evergreen content
How To

How to turn a case study into evergreen content (and save yourself hours of time)

leonie waldron
Leonie Waldron
Head Strategist

5 SECOND SUMMARY

  • Evergreen content is blog posts, articles, whitepapers or case studies that aren’t time bound – the information doesn’t go out of date and is relevant and helpful for at least a few years. 
  • Evergreen articles are great because it can be repurposed again and again by posting snippets on social media, turning it into a webinar, or sharing it multiple times in different formats.
  • You’re not being repetitive: assume that few people see your content the first time round. It’s ok to share things multiple times.
Consistently writing and publishing informative, helpful and interesting content on your website can be a challenge for manufacturing and construction businesses. Case studies are the juiciest of content – the type of article that is often most interesting for your end users. This is because they show tangible results, offer ‘social proof’ that your product or service works in the field, and help prospective buyers put themselves in the shoes of someone who has seen good results. But writing case studies can be hard! The manufacturing sector, in particular, is often hampered by the ‘tyranny of distance’: being removed from the actual end user due to distributor or wholesaler networks. This means that marketing teams in manufacturing businesses can find it tricky to source on site photos, real data and testimonials without the cooperation of their distributor networks. It can often take lots of time, research, permission from various levels of management and multiple approvals before you actually have a finished piece that you can publish. So, once you do actually have a case study done and signed off, you want to milk it for all its worth. This is where repurposing your content comes into play. Taking a finished article and reusing it as evergreen content is a smart choice. It will save you time and have a positive impact on your marketing budget.

What is evergreen content?

Any blogs, case studies, articles, whitepapers or other types of content that you create and publish online can be ‘evergreen’. This simply means that they are not tied to a certain trend, date or time period that will make them appear out of date if someone was to come across your article, say, two years after it was published.

How to find out which case studies are the most popular

Existing articles that are helpful and engaging for customers are a great example of evergreen content. Trawl your Google Analytics reports for the case studies, blog posts or articles that are getting the most traffic, and you’ll see what your customers are finding most helpful. If you have an outstanding case study or success story, and you’d like to repurpose it to save yourself time, here are a few ideas to make it evergreen.

Five ways to create evergreen content

1. Re-post the whole article on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a great feature that is designed for longer form content – basically anything you want to share as an individual that is too long for a simple social post. On your LinkedIn newsfeed, you’ll see the ‘write article’ button at the top of the page. Click through to get a simple publishing interface where you can paste your text and add a featured image. Include a catchy headline – remember to focus on the ultimate benefits of your product or service. For example: “How switching to the Acme widget saved XYZ company $20,000 in reworks in just three months”. Be as specific as you can about the benefits of what you offer.
yellow writing pencils in a cup

2. Pull quotes or snippets out of the article and use them on social media

Using some of the key parts of your case study as quotes for your social platforms is a great way to create evergreen content.

For example:

“After just a few months of using Acme’s widget, our production team saw a 30% decrease in reworks. Installing this widget in our system is already helping us streamline our production process.”

Use a great customer quote and remember to include a link to the full article on your website.

3. Use the article as ‘old gold’

There’s nothing wrong with a ‘Throwback Thursday’ style social post, or a ‘revisit’ blog, where you re-share an older article perhaps with an update of the current situation or some additional recent photos.

In this way, even content that is a little dated can become evergreen. This can be especially helpful in cases where the project has a huge public profile, and it’s obvious that it was a few years ago.

For example, a large infrastructure project like WestConnex in Sydney: five years from now this will be old news, but any content you have around it can still be used as ‘old gold’. 

4. Create a webinar or presentation focused on the case study

This one takes a little more work, but it can be a great way to engage warm leads or invite further conversation around the project.

If you have a good relationship with the distributor, end user and engineers involved in the project, you can use a range of online software to create a webinar and invite customers and prospects to attend.

Or, you can even hold a Zoom meeting with the people involved in the project, and record it to share later.

5. Ask others involved in the project to share the case study with their network

Get in touch with the end user and see if they are open to sharing the story in their customer newsletter or EDM.

If your original piece is heavily branded with your own details or contains a little too much detail, it might need a few edits.

The end user might be more receptive to this than you think – after all, the reason they used your product or service is ultimately to make their own offering better for their customers, more efficient, or for some other reason to benefit their own audience.

Rearranging your article slightly or adding an introductory paragraph might help you get this across the line.

And remember, everyone struggles to find good content! It’s likely that you’re saving them a stack of time and effort. 

There are lots of other great ways to promote and reuse your content to ensure it gives you the biggest bang for your buck – if you need a hand with content marketing, one of our freelancers can help. 

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