Evergreen content is an idea absconded from the world of journalism. It’s the belief that certain kinds of content are perpetually relevant to readers.
When content marketers fall asleep, we dream of creating content so targeted, so powerful, so valuable, that it automatically falls into the hands of prospects and, unattended, builds our empire.
This (as no B2B content marketer needs to be told) is a stone cold myth. But with some attention and planning, we can make it come true for us.
Let’s look at evergreen content from a content marketing perspective.
HubSpot identifies two types of evergreen content:
Content that stays relevant as time passes and culture changes. (This aligns most closely to the journalistic definition.)
Content that, if updated, keeps its relevance in the face of changing trends and technology.
How can the second definition be “evergreen”? Because of that tiny phrase: “If updated.”
Evergreen content as it exists in the journalistic mind is impossible for B2B content marketers to create for three reasons:
Our products and services are built to meet a current demand or pain point, to address the issue that keeps our prospects up at night.
As business trends and technology change, our prospects’ pain point is influenced by increasing or decreasing its priority.
This will inevitably shift how we position our offering (if not the offering itself).
Unless we should all start investing in Magic 8 Balls (reply hazy—try again), there’s no way we can create content that meets prospects’ needs today and tomorrow.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t create evergreen content. In fact, many of us already have—if we define evergreen content by HubSpot’s second definition. If we remember that in the world of content marketing, content creation is never a let-it-ride process. Anyone can grow a content acorn into an evergreen with a little extra planning and TLC.
It starts with a Master Content List. And we’ll dive into the details in Part 2—stay tuned.
