What is Evergreen Content and How Can it Transform your Digital Marketing Strategy?

Content Development Tips from an Emmy Award-Winning Production Team

What is Evergreen Content?

The phrase “evergreen content” gets thrown around a lot in our increasingly digital workspace, leading many to wonder what evergreen content really is.

According to PointVisible, “evergreen content is any type of content you produce and publish that revolves around a subject area that will be relevant for a longer period of time.” Evergreen content capitalizes on topics that maintain or increase their relevancy over time.

In short, instead of constantly working on coming up with new content, invest more time into generating content that will hold more long-term value.

What are Effective Types of Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content doesn’t have a concrete formula or fool-proof plan, it comes in all sizes, types, and channels. When it comes to making a piece of content evergreen, it is important to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. A blog post by the Digital Marketing Institute put together a list of common evergreen formats that have been successful in the past, here are three we think perform the best.

• Pro Tips (Everything to keep in your car in case of a flat tire)

• How-To Content (How to change a tire in 6 easy steps)

• Product Reviews (Changing a tire using the new Car Jack 3000)

What Platforms are the Best Home for Evergreen Content?

It is important that you first know where you will be hosting your evergreen content before jumping the gun on creation. Having your desired platform in mind when creating your content will ensure that it is optimized and adheres to the viewers and overall nature of the platform.

Great: Youtube, Podcasts, Pinterest

• These channels give content the longest possible shelf-life, as content engagement has the most potential to increase overtime.

OK: Facebook

• Not as good as the ones above, but still offers a relatively longer shelf-life than the other, more real-time, social channels listed below. Algorithms move through content quickly, but still allow for some increased engagement over time given a lower volume of weekly content per page and a more profile-heavy user interface.

Not so good: Instagram and Snapchat.

• These channels discard content extremely quickly. Their algorithms are based on finding the next big story each day, leaving evergreen content on the back burner.

How Can Evergreen Content Transform Your Marketing Strategy?

Now that you know what evergreen content is and where it is most successful, let’s take a look at the different ways evergreen content can maximize your return on investment.

First and foremost, producing evergreen content will save you money in a number of ways.

The obvious financial benefit in the effect evergreen content has on your logistical sustainability. It’s a no-brainer that if you're going to spend money on the time and labor to create content, it should be able to peak interest and generate brand awareness for as long as possible rather than crafting social content in a constant attempt to stay on top of time-sensitive topics with higher churn rates.

A blog by Ahrefs said it best: “If the content is out-of-date, it won’t rank. Creating evergreen content is your best bet if you want to attract organic traffic to your post month after month, year after year, and not see a decline in traffic after a month or two.”

Secondly, let’s talk about paid media. The term “If it’s not broken, don't fix it.” holds especially true in this circumstance. Analytical digital marketers are constantly testing new social advertising strategies and trying out new media types in hopes of boosting engagement and lowering their CPC; but if you already have an immersive evergreen media asset, your AB testing for paid ads can be simplified to just copywriting and targeting.

If you can find a sweet spot that performs well in terms of conversion, lead gen, and overall traffic, you can leave it be and let it run on autopilot confidently knowing that it will yield steady results for your business over time, and all you have to worry about is turning the knobs in terms of ad spend.

Conclusion

Loading up your outlets with evergreen content is a fantastic way to not only keep your business top of mind, but also save money while simultaneously increasing your SEO rankings. No matter your industry or field of expertise, evergreen content is here to stay… Literally.

Looking at video as an option for your next evergreen content piece? Read our blog about how video can boost your social media presence, and start racking up engagement on your social media channels!