Announcing the Content for Email and Email for Engagement eBook. You can download a free copy now or take a sneak peek below at some highlights from one of the chapters.

A helpful guide for nonprofits, the eBook offers tips for planning and executing an effective email engagement strategy using evergreen content and marketing automation tools. You’ll get a first-hand look at practices you can easily implement to grow your email list and drive engagement with new and existing subscribers.

Why Evergreen Content?

All types of content are important to your email content strategy. But evergreen content is unique in that it maintains its value for some time. The effort put into creating evergreen content and setting up automation around it has the potential to show long-term results and improved ROI for your organization. It also generates data that can help you personalize any follow-ups with those who engage with your content.

Below are just a few examples of popular evergreen content. Have you used any of these tactics successfully in your current email engagement strategy?

• How-To guide

• Research report

• Tip/Cheat sheet

• Infographic

• Email course

• eBook

Assessing the Value of Your Evergreen Content

So you have an idea for a piece of evergreen content. Maybe it’s a few blog posts on a related topic. Maybe it’s a single blog post that is epic in length. Or maybe it’s a collection of success/impact stories. How do you know your idea for evergreen content is a good one? And how do you know if it has strong engagement potential?

The effectiveness of your evergreen content is determined by how well it:

• Targets a specific audience

• Solves a problem or addresses an audience need

• Aligns with your organization’s mission

Let’s look at this list in more detail.

Specificity

Create something that serves the needs of a single audience, with a single marketing goal, aligned with a single theme.

Specificity offers a degree of value not only for the target audience but also for you. It gives you the unique opportunity to personalize your follow-up marketing.

Let’s say you have an organization focused on helping seniors use technology. Maybe your current content is geared toward those seniors, or promotes general awareness of your mission.

But what about creating activities for sons, daughters, or grandchildren to do with their senior parents or grandparents?

Solves a Problem or Addresses an Audience Need

Put yourself in the shoes of the person you want to engage and assess the need or problem your evergreen resource will address.

Continuing with the example above, what if you create an evergreen resource with activities for loved ones to do with their beloved senior on how to use FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangout, or Facebook Messenger for video chat.

A content idea like this has great potential and addresses a specific need – helping children or grandchildren engage their senior parents/grandparents in a way that can better connect the family.

Make sure your content solves a problem or addresses a need, like the example shared above.

Ask yourself:

• Does the content provide guidance to help my audience do their job or live their lives better?

• Does it offer information to help them understand something they’re interested in?

• Does it offer tools that can be used to create something of personal value?

Alignment

Alignment is another important factor that determines how effective your evergreen content is. For example, you could produce a calendar filled with cat pictures that solves everyone’s problem of not being able to get enough of cute cats. But if your organization is about developing programs for youth to learn how to code, your awesome cat calendar will not connect you to people who are ready to support your cause.

But, if your organization is focused on ending substance abuse and you produce a resource about how parents can talk to their kids about the abuse of ADHD prescription drugs, you have alignment.