Every marketing campaign, blog, social media post or any original content can be categorized into two different segments; seasonal and evergreen. Marketers will choose the content category for each campaign based on the business objectives and timeline.
This blog post will compare the differences between seasonal and evergreen marketing, provide examples of each, and give you some insight on how to choose the right category for your business’ marketing needs.
What is Seasonal Content?
Seasonal marketing and content refer to campaigns that are relevant during specific times of the year. They may include event-based campaigns and holiday or seasonal campaigns. They are usually trendy and have high interest and search volume for a short time.
Examples of seasonal content:
Event-based campaigns: Back to school, sports events and Playoffs season
Holidays campaigns: Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Easter, Ramadan and other holidays
Seasonal campaigns: Spring/Fall collection, Summer/Winter vacation, tire change season
Trend based: Pop culture, viral events, breaking news events
Benefits and Challenges of Seasonal Content:
Benefits:
Since seasonal content follows time-sensitive trending topics and events, they typically result in higher traffic conversions in a short period and are more likely to reach a viral audience.
Seasonal content is also geared towards a niche audience, resulting in less competition than evergreen content based on more generic topics.
Due to the niche nature of seasonal content, they also tend to include long-tail keywords, which provide a better opportunity for SEO ranking for those specific keywords.
Challenges:
Seasonal content has a limited time for availability and content relevance; as a result, they have a shorter life-cycle.
When creating seasonal content, the trending content must be consistently produced and shared to stay relevant and top of mind. (Think of early 2000s BuzzFeed)
You must plan ahead to ensure deadlines for the blog/social posts and all related content for the campaign are completed and published to reach the intended audience within the appropriate time.
Seasonal content typically cannot be repurposed for other events and campaigns. For example, a blog post regarding Valentine’s day gift guide and promotions cannot be published as a social media post for Easter-related promotions and engagement.
What is Evergreen Content?
In contrast to seasonal marketing, evergreen marketing and content are relevant throughout the year without expiration. They are typically produced once and can lead to timeless and lasting benefits.
Examples of seasonal content:
Feature and Benefits: Product/service reviews and highlights
Educational and Knowledge-Based: How-to guides and case studies
Benefits and Challenges of Evergreen Content:
Benefits:
Evergreen content remains relevant throughout the year and can bring consistent traffic to the website whenever your audience reaches the content online.
Since evergreen content relevancy does not expire, they have a longer life cycle than seasonal content.
The content can be created once and be repurposed repeatedly to bring attention and users back to the site for various campaigns.
It is more flexible to create Evergreen content as there are no deadlines to publish.
Challenges:
Evergreen content generally has more competition since many similar pieces of content are available online. More time and effort need to be put into the research and delivery to ensure the piece provides value.
It is more challenging to be noticed and stand out with an evergreen topic amongst the vast number of existing content.
Due to a high level of competition, it is also more challenging to rank for SEO when creating broad topics with short-tail keywords.
You may have to update and adjust an evergreen piece of content to ensure all the information provided remains relevant over time.
Best Practices:
Since both methods have their benefits and challenges, it is recommended to implement a hybrid practice and use evergreen and seasonal content as a mix in your marketing campaigns for optimal results.
The key is to plan for your seasonal marketing ahead of time to encourage a boost in sales and increase website traffic around specific events and times of the year. You can then utilize the evergreen method to showcase your knowledge expertise and repurpose the evergreen content multiple times throughout the year to bring traffic back to your website.
Get in touch, If you have a question or need help planning your next marketing campaign.