THE EMAIL GROWTH SHOW EPISODE 178

Have you ever felt exhausted by the launch cycle? Maybe you’ve spent months planning, building anticipation, and hyping up your course – only to feel completely burnt out once the doors close. And then what? You’re left waiting months until the next big launch, hoping the sales roll in again.

If this sounds familiar, then this episode of The Email Growth Show is for you! I sat down with Caitlin Bacher, founder of Scale with Success, to talk about how she made $1 million in 9 months using evergreen course sales – without the constant pressure of live launching.

Caitlin is a course sales expert who helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses without the stress of launching, and in this episode, she’s sharing exactly how you can sell your course on autopilot while still making serious revenue.

Click play to listen to this episode in full:

What is an Evergreen Course Funnel?

An evergreen funnel allows you to sell your course year-round, without needing to open and close your cart. Instead of forcing all your potential customers into a one-week launch window, an evergreen funnel lets them join when they’re actually ready to buy.

Caitlin shares how switching to evergreen completely changed her business, giving her consistent revenue and allowing her to scale without the high-stress spikes of live launches.

Why Evergreen Course Sales Work (Even If You Love Launching!)

One of the biggest myths Caitlin debunks in this episode is that you need to have a successful launch before switching to evergreen.

False!

The truth is that evergreen selling is an entirely different strategy from launching – and you should learn to sell the way you actually want to sell. If your goal is to build a business that doesn’t rely on exhausting launch cycles, you need to master evergreen from the start.

She also shares the biggest mistakes course creators make when trying to go evergreen, including why repurposing a live webinar as an evergreen webinar almost never works (and what to do instead!).

Caitlin’s Journey to a Million-Dollar Evergreen Course Sales

Before Caitlin mastered evergreen selling, she was deep in the launch cycle. But everything changed when she met a course creator who was making hundreds of thousands of dollars per month – without launching at all.

After seeing the numbers, she knew there had to be another way, so she committed to figuring out how to sell consistently through evergreen funnels. Within nine months, her business hit its first $1 million in revenue!

And the best part? She did it without constantly being in launch mode.et goals and reflecting on the past year with compassion, can offer profound insights and relief.

The Key Differences Between Launching & Evergreen Course Sales

Many course creators think that selling evergreen is as simple as repurposing a live webinar into an automated one – but Caitlin reveals why that approach fails almost every time.

• Live launching: Creates urgency, but requires high energy and constant promotion.
• Evergreen sales: Require a clear, automated system that converts visitors into buyers without you being involved.

The mistake most course creators make? Thinking their live launch strategy will work for evergreen sales. Evergreen funnels require clearer messaging, more refined positioning, and a different approach to objections since buyers can enter at any time.

How to Start Selling Evergreen – Even If You’re New

If you’re thinking, Okay, this sounds amazing – but where do I even start?

Caitlin breaks it down in simple steps:

1. Pick ONE course to sell. Don’t try to create a whole suite of offers – focus on one course that solves a clear problem.
2. Set up an evergreen course sales funnel. Instead of a live launch, create an automated system that nurtures leads and converts them into buyers.
3. Test with organic traffic FIRST. Before running ads, make sure your funnel is working with warm traffic from your email list or collaborations.
4. Optimize based on real data. Instead of tweaking your offer based on a “flop” launch, gather real feedback and refine your messaging to make it stronger.

Final Thoughts: Is Evergreen Right for You?

If you’re tired of launch stress, want more consistent revenue, and crave a more scalable business model, then evergreen sales could be your answer.

As Caitlin shares, there’s no single “right” way to sell your course – but if you’re feeling burnt out by live launches, it might be time to explore a better way.

Connect with Caitlin:
 
Caitlin’s Free Training: How to Generate Launch-Size Revenue Without Launching – caitlinbacher.com/new-masterclass

Connect on Instagram: @caitlinbacher

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Full Transcript:

Caitlin Batcher [00:00:00]:
You can take the feedback, the data that you’re looking at to refine and tweak your marketing message to make sure that it’s aligning with what people are actually out there and looking for. So it’s like you have more opportunities to practice and get better.

Kylie Kelly [00:00:20]:
Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don’t involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to The Email Growth Show. I’m your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years, and the same is possible for you too. Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let’s head into today’s episode. Hello. Welcome back to The Email Growth Show. Today, I’ve got a very, very special interview that I’m so excited to share with you. We have Caitlin on the podcast.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:02]:
Caitlin, welcome.

Caitlin Batcher [00:01:03]:
Thank you. I am so excited to be here.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:06]:
Oh, we’re so excited to have you. So for anyone that doesn’t know you, let’s start there. Can you share with us a little bit about yourself, who you are, and what you do?

Caitlin Batcher [00:01:13]:
Yeah. Sure. So my name is Caitlin Batcher, and I help course creators sell their course consistently without launching. So for anyone out there listening who is like, you know what? I am kinda getting real sick and tired of doing these launches all the time, then I definitely have something to talk to you about.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:36]:
Oh my goodness. I’m so excited. I’m so excited to dive into this topic because I feel like there’s very people in two camps. One, they love launching and they they love the hive and they go for it. The other, which I think I’m probably in the middle, but, like, they don’t wanna launch all the time. They find it exhausting. They find it a lot. So I think that, it’s really cool to know that there is another option if we don’t like it, which is so good. So how did you get into this? Like, did you do the live launching and then it wasn’t for you? Is that how you kind of started to do it Evergreen?

Caitlin Batcher [00:02:08]:
Yeah. So I I was very much stuck in the launch cycle. Right? And the reality is I didn’t even really know what Evergreen was. I didn’t have anyone in my circle who was selling their course in that way. You know, I was, like most people out there looking to sell my course, and a lot of, a lot of what I heard were from experts telling me, well, the, you know, the only way to do it is through launching. And so I was like, alright. Well, I don’t like doing this, but I don’t really have any other options. Right? And it wasn’t until I, I met a course creator.

Caitlin Batcher [00:02:47]:
He was someone who sold a course that was all about how to declutter your home. I think he was selling it for, like, $297 at the time, and he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars every single month without launching. And I had never heard of that I had never heard of that happening before. Like, it I remember it was such a major paradigm shift for me. And luckily, he was a super nice guy, and he kind of like, he showed me his numbers. Right? He kinda showed me the back end, and he was like, yeah. So people can watch it anytime. You know, they they, they join the webinar at all different times.

Caitlin Batcher [00:03:27]:
The whole thing is automated. It kinda runs on its own. And I was just like, what? And it was so funny because I remember bringing it up to different friends that I had in the space, and I was like, do you think I could do that? Like, do you think I could stop watching? They’re like, no. Don’t stop watching. You know, they’re very like, this is the way you need to do it. And one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that there really is no one right way to do something. Right? And so it’s like, yeah, there are people out there who love launching, and it works for them. And that’s totally great, but not everyone has that same point of view.

Caitlin Batcher [00:04:00]:
Right? And so when I met this guy, I was like, this, you know, this is the ticket to me growing my business. This is what I want my business to look like. I didn’t know how I was gonna get there, but I I knew what the destination was gonna be.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:18]:
Gosh. I love that. I love that so much. And you’re right. There’s there’s so many different ways. I think it’s all about finding the way that feels good for you, right, and that you wanna try out and follow. So that’s really, yeah, that’s really cool.

Caitlin Batcher [00:04:29]:
And, also, like, at different times, like, depending on kind of what season we are in our life and business, you know, we’ve had people come to us who are, you know, very successful launching live, but they’re pregnant. They’re getting ready to start a family, and they’re like, you know what? For the next few years, I actually don’t want I might go back to launching later, but I’d want something kind of automated set up. And so, I I think sometimes we kind of make ourselves feel like whatever choices we make in our business that we’re locked into making those choices forever and ever. And the reality is we can always kind of experiment with different things.

Kylie Kelly [00:05:07]:
Yes. I love that. I change my mind all the time, so I love hearing other people agreeing that that’s okay. So okay. So tell me, so you had a course. What what was the course your very first course that you had? What was that on?

Caitlin Batcher [00:05:19]:
Okay. So I’m so glad you asked this because one of the questions that I get a lot is, like, how do I know if I’ve chosen the right topic? What topic should my course be? I was at the time, I was a social media manager. So I was the person who was responsible for creating social media content for my clients. I would schedule it. I would post it. I would do all of that. Right? And so my first course was gonna be on social media management because that’s what that’s what I knew. Right? And, and that was so that was my very first course, social media management.

Caitlin Batcher [00:05:52]:
And as as I was as I after I created that course, which, by the way, was, like, completely no frills. It was that I didn’t have a fancy sales page. The the sales page that I used for that course was just one of the pages on my blog. It had no graphics. It was just text. And I embedded a PayPal link in there. And when someone would pay it, I would manually follow-up with that person, day day or night because I was very excited. I didn’t even know, like, these kinds of email automations and things existed.

Caitlin Batcher [00:06:28]:
Like, I was I just wanted to start. And and I think that so many times, we set things up for ourselves in a way that it, like, it actually prevents us from taking action. Right? And and the reality you know, we tell ourselves, like, oh, well, we have to do x, y, and z. We have to have all the this set up and that. And the reality is you just need to start. And everyone loved the the course was no frills, but I was in there. I was in the community all the time. I was answering questions, and I was able to get a feel of how people were interacting with the content.

Caitlin Batcher [00:07:04]:
And I noticed that the most popular module in that course was Instagram. And so I thought to myself, if most people are interested in Instagram, why don’t I create a separate course that is just about Instagram? So I did that. I created a course that was only about Instagram, and I sold that. And while I was selling that course, I got really good at growing my free Facebook group. And so I was selling my Instagram course on Instagram, but I was also selling it inside of my free Facebook group. And a lot of people started asking, like, how do you grow your group quickly? How’s like, how do you do how do you make money from it? So then I thought, okay. Well, I’m gonna create a course on that. So I, you know, cut it back to that changing your mind, and it’s okay to pivot.

Caitlin Batcher [00:07:46]:
So I created a a course all about free Facebook groups. I was very much in the launch cycle. I was launching it. I was tired. I was exhausted. I met that guy who was like, there’s actually another whole world of people out there who are making money online, and they’re doing it with an evergreen model. And that was the course that I decided. I was like, you know what? Like, I’m just gonna try it.

Caitlin Batcher [00:08:09]:
This is a big experiment. The worst that can happen is that then I, I guess, go back to launching, but I was pretty committed to making to making that evergreen funnel work. And so I switched to evergreen. And within nine months, I had made my first million dollars within nine like, it was bananas. And so naturally, a lot of people started asking me, well, how are you selling it on Evergreen? How are you doing this, that? And so then I created the scale with success program, and that’s the one that we’ve been selling for, I think seven or eight years. One of those.

Kylie Kelly [00:08:48]:
Wow. So oh my gosh. I have so many questions. I have such an incredible story. I just wanna, before I dive into the questions, I just wanna pull out something that I think is really important that no one misses is that when you were creating those courses, you were making those decisions drive by what your audience was interested in, what they were actually like, oh, and you notice that. And I think that’s a key piece. Like, instead of I don’t know. I’ve done this in the past as business owners be like, oh, I wanna create this. What does anybody else want it? I think that’s a really great point that you made there.

Caitlin Batcher [00:09:17]:
And I and I think that there is kind of, like, a magical place where there’s overlap between your interest and the audience Because my audience definitely had a lot of they had a lot of different interests, and I wasn’t but they were topics that perhaps I wasn’t interested in covering or I thought I thought were really important topics, but I just didn’t wanna be the one to teach that. And so I think it it is so important, just like you said, to really listen to your audience. And it’s also it’s also okay to be discerning when it comes to choosing which feedback you’re gonna choose to take action on from your audience. Right?

Kylie Kelly [00:09:58]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Did you create the courses in full before you sold them, or did you presell them and then create?

Caitlin Batcher [00:10:04]:
No. I never did that. So I have kind of a weird maybe it’s controversial, stance on this whole idea of, like, validating a topic or validating a course. What I mean by that is a lot of people teach preselling. Right? Teach valid how to validate your course. And, basically, what that means is they’ll say, okay. Just, like, put up a sales page. You know, see if anyone if anyone buys it.

Caitlin Batcher [00:10:33]:
If a lot of people don’t buy it, then you you can just say, you know what? We’re here’s your refund. We’re actually not gonna do this, and try it with a different topic until you hit the topic that really works. I think that is bad advice for me because I think that I believe in getting better over time. And I think you know when you have a good topic, but you just haven’t figured out the right way to market it. When I first sold my, my Facebook group my free Facebook group course, it was a big flop when I first sold it. I, like, I had this big it was the first, the first time I, like, outsourced graphic designers, how we do all this stuff for, like, the marketing materials. Like, I put so much into it, and it broke even. And the scary thing about breaking even is then I have no profit to carry me through the next six months before I said I was gonna, like, launch it again or whatever.

Caitlin Batcher [00:11:31]:
Right? And so, and the funny thing is that flop, that course all about how to, you know, grow a free Facebook group, that flop the following year was what ended up making me over a million dollars. Right? And and if I hadn’t what if I had taken that flop to make it mean? Well, I guess people don’t want Facebook group courses. I guess I better go back to selling Instagram, or I guess I better do something totally different. And I think there’s something to be said for really do doing the work of making something better and not expecting it to be, like, perfect from the get go. You don’t have to throw everything out right away. You can begin to tweak. And so one of the things that I did at that time was I got on the phone with people. So after the after that, launch was over, I got on the phone with people, and I was like, not to sell them, but to market research.

Caitlin Batcher [00:12:31]:
And I was like, hey. You know, can you can you tell me, you know, why did you think this you know, what made you pass on this? Right? And maybe they would most of the time, they would say, well, this sounds like a great course, but I don’t think it’s gonna work for me because x, y, or z. And all of those x, y, or z things were actually things that my course addressed, but I didn’t I I didn’t call them out enough. I didn’t communicate it in a way that made people understand that my course addressed that. And so then as I continue to sell it over time, I got better and better at it because I began to inject those specific things into the, into the, the sales and sales and marketing. And, you know, that would that’s not possible if you’re just throwing something away the second it doesn’t, you know, work immediately.

Kylie Kelly [00:13:26]:
I love that. I love that you pull that out because I think a lot of times that’s where we go, and it’s this black and white thinking of something’s either a win or a fail. Right? And I don’t think that it’s that simple when we’re when we’re doing things in business. And, I must admit, I think as long as we start with the market research piece and it’s something that we know people will want, I think if it’s a random idea and we have not, you know, just some random thing, maybe. But if we start with the market research, I think we know that there’s something there.

Caitlin Batcher [00:13:56]:
Yeah. And I’ve honestly never heard of a course topic that I was like, oh, nobody will ever buy that. I’ve heard a lot a lot of course topics that are perhaps, like, kind of vague, and so we can get a little little more specific on it. But there’s so many different topics out there. Like, there’s so many different people. And as long as you are creating something, you know, based on your own experience and and skill set, and it’s something that you’re really passionate about, you know, it it might take some time to get it off the ground, but it’s definitely worth pursuing.

Kylie Kelly [00:14:28]:
So what year was that that you made the million dollars that the Facebook course went crazy?

Caitlin Batcher [00:14:33]:
Twenty seventeen.

Kylie Kelly [00:14:35]:
I wanna point that out too because I feel like now post pandemic, a lot of people had success in 2020, so it almost feels like it doesn’t count. I know it counts. That’s a bit harsh, but there was a different vibe. Right? So I love that it was pre 2020 as well. Yeah. It’s important to point out. So if someone’s listening, they have something that they’ve created, they’ve had a course, they’ve launched it. Do you think you need to have a successful launch before you take something evergreen? Because I’ve heard that before as well.

Caitlin Batcher [00:15:01]:
So I that’s something that I disagree with, and here’s why. The sales process of launching an evergreen are completely different. And so I’m a firm believer in practicing the thing it is that you actually want to get good at. So for example, if I wanna get really good at making chocolate cake, I’m not gonna make an app I’m not gonna practice making an apple pie. I’m not gonna say, well, I have to get really good at making apple pie first, and then I’m gonna move over to the chocolate cake. I just start doing the thing that I wanna get good at. And, you know, launching this the the buyer’s journey inside of a live launch is completely different from Evergreen. And I would love to just kinda unpack even a little bit of the differences between launching an evergreen because sometimes sometimes those those terms are a little confusing for people.

Caitlin Batcher [00:15:56]:
Is that okay?

Kylie Kelly [00:15:57]:
Yes, please. I’d love that.

Caitlin Batcher [00:16:01]:
Okay. So, typically, you know, there’s two main ways to sell a course. Right? There’s a launch model, and there’s the evergreen model. Now launching typically requires, you know, anywhere from two to three months of intense email list building, and content distribution that leads up to what’s called, an open cart. Right? And that open cart is the period of time when you are allowing people to enroll in your course. And that open cart period can last anywhere from five days to seven days, sometimes a little shorter, sometimes a little longer. But then nobody can buy until your next launch, which is maybe six months later or a year later. And what most course creators find is that when their launch ends, so does all of the momentum that they’ve been working so hard to generate. And it’s radio silence until they have to be in the launch cycle all over again, which is a very high risk way of selling your course, especially for course creators who are making, you know, less than a million dollars a year.

Caitlin Batcher [00:17:06]:
They either have a tiny team or they have no team at all. They have a nonexistent ads budget. And it’s my belief that if your course is generating less than a million dollars a year, the number one thing that you really need to be focused on is how to generate consistent revenue. How can you start to get some real traction in your business? And an evergreen model allows you to do that because you’re able to enroll new students into your programs on an ongoing basis, not just once or twice a year, which is great because it puts you in that position where you can increase your skill set over time. You can grow over time. You can take the feedback, the data that, you know, you’re you’re looking at to refine and tweak your marketing message to make sure that it’s aligning with what people are actually out there and looking for. So it’s like you have more opportunities to practice and get better.

Kylie Kelly [00:18:04]:
Oh, I love that. I think there’s so much power in having, as a business owner, that reoccurring monthly revenue as well. Like, I’ve talked about this in the podcast before, but I have a membership, the amount growth club. And even from starting that and having that reoccurring income every month and not starting from zero in terms of revenue, oh, it’s just like a place of safety for my nervous system. It’s so much easier to then be creative and actually be inspired and create work that we’re really proud of rather than having to, like, hustle to get off zero. So I love that you say that. What does it look like when you’re going evergreen? Because we’ve seen the ways of doing a webinar and then it’s on evergreen and it’s almost the fake, like, oh, what’s the it feels live, but it’s not live. Like, what does it look like when you do something Evergreen?

Caitlin Batcher [00:18:47]:
So I don’t believe that anyone should ever pretend to go live. I just think that’s outdated. Like, if you have a live webinar, great. If your webinar is automated, that’s okay. Like, it doesn’t I I don’t think you need I I don’t think you need to, to pretend. What I will say, though, is that when it comes to kind of the difference between a live webinar and an evergreen webinar is that the content framework that you’re using to create those webinars look very different. And that’s because it’s different selling in a live environment where people can actively ask questions in the moment in the moment versus having people in something automated where you’re not there live, so you can’t answer those kinds of questions. Right? Like, in a live launch, everyone’s consuming the exact same content at the exact same time.

Caitlin Batcher [00:19:46]:
Like, ready or not, here we come. Here we’re all kinda, like, you know, moving through the steps. But evergreen is a lot more nuanced. It’s a lot more, personalized. And so one example is, you know, if you’re if you’re doing a live webinar, it’s almost like it’s oak it’s almost like you can say things in that webinar to intentionally elicit questions from someone. You might say something that is deliberately provoking curiosity, maybe a little bit of confusion because you want that to trigger a question in them. You want them to then say, wait a minute. That doesn’t make sense.

Caitlin Batcher [00:20:27]:
Like, what about this? And then you’re like, oh, I’m so glad you asked that. You know? Like, so you’re kind of going off of that. You can’t do that in an automated webinar. So everything in an automated webinar has to be crystal clear. Your offer has to be crystal clear. If you are confusing people, if it’s too curiosity driven, you’re gonna you’re gonna lose people. Right? And and that’s just one of the, you know, gazillion difference gazillion differences, between the two. But I think it’s really important for people to know that because I remember when I first started using Evergreen Funnels, I thought the way to do it was to just repurpose my live webinar.

Caitlin Batcher [00:21:08]:
Right? I thought, oh, okay. I’ve done live webinars first, so now I’m just gonna repurpose, put it into an automated funnel, run it on its own, and that failed miserably. I did make a I did make a couple sales from it, but it was nowhere near scaling at the rate that I wanted it to. And it wasn’t until I, you know, took those the what worked well in a live launch, took those frameworks, threw them out the window, and really started creating something that was specifically designed to convert evergreen that I was really able to grow and see traction. And so I think it’s important to say that because I know a lot of people, you know, say like, well, but Caitlin, I’ve tried evergreen before and it didn’t work for me. And I’m like, what did you do? And they’re like, well, I did a bunch of live webinars, and then I took a live webinar and I pre repurposed it. And I’m like, okay. Well, that’s your mistake.

Caitlin Batcher [00:21:58]:
Right? And, and the reality is that, you know, it’s it’s easy to tell ourselves, oh, well, maybe my audience just won’t buy Evergreen. Maybe my audience is, you know, unique and special and will only buy in, you know, a big fancy launch. But it’s just not true. Like, there’s people will buy in in, in whatever format you give them as long as the strategy is sound. Mhmm.

Kylie Kelly [00:22:29]:
I love that. I love that you pull that out because I feel like we are all time poor, and we are always looking for shortcuts, and I’ve heard that as well. Like, just chop it up. Just use a live webinar and and use that. And of course, like, of course it doesn’t have the same results. It makes so much sense, but we don’t think about it. We just do it and then we’re like, oh, it’s not working. So I love that you shared that.

Kylie Kellyn [00:22:46]:
Would you mind sharing a little bit about the funnel you have at the moment? So I know on your homepage, I checked out your website and there’s a free masterclass. Class. So is

Caitlin Batcher [00:22:52]:
that an evergreen webinar that you have? Yeah. So our so our programs are evergreen, but here’s what I will say, and here’s what I always tell people. Our business is generating millions a year. Right? So we have a big team. We have a big ads budget. We have a big tech budget. We can tolerate more risk. We can have not just one clear funnel.

Caitlin Batcher [00:23:15]:
We can use multiple different funnels, some automated, some live for the same program, but those are not the things that I did in order to get to my first million. And sometimes people see they kind of look on the surface of things that I’m doing now, and they’re trying to apply that to their business. And I’m like, you’re literally gonna break your business. Like, you can’t you cannot tolerate this level of risk right now, but you can later on. And so for me and my business, like, we have all kinds of different things happening in it, but there is no way that I would have gotten to that first million dollar a year, never mind anything past that, if I was not first focused on one automated funnel selling one course. I had no smaller offers to sell. I had no higher ticket offers. It was one product.

Caitlin Batcher [00:24:14]:
I was selling one Facebook group course, and that was it. I wasn’t selling anything app anything else. And, you know, now we do have different products, and we have different funnels and different things. But I for any for anyone that’s listening that is thinking that they have to kind of do what I’m doing now and try to implement in in their business, like, it is it is a losing battle. I know because I tried that. Right? I remember seeing people who had multimillion dollar businesses, and they had, like, a big they had a this offer and a this offer, and here’s the value ladder and like, all these things. And I was trying to replicate that, and I’m like, why isn’t this working? Well, number one, I was doing it all myself. I didn’t have any anyone else, like, kinda helping me out.

Caitlin Batcher [00:25:05]:
And number two, there’s just a different level of of of risk tolerance that that comes like, I saw an example of that is I saw this post the other day. It was like, you know, to make your hundred to make your first hundred thousand dollars, you need to be willing to lose $10,000. In order to make your first million dollars, you need to be willing to lose your first hundred thousand dollars. In order to make your first ten million, you need to be willing to lose a million. And I think there’s so much truth in that, and I think that it’s okay if you’re not able to if you’re not able to tolerate a risk the risk of losing a hundred thousand dollars in, you know, in your business right now.

Kylie Kelly [00:25:57]:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense. So so looking back at that first funnel that you had, the Facebook, you had one course. What was the price point of that course out of intro?

Caitlin Batcher [00:26:06]:
It was $997. Yep.

Kylie Kelly [00:26:10]:
And then you had so the you had an evergreen webinar that you did for that, and then you ran paid ads to get traffic there. Is that right?

Caitlin Batcher [00:26:18]:
Eventually, I did. So here’s another thing that I always recommend is that people start with organic, and here’s why. So when I had that evergreen webinar set up, I was primarily relying on organic to start. And by doing that, it allowed me to without the pressure of having to pay for advertising or look for an ads manager or whatever, like, all that kind of stuff, I was able to really focus on my message. It created something where I was like, I gotta get out here and hustle. I need to create content. I you know? Some I have to have content that I’m sharing, each day. Maybe I’ll go live once a week.

Caitlin Batcher [00:27:00]:
Maybe I’ll, you know, partner with someone, and they’re sharing a link to my webinar, and I’m giving them, like, a small commission on that or whatever. I was it caused me to be kinda scrappy. And it it it caused me to get all of my energy was on was focused on how can I further refine the message? How can I how can I further, how can I improve the way that I’m describing the value of this program? And once that was up and running and once we were making multiple 6 figures without any paid traffic, then I was like, okay. Now I’ve got it. Then we were able to start putting paid traffic on it. And by the way, a lot of people have this idea in their head that they’re just gonna sprinkle some paid traffic and everything’s gonna be great, and that was not the case for me. So that was another learning curve, but it was okay. I could tolerate that risk because I had built something organic that was capable of growing this.

Caitlin Batcher [00:28:04]:
So even though, yeah, it was, you know, cutting into things a bit where I was experimenting with ads, I had that foundation first. And I think that sometimes people fall into this trap of trying to, like, skip steps. Right? And so there’s they’re kinda, like, I was talking to one of my clients, the other day, and she was like, you know, I’ve been, like, I’ve been getting some, you know, initial traction with with some organic traffic, and that’s great. But and then she listed out a bunch of problems she was having with her funnel, and she was like, so does that mean I should just start running ads? And I was like, no. That does not mean that because running paid traffic, yes, it amplifies what’s going well, but it also amplifies what’s not going well. And if you don’t have a handle on, you know, how to effectively overcome all the different objections that people are gonna have throughout, throughout your funnel, then throwing paid traffic on putting gasoline on that fire is is not gonna improve things. And so that’s so I’m a firm believer in getting to, getting to paid, getting to or use organic traffic first. Primarily, the strategies that I recommend are, you know, social media, not necessarily posting three times a day or something like that, but, posting, I recommend, at least five times a week.

Caitlin Batcher [00:29:31]:
And we talk about how to, like, batch create content so you can kind of, you know, drip things out over time, how to, over time, build out, like, a repurposing library so you can repurpose some of that content, so that you you’re, you’re not having to create content, like, from scratch every single week. I’m a big, big fan of, working with other business owners and saying, hey. Like, I’ll share your thing if you share my thing and, you know, that kind of that kind of networking. And then once that gets up and running, then it you then thinking about, okay. What do I wanna you know, how do I wanna integrate paid traffic into

Kylie Kelly [00:30:16]:
I love that. And and, I mean, how much easier is it to sell to warm traffic that know, like, and trust us already? That makes so much sense. So much easier. So much sense. Out of interest, what was your email list like back then?

Caitlin Batcher [00:30:28]:
Oh, gosh. Okay. Let me go back. I gotta think that I don’t re I do not remember this I don’t remember the size of my email list, but I do remember that because someone had to when they registered for my evergreen webinar, they had to give me their email. My email list was always growing. Right? Because and and that’s one of the most important things, that I can share with your audience, who I already know because they’re listening to you, that they’re all about growing their email list, and they probably already know the importance of it. But, you know, the the dangers of kind of just having a sales page and leaving it on your website and just sharing traffic sharing the link to your sales page on social media is that you have no way of following up with people. Like, I love social media, and I love email.

Caitlin Batcher [00:31:19]:
And the by having something like an evergreen funnel where they’re signing up for that funnel or free training, whatever it is, in exchange for their email, you’re the you have then a way to follow-up with people. Whereas if they go to your sales page and they bounce off, like, see you later. Good luck them trying to find you on the algorithm again because it’s just like you know, it’s so important for that for that follow-up. And the more touch points you can have with someone, the better. So whether those like, if you think of it kind of as, you know, you’re building out this sphere of influence and you have touch points with emails and social media and this and that. And so it’s like they’re constantly kinda getting these little ping reminders of you, and and that’s gonna help them move through the sales cycle a lot faster.

Kylie Kelly [00:32:08]:
Yes. The fortune’s in the follow-up. I always love that so much. It’s so true, isn’t it? And how do you fill up with somebody if you don’t have their contact details? You literally can’t. Yeah. Okay. So for anyone listening and they’re like, okay, I wanna do this. Let’s give them just a really simple step by step, like, breakdown.

Kylie Kelly [00:32:26]:
So if they don’t have a course yet, let’s start with market research. Right? Let’s see what people are talking about, what they might be interested in, and what you wanna create. Like, find that magic middle.

Caitlin Batcher [00:32:36]:
Yeah. So kinda the the first thing the first thing that I do with people so sometimes people join our program, and they have a few different ideas of maybe what they want to create in their head, but they’re not a % clear. So with those people, what I always say is give me give me your top three ideas that you’re thinking of. Right? Like, what are three course ideas that you’re thinking of right now? When they list those because and and it’s generally based on kind of, like, things that they think they’re good at and they have an inkling that people would like. Right? From there, then I can ask questions like, why do you wanna teach this? Why do you wanna teach that? And then we can kinda get to the bottom of, like, are you picking this topic because you have just this you think in your head it’s gonna be more profitable, or is it something that you’re actually interested in? Because you have no way of you can make any you can make anything profitable, like, as long as you’re able to market it in the right way, as long as you’re able to communicate the value of it. And so we kinda go through that process of figuring out, well, which of these has legs and which of these things do I how can we tweak it so that like, to make it a little bit more relevant. But once you have that once you have that idea, then it’s just like, okay. Let’s write a quick outline.

Caitlin Batcher [00:33:54]:
Not film the whole course. Not do everything. Let’s write a quick outline of that course. Right? After you have that outline, then you’re ready. Just from that outline, you’re ready to then start, like, planning out, okay, what’s your webinar gonna look like? What’s your what are the, the sales page gonna look like? What are the emails gonna look like? All that kind of stuff. And through that process of of creating those sales and marketing materials, that then informs you of what needs to go inside of your course. And sometimes it’s hard. I know it kinda sounds backwards to do sales and marketing before you’re creating it, but so many times, people, they spend months, like, filming and perfecting this, like, professional professionally produced course.

Caitlin Batcher [00:34:46]:
And then when they start to sell it or market it, they’re like, oh, peep I actually need to tweak this, actually. And then they have to, like, recreate everything. So I’m a big fan of just having your idea. Right? Figuring out, like, okay. What’s the idea? What’s the course topic I wanna pursue? After that, you have, like, a rough outline of everything, and then you get into design creating the funnel that you’re gonna sell. When you are starting to sell your course, you really only need to have one module or one lesson done, and then you can just drip it out over time. Now after the after you’re done dripping it out, whether it’s, like, four week course, an eight week course, whatever it is, then you can decide, do I want to continue drip it out for people, or do I want to, like, give people immediate access to everything right away? But you get you then get to make those decisions, and you then get to, you know, after a number of people have gone through it, you’re gonna have so many ideas on, like, oh, and I can, like, improve this section and improve that section. And but it’s it’s all about just getting started and putting that first version out there.

Kylie Kelly [00:35:57]:
I love that you pointed out the reverse engineering of that as well because I’ve never thought about that in terms of course creation. I always talk about that when we’re coming up with lead magnets or things like, where do you want people to go? Let’s reverse engineer it. What’s the first step they need to take for you to lead them there? And it’s very similar with the course then as well. Yeah. Is there and this is probably a question you get all the time that I think I know the answer to. But is there a price point that is like, oh, this sells really great on Evergreen? What do you normally say to that?

Caitlin Batcher [00:36:25]:
So I’ve had people make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve had clients make hundreds of thousands, in some cases, millions of dollars a year, and they have selling at a variety of price points. So they’ve had success being able to sell a $297 course, being able to sell a $2,000 course. What I will say is that anything over $3,000, it’s not a good fit to sell with this method. And the reason why is because anything over $3,000 is gonna require some kind of a sales call. And and, which is not selling on autopilot, but we have a lot of people who are selling things, or who are selling perhaps a higher ticket program, and they don’t want to do they don’t want to continue down that path of doing sales calls, hiring, training, managing a sales team, all that kind of stuff. And so the advice that we give them is there’s a there’s a couple different ways to do it. One is you can take a portion of that high ticket program, and you can package it into, like, a 500 course, a thousand dollars, 2 whatever you want.

Caitlin Batcher [00:37:37]:
As long as it’s less than 3,000. Right? You can, you can package it into something like, something like that, or you can take all the content from that high ticket program, but just offer and sell it as the course, but just offer a different level of support. Right? So, like, maybe your higher ticket offer comes with, like, some one on ones or, I don’t know, something like that when you’re and instead of that, then you’re offering, you know, a weekly group call or a weekly or a monthly group call or something similar.

Kylie Kelly [00:38:06]:
Okay. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Oh my gosh. Caitlin, thank you for sharing so much information with us. I’m exploding with ideas myself. I have a couple little rapid fire questions that I’d love to wrap up our chat today if that’s okay with you.

Kylie Kelly [00:38:19]:
They’re not they’re they’re pretty they’re nothing too crazy. But I would love to know, what are your your top five can’t live without pieces of software in your business?

Caitlin Batcher [00:38:28]:
Oh, okay. Let’s see. Top five pieces of software. Oh, one is for, I think it’s called Veed, v e e d, dot I o to make, like, the little videos with, like, the captions and things like that. Oh, wait. No. Not Veed. Descript.

Caitlin Batcher [00:38:47]:
It’s called Descript. And so that one is really great. I absolutely love Descript to create, short little videos. Another another one that we use all the time is, Segmentrix. So that’s kinda like, Google Analytics that tells you like, it gives you, an easy way to see, like, the full all the touch points that the buyer went through before they all the different con like, whether it’s social media or your website or whatever, like, all the content points that they went through so you can start to optimize and and and know, like, which, which path has the the shortest, sales cycle. This one is kinda like this is this one is not too exciting, but we run everything through Google. So, like, Google, like, Google Docs, Google, Google spread Google Sheets, Google Slides. Like, all like, internally, we use that all the time.

Caitlin Batcher [00:39:46]:
That’s three. Slack would be number four, a %. So we use Slack for team communication. And then the fifth one that we use is, ClickUp for project management. So everyone on the team has, like, their, you know, list of things that they’re doing that day inside of ClickUp. But then if we have, like, questions to ask each other throughout the day, then we use Slack for that. So Slack is kinda like the more casual space, but then the, the various projects or whatever are inside of ClickUp. But we used a lot of different we used Trello before.

Caitlin Batcher [00:40:16]:
We used Asana, but I I really like ClickUp.

Kylie Kelly [00:40:19]:
Oh, I love that. And, hey, Google Suite. I find that so exciting. I use Google for everything as well. So that that one like, I get it.

Caitlin Batcher [00:40:25]:
Yeah. And you know what? My first course, I made all the worksheets with Google Docs. They were just, like, really plain Jane. That it was like, you know, a box and text and

Kylie Kelly [00:40:34]:
Do you have for your course communities, is it all Facebook groups still? Like

Caitlin Batcher [00:40:39]:
Yeah. I still just use Facebook. And the reason why I like that is because I like to livestream directly, into the community.

Kylie Kelly [00:40:46]:
Yeah. Amazing. And what about sorry. One more techie question. What about your your course platform? What do you use for that?

Caitlin Batcher [00:40:52]:
I I use Thinkific, and I’ve used we we tried so many different course platforms. And, we’ve but we’ve been with Thinkific the longest. They just have great support, and I I I I really it’s just like a great simple I’m not really a fan of, like, the all in one things where it’s like sometimes they’re like, and our course platform also sends emails and does webinars and does challenges and does blah blah blah.

Caitlin Batcher [00:41:21]:
It’s like, oh my gosh. It’s kinda like an all you can eat buffet where it’s like the quality of each individual thing kinda goes down a bit. So I I prefer yeah. I definitely I I like Thinkific. It’s just, like, clean and basic.

Kylie Kelly [00:41:35]:
Yeah. I agree. I think with the all in ones, I I know myself will get distracted. I’d log in, and then I’d end up doing something really random when I went to send an email. Like, I just know that. Do that.

Caitlin Batcher [00:41:45]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Kylie Kelly [00:41:46]:
Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Okay. Question number two. Number one goal for 2025 could be business or personal. Do you have something you’re working towards?

Caitlin Batcher [00:41:55]:
Okay. So for 2025, let’s see. Oh, we have some new so one thing work wise, we have some new bonuses that we’re gonna be offering in 2025, which I’m very excited about, just to keep things new and fresh with our evergreen funnels. So I’m really excited about that. And in terms of I always kinda like to have, you know, a word of the year. And I think that the I think the word of the year, for 2025 is connection, connection with my family, connection with my audience, connection with my clients, whether that’s, you know, in person connection or connecting live, just, just seeing, seeing how I can deepen all those different connection points.

Kylie Kelly [00:42:51]:
I love that. I love the word of the year. I think it’s a really powerful filter then to make decisions with, right, the next year when you’re working through things. That’s really, really powerful. And I love as well the connection piece because I I don’t know. Going into the future with AI and how much distrust there is online, I think the connection is gonna be even more important. Alright. Last question, which is how I like to end all of my guest interviews on this podcast. Number one way you’ve grown your email list in the last twelve months?

Caitlin Batcher [00:43:21]:
Number one way that I’ve grown my email list in the in the last twelve months is for sure through our our primary master class funnel. So just sharing that everywhere. And every time I think, I’m like, are people tired are people sick and tired of me promoting this? I end up always getting people saying, oh, I didn’t even know that you had a free master class. I’m like, really? I talk about it all day long. But that is a % our main driver for email. Yeah.

Kylie Kelly [00:43:49]:
I thought you were gonna say that. I thought I knew the answer to that already. Amazing. Well, Caitlin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Where can we send people if they wanna connect with you and know and know more?

Caitlin Batcher [00:43:59]:
Yeah. So I do have a free training. It’s called how to generate launch size revenue without launching, and you can access that at CaitlinBatcher.com/masterclass. The best place to connect with me on social media is Instagram. That’s my favorite platform. You could you’re welcome anyone’s welcome to send me a DM there. You can, we’ve been shooting some we’ve been doing some new b roll. My husband’s been helping me shoot some different b roll content, and he is very good at it.

Caitlin Batcher [00:44:29]:
So, that has been really fun. So, yeah, so connect with me on Instagram. Send me a note. Come say hi. And, also, make sure to check out the free training.

Kylie Kelly [00:44:40]:
Perfect. I’ll be checking out the b roll. I mean, I’m excited to see what he’s been shooting now. Perfect. Lovely. Well, I will put all the links in the show notes for everyone to go and connect in all the places, but thank you so much for being here. It’s been a complete joy, and I’ve learned so much myself.

Caitlin Batcher [00:44:57]:
Thank you so much.

Kylie Kelly [00:44:58]:
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of The Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others. Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their business and make a bigger impact. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you in the next episode.