are mostly the same, there are key differences between live and evergreen webinars.

The main difference is that you pre-record evergreen content so subscribers can sign up and watch anytime. In contrast, live webinars happen at a specific time and date.

The topic and content can vary between evergreen and live webinars, too.

Evergreen content stays relevant over time, meaning it doesn’t address trends or fads that could make it irrelevant in a few months or years.

It also often focuses on the principles or foundational practices of your niche, while live webinars can address current trends or information that will become outdated.

Choose an evergreen webinar if:

• You want to promote evergreen products, like a cookbook or a self-paced online course
• The details and lessons of your content don’t change frequently
• You want to promote your products and fill your funnel on autopilot

Go for a live webinar if:

• You want to address a trending topic or a time-sensitive lesson
• You need to promote a time-based product, like a quarterly coaching cohort
• You want to interact with your audience on the webinar through a live Q&A, chat stream, or polling

Evergreen webinar benefits for content creators

Creators use evergreen webinars because they leverage tools, like email automation, to connect with more people in less time.

Instead of promoting a one-time event and selling to anyone who can attend at that time, creators pre-record evergreen webinars that subscribers can access while creators work on other projects (or lounge on the beach!).

• They make you money while you sleep: Evergreen webinars take the same amount of upfront work with outlining, creating, and promoting as a live webinar, but you can automate your presentation after the initial time investment. Then, subscribers can watch the webinar and buy your products while you’re away from the computer.
• They continually nurture new leads: Much like an automated email sequence, evergreen webinars are available for new audience members to take advantage of at any time. It doesn’t matter if they just learned about you through a Pinterest post yesterday or an Instagram Live two months ago. Everyone has a chance to learn foundational content from you.
• They diversify your income streams: Since evergreen webinars run in the background of your business, you free up time to create new content or add income streams without constantly maintaining the income-driving webinar.
• They let subscribers watch on their schedule: Your audience can watch an evergreen webinar anywhere, anytime, instead of waiting for a live webinar.
• They are better for SEO: When considering the kind of content you want to create within your evergreen webinar, it’s wise to consider SEO (search engine optimization). Giving your evergreen webinar a permanent page on your website and including keywords helps new subscribers find you through searches.

Examples of creators who use evergreen webinars successfully

Before you create your own evergreen webinar, it’s nice to get inspired by fellow creators. Here are a few examples of online business owners and content creators who use webinars to grow their email lists and make sales.

Carrie Olsen promotes a paid course with a free information recording

Carrie Olsen is a voice actor and coach who has used webinars repeatedly to grow her business—her first four webinars led to an $18,000 launch! Now, she uses an evergreen webinar on the sales page for her paid content.

Katherine Davidson grows an email list with a free evergreen webinar

Katherine Davidson, a dog trainer and blogger, uses free evergreen webinars to grow their email list. The free content offers timeless advice relevant to the audience who can access it anytime.

How to create your evergreen webinar funnel

Creating an evergreen webinar funnel takes upfront planning and work. Still, the effort pays off when your audience can enjoy it over and over.

Here are the eight steps we’ll explore:

1. Choose a business goal
2. Pick a format and topic
3. Choose a webinar platform
4. Sign up for webinar marketing tools
5. Design your slide deck
6. Record the webinar
7. Automate your evergreen marketing funnel
8. Promote your evergreen webinar

1. Be clear about your goal

Planning your route to a destination is much easier when you know where you’re going. That’s why the first step of planning an evergreen webinar, even before choosing a topic, is deciding on a business goal. When you know what you want the content to accomplish, your future decisions are easier.

• Grow your audience: If you want to gain more email subscribers, use an introductory webinar that covers a basic topic your audience cares about. Then, set up a landing page for people to enter their email addresses to access the recording.
• Sell a product or service: An evergreen webinar with a product pitch at the end can help you make more sales. You can also use email marketing to follow up with webinar watchers to share a related product after the event.
• Support your customers: Engaging with your current audience increases engagement and connection, and you can even ask them to send you a message after they watch the webinar to tell you about their thoughts, goals, and challenges.

2. Pick an evergreen webinar format and topic

Evergreen webinars are a category of content, but there are actually different types. Here’s what you need to know about each so you can pick a topic that fits your goal and audience.

Educational

Educational evergreen webinars freely give away your knowledge to validate your expertise, which means they’re perfect for growing your audience. Use an educational webinar to teach your audience about a topic related to your niche. For example, a cookbook author could host a webinar about basic knife skills, or a photographer could present a slide deck about essential camera settings.

Case studies

Case studies give webinar attendees a behind-the-scenes look into how a real person used a specific strategy to achieve results. While they’re informative, they’re also persuasive—go ahead and share your case study and strategies before pitching a related paid product or service. For instance, a coach could talk about a framework they used with a client and the inspiring results to promote their one-on-one packages.

Tutorials

Tutorials teach your step-by-step process or preferred set of tools, which means they’re perfect for engaging with existing audience members who already know a bit about your topic. For example, a consultant could host an evergreen webinar with intermediate strategies that bridge their entry-level content with high-price programs.

3. Choose the evergreen webinar platform that’s right for you

Webinar platforms make it easy to present, record, and distribute your evergreen webinar. Since you need to share the webinar with people who sign up automatically, you should look for apps that integrate with your marketing tools.

Some webinar platforms that creators use include:

• eWebinar: You can upload your webinar video to the eWebinar platform and enable one-to-one chat with attendees.
• Demio: This webinar platform also has built-in analytics to measure how engaged your attendees are.
• EasyWebinar: Create live and evergreen webinars with features like one-click registration with EasyWebinar.

4. Line up all other tools for your evergreen webinar funnel

Your webinar platform is just one part of your funnel, another term for the steps someone takes to go from stranger to subscriber to customer. You also need a way to collect email addresses, send content, and make sales. The other tools your evergreen marketing funnel needs are:

• Landing page builder: A landing page builder lets you create a signup page that encourages your audience to enter their email address to access the webinar.
• Email marketing tool: Affordable email marketing tools give you a way to instantly send your webinar recording and automatically follow up with subscribers after the event.
• Ecommerce platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, or Kit Commerce make it easy to promote and sell your paid products to webinar attendees without lifting a finger.

While you likely have basic internet access and a camera of some sort, creators can upgrade their equipment to make webinars feel professional. Here’s what you might need:

• External microphone: You can use your phone or laptop’s built-in microphone to start, but external microphones deliver better sound quality.
• Headphones: Using headphones while you record helps you monitor the sound level and prevent audio echoes or distortion.
• External camera: Feel free to start with your phone or laptop’s built-in camera and then upgrade to an external camera in the future.
• Fast internet connection: Uploading a pre-recorded video or capturing your content through a webinar platform is easier with a fast internet connection.

5. Design your evergreen webinar slide deck

Your evergreen webinar needs a balance of style and substance. A flashy presentation doesn’t make up for a lack of valuable content, but you should also spend a little time on webinar design to make the presentation engaging.

Keep these tips in mind as you design your content and presentation:

• Limit your content to around three main points to deliver enough value to make it worth the attendees’ time without overwhelming them
• Give an overview of your webinar content at the beginning of the presentation
• Break up points across slides to make each idea stand out
• Use a slide deck template for beautiful design without much effort

6. Hit the recording button

You can either upload a pre-recorded video to your webinar platform or use the app’s built-in recorder. No matter where you hit the record button (or how many times you re-do the intro), remember to have fun. There will be a learning curve, but all you need to do is show up authentically.

Do’s of evergreen webinars

• Increase conversions with timed call-to-actions: You can create time scarcity on evergreen webinars with countdown timers in your follow-up emails. For example, you can mention a limited-time discount code at the end of your webinar and then send a sales reminder after subscribers access the recordings.
• Keep replays available for a limited time: Since the goal of an evergreen webinar is to hit participants at a time that works best for them, it’s good to include a free replay (48 hours is the standard time).
• Have a customer service plan in place: When you create evergreen webinars, you’ll see your email list grow, which means you’ll need to handle more questions and comments. Decide if you will outsource customer service or do it yourself until a certain point.

Don’ts of evergreen webinars

• Keep it free of time-specific information: If you include current events or specific dates, the webinar won’t be evergreen anymore. Keep this in mind as you present your webinar the first time.
• Be transparent and don’t simulate a live webinar: This has become a huge turn-off for participants who come to the webinar thinking it’s live when it’s clearly not. Most people don’t care if it’s live or evergreen as long as they take away great info, but they want to know upfront what style it is. Transparency is key!
• Avoid repurposing a recording from a live webinar: Planning a webinar takes work, but don’t shortcut your content by repurposing a live webinar that includes time-sensitive information or mentions a live chat (that obviously isn’t there anymore).

7. Automate your evergreen webinar funnel

Creating a pre-recorded webinar is only one part of your evergreen funnel. Here’s how to set up the other automated steps your subscribers will take.

Create an evergreen webinar landing page

A webinar landing page is a page where people sign up to view your webinar. Your webinar landing page can live on your website or be a standalone hosted with a landing page builder if you don’t have a website yet.

The basic parts of your webinar landing page are:

• A headline or webinar title
• A short description of the webinar and what attendees will learn
• A place to enter an email address to sign up

Write and set up an evergreen webinar email sequence

You want to stay connected to new subscribers, so you need an automated email sequence to send them content and follow-ups.

As soon as someone signs up for your webinar through your landing page, they should receive an email with a link to watch. Then, you can follow up a few days later to ask if they have questions or remind them about your paid content.

Here’s a simple outline of an  email sequence after a webinar:

• Confirmation email: Your email marketing tool might send a message immediately asking subscribers to confirm their email address.
• Replay email: As soon as someone signs up for your evergreen webinar, your automation should send a link and instructions on how to watch the content.
• Feedback email: Wait a day or two after someone signs up for your webinar to reach out and ask if they have questions or feedback.

How to automate your email sequence in Kit

Creating a visual email automation with Kit for your evergreen webinar is simple:

1. Sign in to your Kit account and select ‘Visual Automations’ under ‘Automate’
2. Select ‘+ New automation’
3. Add your evergreen webinar landing page as the entry point for your automation
4. Use the ‘+’ button to add your webinar email series to send as soon as someone signs up
5. Add a one-day delay from the ‘Action’ category after the initial webinar emails
6. Finish the automation with a follow-up email after the delay

Copy our evergreen webinar marketing automation template

8. Drive traffic to your evergreen webinar registration page

Now that your evergreen webinar funnel is live, you need to direct attention to it with marketing strategies like:

• SEO: Your landing page SEO strategy should include keywords that subscribers might search for related to your topic.
• Website: Use an email popup that appears as website visitors explore your website to promote your evergreen content.
• Social media: Set up automated posts or plan to share about your evergreen webinar every now and then instead of only when you set it up.
• Newsletter: Add a link to your email footer to leverage your newsletter design for promotion.
• Partnerships: Collaborate with other creators to cross-promote relevant content to each others’ audiences.

What existing content can you turn into an evergreen webinar?

Maybe you’re creating an evergreen online course that would complement an automated webinar perfectly. Maybe you could repurpose educational information in your best-performing blog post and present it in a new way through an evergreen webinar.

Whatever your strategy might be, decide on one today. Go back through your content, find an evergreen topic, and start brainstorming on creating an evergreen webinar with it.

Want to test your evergreen webinar idea before you build a system around it? Build a Kit landing page to test your idea. With a landing page, you can share your evergreen webinar with your audience to get a quick idea of whether or not it’s helping them solve a problem or teaching them what they’re interested in.