Content Marketing: Time-bound vs. Evergreen Content?
??Randall Craig
Advisor on business growth, marketing strategy, thought leadership, and digital. Author. CEO at Braintrust Professional Institute. Hall of Fame business speaker.
Here's the conundrum: create up-to-the-minute content that has a best-before date of "tomorrow", or create evergreen content that will remain relevant for months (or years) to come? How do you decide which strategy makes sense for you, and why you might prefer one over the other?
The benefit of evergreen content is clear: invest once, and it continues to pay dividends, over and over. It can appear in your blog, in a video, as an add-on to an email, as an appendix to a proposal, and in many other places. And because it is timeless, it will continue collecting inbound links from other websites, building your SEO ranking over time.
But the problem with evergreen content is that there is no urgency: there isn't a time-bound reason for your reader to come back to your website (or social feed) on a daily or weekly basis. They can come and go. Another problem is that the content is less likely to be picked up by other time-bound sources: there is a reason why "news" is called "news".
Time-bound content addresses evergreen content's urgency problem. And in so doing, demonstrates that you are 100% on top of things. But depending on how you execute time-bound content, your positioning can be vastly different. If your time-bound content is merely reporting, then that's all people will see you as: a compiler of up-to-date information, no different than anywhere else. On the other hand, if your content focuses on your insights and implications, it positions you as a thought leader.
Another benefit of time-bound content is that it changes the nature of your content from merely interesting or helpful, to "must-read", and must read now. It's stickier, and can grow your subscriber base for more quickly than evergreen content.
So, which of these strategies might you prefer? The answer depends on your business model and strategy, and how you choose to use the content in the context of everything else that you do. A better approach is to choose either one or the other, and then sprinkle the other type within. For example, a daily news blog might have evergreen content each Friday. Or, a daily commentary blog might include a weekly news-in-review post.
This week's action plan:
Review the content that you have created over the last three years, and flag anything that is time-bound. For some of the content, is it possible to change them from time-bound into evergreen? If so, then either re-edit the posts to maintain the inbound links, or create completely new posts designed from the ground up to be evergreen. (Or do both.)
Content marketing insight: How often have you seen a blog or video that could have been evergreen content, but a graphic or a key phrase has rendered it out-of-date almost immediately? If there doesn't need to be a date reference, leave it out!
Your thoughts?
Contrarian views are welcome.
-Randall
[Content Authenticity Statement: 100% original content. No AI was used in creating this content.]
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This Month's Topic: Member Value, Non-Dues Revenue, and New Association Business Models
Associations are under constant pressure to do more with less, to offer increasing value to members, while also create additional revenue.
Yet the association business model is under assault: a tough economy has taken its toll on membership revenues, younger prospective members are “nibblers†not joiners, and convention revenues are no longer reliable.
Join CSAE Griner Award recipient Randall Craig for a conversation and new thinking on association business models:
?? Is the traditional association business model really in jeopardy? Can it be rescued? (We also think so.)
?? Non-dues revenue beyond sponsorships, certification renewals, and trade show booth sales.
?? Is it really possible to compete against “free†alternatives, and win?
In this session, we’ll delve into the answers to the above questions, and provide bold (and realistic) recommendations on them. We will also spend some time on membership retention and demonstrating member value, including:
? Building an aligned, growth-minded member community.
? Productivity and value: How to outsource draining ongoing responsibilities to free up staff and volunteer time for higher order priorities.
??? Date: Wednesday, November 6 at 12 noon ET
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Please send your questions in advance to ronja@randallcraig.com and we will do our best to address them during the hour.
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