As you’re gonna start working on your online course idea, one of the key decisions you will need to make is whether you’re going for an evergreen or live offer. Let’s talk about live vs evergreen courses: what type of an offer to create?
Evergreen courses generally will be pre recorded, and your students will have the option to enroll at any point.
When we think about making passive sales with online courses. Evergreen courses is what we are considering.
Opposite of that, inside Live experience you will include at least some live elements. In some cases, the whole course will be presented live versus having any pre recorded materials.
As you go into this decision, remember that you can always update, upgrade and change your offer from one type to another. An evergreen course can serve as a base for Live experience and Live experience can also be saved as an evergreen offer.
So is one type of offer better than the other? Is one more suitable for starters than the other, is one more profitable than the other? Let’s explore all of that one by one.
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Live vs evergreen courses: what type of an offer to create?
There is no one certain answer to what is the best fit but let’s consider some of the differences between live vs evergreen courses.
Evergreen course gives you the freedom to do it in your own pace
The key difference to keep in mind when it comes to evergreen versus live courses is that evergreen course can be created and sold at any point.
But when it comes to live experience, you’re looking at a specific opening of the doors when your students will be able to enroll and purchase the offer.
With evergreen courses, you have more freedom to do it in your own time while with live experience, you will have announced a specific starting date, open-door period.
Evergreen courses, in most cases, are a better fit for first time course creators, because they release that pressure of being ready for a specific time and showing up live.
If you are a new course creator, and this might be your first time you’re creating any type of online offer, live experience definitely adds to that pressure.
Launching a live course can help you to improve it in real time
Create a live experience can help you to test and evaluate your content with live audience.
This means that you can go through your ideas, go through the content you have prepared in these live coaching sessions and there you can gather direct feedback.
People will ask questions and you will realize what might be missing. They will take action and you will realize what are some other things you can do to support that action, and this will help you to create a better product.
Most evergreen courses will be lower priced than Live experiences
An important consideration is that, in most cases, evergreen courses will be lower priced.
If you’re launching a live offer, it does add value because you’re going to be there, especially depending on the type of elements you’re going to be adding, your audience might have a chance to, for example, receive one on one feedback right away and that alone is incredibly valuable.
If you’re doing Q&A sessions or one on one hot seat coaching sessions – any of these increase the value of your offer.
So while you can have the same curriculum in the evergreen course being sold for $200, the price of it can be 10x’d with the live experience.
Optimize your funnel by considering both: live vs evergreen courses
For example, if you have recorded revergreen offer, you can still take that same product, the same content, same videos that you have prepared, and you can bring it into your live experience.
Your evergreen offers can serve as your lower priced offers, potentially for those who don’t know you just yet or who are not ready to invest.
While the live experience actually caters those who want more of that one on one support, more of the connection with you and maybe actually take the action within a specific timeline that can help them to move forward with their own ideas.
What if I don’t get enough people in my Live course?!
Often, the need to gather a specific number of people in your offer will create unnecessary overwhelm, especially if you’re just growing your audience.
Many first-time Live experience creators overthink the numbers of people who might enroll.
What if only two people join your Live experience?!
See it as a BONUS.
And this is one of the biggest misconceptions. As somebody who has been behind the scenes of very profitable courses, I can assure you that even the most known names don’t always get full groups.
So for example, if you are planning that live experience and you’re worried that you’re not gonna get 10 people to join – it’s perfectly valid and normal. You don’t need to have a full group of people to provide the value.
Release that worry, because it does not impact your group experience.
And actually, the fewer people are in your group, the better experience will be for your audience. You can actually help those specific people, those two, three people who are in there. You will know each of their specific situations, you will be able to provide more relevant samples, and you will be able to help them to actually achieve those results, potentially faster than they could if there’s a big group on the other side.
Related read: The truth about Master Resell Rights courses
What is your vision for this course?
At the end of the day, the question to answer is rather simple: what is your vision with this product? Are you creating this product to generate passive income? How will you generate income? What is your plan?
Because here’s another thing that comes into play, one reason why I often go into my high end programs instead of continuing to promote lower priced offers is that you put the same time and effort into promoting lower price than you would in promoting higher end.
However, lower ticket items create more regular sales and the satisfaction of likemore consistent sales is really addictive….
Technically if you have a lower priced product, and maybe you don’t make as much money, but you keep seeing the sales coming that is more exciting than potentially just making one big sale at some point.
But at the end of the day, the amount of energy, amount of time and your dedication that’s going to go into the process of promoting and talking about the offer is going to be the same. Either you’re promoting a lower priced or more high end offer.
Because if your evergreen offer is going to be priced lower potentially than your potential live experience, and you’re still going through the same hustle of like getting to the point of making sales, you can just as well be selling live experience.
Evergreen course will be the best fit if you aim to generate more passive sales and you’re not interested in active showing up yourself.
Live courses will be the best fit if you want to scale your impact and connect with your students. This will be especially viable if you already have some audience online that you know will be interested in buying from you.
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