11 Evergreen Content Marketing Trends to Use Year-Round

Content marketing is still king when it comes to driving traffic to your site and getting the word out about your brand. While writing according to trends and to the season can be a good move at times, you also need to keep in mind that people access your content all year long. For this reason, it’s a good idea to have an arsenal of evergreen content marketing ideas you can use any time of year.

Content marketing gets three times the number of leads for every dollar compared to paid search. Consumers are tired of blatant advertising, so content marketing meets their need for information while offering a viable way for you to get the word out about your brand.

Subscribe to Read the Largest Marketing Live Book =>

However, it isn’t as easy to make sure you write content that is current every season of the year. Here are 11 ways to keep your content marketing relevant all year.

1. Add How-to Guides

Learning how to do something is popular year-round. Offer how-to guides on topics relevant to the product or service you offer. For example, if you run a plumbing business, you might offer a how-to guide on how to winterize your home if you travel south for the winter or on how to clean out your garbage disposal.

WHSR offers step-by-step guides for beginners that fully explain how to get a website up and running. The site makes its money through affiliate links to various hosting companies, so this guide matches their niche perfectly.

2. Create Step-by-Step Tutorials

Another type of content marketing that works well over the years is step-by-step tutorials. Ideally, these include photos of the steps, along with specific instructions. Teach users creative ways to use your products and potentially open your market to an entirely new demographic of users. Make sure to lay out all the steps clearly and chronologically.

3. Create an Informational Brochure

Content doesn’t always have to teach something new. Instead, it can present what you do and how it benefits consumers. Creating an informational brochure is an excellent way to create content that stays fresh year-round. You can do this in the form of a printed brochure you hand out to local consumers, and you can place a similar version online.

4. Complete an FAQ

Do you find you get the same questions from your site visitors over and over? Creating a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page allows you to answer this question efficiently and possibly win over site visitors at the same time. If you can answer their questions without them having to contact you, they can focus on getting what they need from your business.

The U.S. Department of State offers an FAQ to answer the most common questions about getting a U.S. visa or traveling into and out of the United States. It not only saves them from having to answer the same questions repeatedly, but makes it convenient for those seeking information to find it immediately.

Recommended: Tips on Using FAQ to Improve Your SEO

5. Tell Your Story

Ninety-two percent of consumers state they want brands to tell stories, rather than creating ads. Use the opportunity to share your story and create evergreen content. Where did the idea for the company come from? How did you get started? What are the big milestones in your company’s history?

6. Record a Video

There is a reason about 89 percent of online marketers use video in their efforts — people respond to it. When you think of content, you may think about articles and guides, but videos serve as another form of content that is easy to consume. Record some video tutorials showing how to use your product.

Zendesk taps into current trends from time to time to get the message out about their brand. Back when the Harlem Shake was all the rage, they made the video pictured above with their own version of the dance. While the video isn’t a direct sales pitch, it does show how much fun the company is and that they think outside the box.

Recommended: The Anatomy of Engaging Social Media Videos

7. Publish an Infographic

Another form of valuable content you could publish instead of an article is an infographic. Adding visual data allows the user to get a clear picture of the benefits of using your product or service. Of course, you’ll have to complete some research on your industry, so you can find facts to turn into image data. You should also make your infographic sharable, so you’ll gain additional exposure when others use your infographic on their websites.

8. Allow Users to Generate Content

Don’t be afraid to let your loyal customers generate some of your content for you. This can be in the form of reviews they submit or testimonials. If you provide a B2B service, ask your clients if they will record a video about how your service helped grow or improve their business in some way. That will inspire other business owners to give your company a try. Another benefit is that the client is likely to share their video when it goes live, allowing you to reach their network of other business owners.

9. Share Favorite Hacks

Do you have some insider secrets about how to get the most from your product or service? Take time to share these with your users. What types of hacks you’ll share depends solely on your business model, but one example might be a clothing retailer who has discovered clothes from a specific brand are easy to mix and match to make up hundreds of outfits from just a handful of pieces.

10. Interview a Celebrity

If you can get a celebrity — even a local one — on board using your product or service, you have a lot of leverage you can use year-round to get the word out about your brand. Approach people you believe are influencers in your industry, and ask them to give your product a try. If they like it, you can then create content around their positive endorsement, including social media mentions.

11. Create Checklists

People who are highly organized tend to love checklists. You can speak to a portion of your audience by providing free checklists for them to print out and use. For example, if you sell cleaning products, create a spring cleaning checklist or weekly cleaning schedules. No matter what industry you’re in, you can come up with a checklist that will be beneficial for your customers and that they will use all year long.

Evergreen Content Marketing

You can create many different types of content to draw traffic to your website or even to hand out at a trade show. The key is to find information that isn’t so trendy that it changes constantly. Instead, look for information that will stand the test of time and be as current next year as it is today. Only by combining both trending and evergreen content will you reach the maximum number of people in your target audience.

Subscribe to Read the Largest Marketing Live Book =>

Lexie Lu

Lexie is a designer and typography enthusiast. She enjoys writing HTML code and creating new styles guides. In her spare time, she works on her design blog, Design Roast.

designroast.org/subscribe