Content Marketing Strategy – Evergreen and Timely Content Explained

Whatever side of the fence you work on, content marketing strategy is one of the topics coming up for discussion on a regular basis. As we conduct our workshops, we discuss the pros and cons of both evergreen content, that has a long life span and timely/situational, content that captures attention in relevant moments. First up, let’s take a look at the two different types in more detail.

Evergreen Content
Hubspot defines evergreen content as timeless and high quality. Timeliness, meaning it doesn’t lose relevance or impact at different points in time, i.e. it isn’t tied to a specific event or technology or it won’t be relevant in near future. High quality meaning, both a high production quality and value to the consumer.

TrinityP3 outlines best practices for evergreen content (note: TrinityP3’s post itself is actually an example of evergreen content! Even though it was originally posted in 2013, the principals are still the same today). Evergreen content should do one or all of the following:

• Address a pain point in your industry
• Include keyword terms to optimize for search
• Offer a unique POV or solution that makes it valuable to your consumer
• Should be comprehensive and include links if they are to reputable sources

Provided the content delivers on the marketing objective, the return on investment for this type of content is stretched, due to the communication being relevant for a long period of time. This isn’t a ‘shot in the arm’, this is an investment in content that can last years.

Types of Evergreen Content
The great news about evergreen content is it can live on most of your digital channels – your website, blog, social channels, email, etc. Content made for one channel can even be adjusted to work on another channel. Below are some examples of different types of evergreen content:

• Guides / How To’s / Tips & Tricks – Leverage your expertise or POV to create helpful guides for your consumers. Tips & Tricks do well on social, while guides and how-to’s are great video or website content.
  • E.g. Citrix’s blog breaks down how to motivate employees via an easily digestible infographic
  • E.g. A buyers’ guide to diamond rings is classic evergreen content.
  • E.g. Johnson & Johnsons babycenter.com. A whole content marketing resource dedicated to pregnancy and babies. The content catering to this industry does go through some trends, however in general it won’t change too much.
• Answers to FAQs – To find questions that warrant content, connect with your customer service group, search your site or your social channels to uncover questions that continuously come up – or even pull from an existing FAQ list. You can present the information in a Q & A format, infographic, video, blog post, etc.
  • Ex. The following post was an answer to a common question from consumers on how to talk about themselves How to Tell a Story About Yourself Without Sounding Like an Egomaniac
• Case Studies – Create or highlight a project by your company or relevant to your industry that will be relevant after the actual event.
  • Ex. TrinityP3 created a case study about why a CMO employed the company to help with digital transformation.
• Definitions / Did You Know? – Do you offer a new unique product/service? Do you sell a product that is made out of recycled materials that your customers may find valuable? Create content that talks about your product or company in a compelling way that is relevant to consumers.
  • Ex. Dollar Shave Company created a video to explain their unique product offering that resulted in a ton of views.
• Lists / Checklists – use your existing content or content from reputable sources and create a list that won’t expire.
  • Ex. 12 Trends in Strategic Marketing Management for 2012

How Can Evergreen Content Impact Your Bottom Line?
Strong and compelling evergreen content can absolutely contribute to the success of your business in the following ways:

1. Helps with search rankings, especially if the content piece is more than 2000 words. Valuable evergreen content likely has a lot of engagement, thus making it rank higher in search
2. Generally contributes a large amount of traffic based on the higher search ranking
3. Can help you build a following if you refresh it regularly
4. Content has a longer life-span so it can generate more leads
5. Leads to higher ROI of content

Timely Content
Like evergreen content, timely content can actually be planned out ahead of time, but is most effective and relevant a specific point in time. Timely content is often missing from content marketing strategies – likely because it involves more planning and research upfront and at the time of the event. But, don’t despair, creation of timely content can be managed.

If you want a business to model, the masters of this in the Australian market are Sportsbet. ‘Like their Facebook page today and you will that they execute on this strategy perfectly. They offer very little evergreen content, but leverage the changing nature of sports, betting and wagering very effectively.

According to the OnlineMarketingInstitute, there are two relatively easy ways to account for timely content within your plan:

• Identify upcoming holidays, seasons, events (see example email below)
• Create a calendar that is flexible enough to accommodate posts to respond to pop culture or current news