Evergreen marketing strategies (some you may not have thought of) that you can implement in 2020
Evergreen by definition means that you could read or view an article/infographic/video at any time (give or take 2-4 years) and whatever it is that you are seeing is till true even if time has passed.
Preparing evergreen ahead of time
The great thing about evergreen content is you can create it in batches – you dont need to wait for new things to happen or worry that it will date. The types of things we recommend our clients prepare in terms of evergreen content include:
- Case Studies about past projects – even if you read about them years later, the service ethos, success of the project and the relationship story still resonate.
- Common sense advice – there are probably things you tell your customers/clients regularly, that are true this year and will be true 1/2 or even 3 years from now.
- Your business story and values – even if things have evolved, there are certain elements in your business that haven’t changed and probably wont – so content around this is also evergreen.
To expand on these ideas, I asked Sydney based writer Sofia Lockhart for some fresh ideas, and here is her post!
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Evergreen marketing strategies to implement in 2020 (guest post from Sofia Lockhart)
2020 is just around the corner, and Santa has a big bag of fresh marketing trends. While it’s important to keep track of these trends, selling and growing your business needs the marketing foundation that will stand the test of time, and that’s where the secret weapon of evergreen marketing comes in.
We all know that marketing is a constant struggle in which you have to keep up with industry updates, changes in algorithms, trends, etc. It may seem impossible to keep your marketing campaigns fresh for years, but there is a way out of this enchanted circle and it goes by the name of relevance. This is precisely what evergreen marketing is – a series of techniques that are able to remain relevant and useful for a long time, demanding just a one-time effort. So let’s look at these strategies that will stand that test of time and continue to provide results perpetually.
Making Online Content Immortal
Since the digital world is constantly growing, evolving and therefore inevitably changing, it may seem impossible to establish an ever-lasting marketing strategy online. But the truth is that there’s a way to make every page on your site evergreen, making your content live on indefinitely. Now, you won’t be able to achieve this with just every type of content, so you need to focus on the following types: list, tips, reports, case studies, how-to articles, explanations and definitions, and non-tech articles that will deal with personal characteristics, attitudes, or behaviors.
Making the lasting touch to these types of content is a pretty straight-forward task. Somewhat opposed to logic, articles need to contain the original publishing date. It is all about establishing a timeline – without it, even the most authentic content will lack lasting authenticity. You need to follow the latest developments in the industry and update the content accordingly – that’s how it stays relevant. In the end, you need to make sure that readers will find the content relevant today as it was yesterday by making them aware of the updates you’ve made. There’ll be situations in which some pieces of content will need a bigger change and in those cases, it’s okay to create a new post, but make sure to backlink to the original one and explain the reason behind the latest creation.
Making it Tangible
When talking about evergreen, we inevitably need to tackle marketing strategies that have clearly survived the test of time – the offline ones. Many business owners are readily shoving their entire marketing budgets into the digital realm, but the fact is that conventional marketing ideas are still alive and kicking even in today’s technology-driven world because they hold one unique advantage – they’re tangible. The digital world has given us many things, but it has also taken away a very important need, that unique point of contact.
Print is as tangible as it gets – newspaper advertisements are a long-established medium for promotions that remains one of the most effective in the modern-day. More than half of consumers still consider it as the most trustworthy promotional material, and this percentage jumps to more than 80% when advertisements turn into guides for purchasing decisions. Then there are magazines, where you’re able to narrow down your target audience. People who are interested in purchasing and reading magazines dedicated to certain specific topics are equally interested in considering services or products offered within the pages. With thorough market research, magazines allow you to find the perfect publication for your placement.
But you don’t need to depend solely on newspapers and magazines – printing your own promotional material has never been easier, especially now that you can do it on the go via an app on your phone, negating the need to be stuck in an office. A simple circulation of flyers is the most basic offline marketing strategy, but also the one that has survived for centuries. It doesn’t require in-depth promotion expertise nor a large monetary investment, distribution is easy, and it offers an opportunity to gain immediate face-to-face feedback from the target audience.
If you don’t have enough manpower for door-to-door flyer distribution, you can distribute your printed promotional materials directly to the homes of individuals with direct mail. While the spam folders are getting crowded, increasingly empty mailboxes offer a resurrected marketing opportunity, especially if you include a personalized note in case of delivery to existing customers. Personalization is one of the few trends that will never die, and it’s at the core of loyalty development.
Inside Every Home, on Every Street
Evergreen is all about constant presence. The above-mentioned strategies will develop such a presence online and across print media, so what’s left is to fill in the gap with television and radio advertisements, to make sure you’re present inside every home. Even in the days of streaming, the audience television networks reach is still significant. Likewise, it may seem that the days of radio are numbered, but your 30 to 60-second radio advertisements are probably the only way to reach those caught in this nostalgia – or in a traffic jam. Furthermore, this highly underrated form of offline marketing can be targeted to a specific audience, which is highly convenient for a very localized business.
The last step is to take to the streets. Of course, you can’t be literally on every street, so you need to locate the most crowded ones and employ some unconventional tactics in the form of guerilla marketing. Authenticity lives forever, and this is what this strategy is all about – doing something that doesn’t look like anything that has been done before and becoming permanently imprinted in the minds of your consumers. It’s an efficient way of generating buzz, going viral, and furthering your reach. Of course, being on the streets doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend networking events – every opportunity for face-to-face communication is the foundation of lasting business relationships.
As you can see, evergreen marketing comes naturally with offline marketing channels which have proven to be survivors, but the strategy can also be used in the online world. Also, employing these strategies doesn’t mean you shouldn’t employ seasonal ones as well. The future is inevitable, the competition is growing, and the only way to keep relevant is to build a constant presence on all the marketing frontlines.
About the auther, Sofia:
Sofia is a passionate writer from Sydney. She also enjoys decorating houses and engaging in home renovation projects. That is why she loves sharing her experience and advice with other people through her writing. Besides this, she loves technology and gadgets which can help us get through a busy workday.