Did you hear what happened to the honey bee that stung the beekeeper? It died.
One-and-done content is just that — death marketing.
On the other hand, good, evergreen content is marketing gold. That’s because it costs 62% less and generates three times as many leads as outbound marketing.
Ironically, many brands tend to focus on one-and-done content. They believe in spending a lot of time creating content, promoting it for a day or a week, and then moving on to the next thing. Content marketing is a process — not just another success principle you need to memorize and expect to bring more customers to your front door. By tapping into your evergreen content’s awesomeness, you can wring it out, amplify it, and observe the results.
You may find that you could likely get away with a lot less content and instead spend more time on each piece and get the same (or better) content. In the long run, you could save more time and get better returns on your effort.
And we’re not just saying this for the sake of it. Our first Casted podcast episode still drives results for us, and we want to show you how you can achieve similar outcomes for your content.
You could’ve taken months, maybe even years, to create and publish all those high-quality articles, blog posts, videos, or podcasts.
So why is your old content, including the very first piece you put out, aging like milk and not wine? It’s because of unreal expectations.
You want an immediate return on investment. You expect to go from zero to hero in a matter of days and acquire more leads, get high engagement rates or website traffic. And that’s simply unrealistic.
Sometimes you could hit gold right out of the gate. But that’s more of an exception rather than the rule. The painful truth is that people are more likely to gravitate towards your newer content than the stuff you posted a year or more ago.
So that fantastic article or blog post you published that explains how to achieve blog writing goals in the new year? No one’s reading it. Fortunately for you, the process of wringing out your old content can make even your first post relevant, valuable, and profitable.
Here at Casted, the first podcast episode we put out discusses whether B2B brands should consider podcasting. Conversation is central to what we do. That’s why we turn conversations into content, and our first podcast episode is no exception.
We got Jay Baer, a marketing industry expert, to join us as we discuss the topic: Should brands be utilizing podcasting as part of their strategy?
The answer for us is a resounding yes! So, we explored that concept in many of our early episodes because we believe podcasting can help brands harness the power of conversations and that people trust experts over a brand. Through that conversation, we were able to fuel our content strategy.
We believe our first show still drives results because:
We genuinely want to help the audience we’re trying to reach. Having Baer on the show means we can attract the content marketer audience we’re trying to reach.
People look to and trust his opinion, what he does, and what he thinks. So it makes sense that they find Casted and immediately decide to listen to, read, and engage with the materials around his episode.
For any marketing team, existing evergreen content is a huge asset. Such content isn’t tied to a specific event, place, or time, so you can wring them out to generate countless blogs, social posts, videos, and more.
Baer’s conversation is evergreen. Why? Because podcasting is a growing channel that many brands have yet to adopt, compared to blogging, where everyone has one.
Plus, podcasting is a relatively new concept, so it’s easy to see why Baer’s opinion and conversation are still relevant nearly two years after publishing our first episode.
That’s precisely why we continue pulling this perspective into content and promoting it.
We spent time and energy getting everything around our first podcast episode just right. We did all the podcast things we were supposed to do to make it great.
As part of our amplified marketing strategy, we’ve chosen to continue promoting the episode through our marketing channels. Not only that, but it’s our first episode, so it’s been around the longest.
By giving it more room to breathe and more exposure to our audience, the episode has a longer shelf life and continues to deliver more results.
What’s the lifespan of your content? Here are a few researched statistics to consider:
To truly reap the benefits of your content marketing efforts, you need to create relevant and helpful content for your target consumers. Otherwise, you’ll waste time and resources on content that no one is interested in. But in a world where media trends keep changing, staying relevant can be difficult.
Here are some tips to help you lengthen the shelf life of your content, maintain its evergreen appeal, and see results as we do from our first show.
Give them the examples they want in your content or show. If you only focus on what you want, your content won’t age well or satisfy your audience.
Instead, do the following:
When Baer and Adam Brown started podcasting, they didn’t record video at the same time. Today, they do more than just record videos while podcasting.
“So what we do now is we take the video, and then our post-production team essentially creates a five-minute highlight reel of the most interesting statements and questions, et cetera, from each episode. Then we use that highlight reel on YouTube, and then we cut it down further and use it for more visual, social media marketing, like Instagram stories, et cetera.”
Besides creating video content for social media marketing, Baer and Adam use the videos as promotional assets. Occasionally, they record their show on LinkedIn Live and Facebook Live, which allows listeners to ask questions of the guests in real time.
“It’s just a little different way to reach the audience. So, we don’t do it always, but every once in a while, we do a live show, and it’s fun to break format a little bit.”
Your audience’s opinions and what they want, like, or need is the most important factor to consider. When you focus on using conversations to drive connections, you’ll build a fanbase of loyal raving fans that will eventually lead to the results you’re hoping for.
With a small amount of effort, you can create a content process that will engage your audience no matter where they are or the kind of content they’re looking for.
To stay at the top of your content marketing game, you need a plan to cut through the noise and maximize the efficacy of your content.
Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered. Schedule a demo to get your team moving in the right direction.