5 Examples of Timeless, Evergreen Content Every Real Estate Agent Should Use in Their Marketing

“Content marketing” has been around since 1895, when John Deere published “The Furrow,” a quarterly magazine they used to help educate customers and build a relationship with them. It was groundbreaking because it wasn’t blatant advertising, even though it was likely done in hopes of selling their products.

However, the actual term “content marketing” was only coined in 1996 by a journalist named John F. Oppedahl, as the internet was making this type of marketing more accessible and prevalent. But most real estate agents weren’t even using it back then, it still took a little while for agents to truly adopt it.

In the earliest stages of real estate content marketing, agents were encouraged to start a blog. It was a lot of work to come up with ideas for content, write the blog posts, and then manage to even get people to read it, let alone see any immediate results. So it often seemed pointless, and many agents gave up on it.

But social media has changed the game even more, making it easier to pump out content and get some immediate reactions to it, which has led to many agents using at least some form of content marketing to promote themselves.

The problem is, social media encourages people to constantly create new, trendy content that has the shelf life of a day or two… maybe a week if you’re lucky. That type of content marketing is certainly useful marketing and branding to help you stay top-of-mind with prospects, but it often leads to agents not creating any timeless “evergreen” marketing content.

What’s “evergreen” content? Well, to put it into context, if you wrote and published a solid piece of evergreen real estate content when the term “content marketing” was coined in 1996, it could still be relevant and getting read by your prospects to this day! (Well, perhaps with a few tweaks and edits to freshen it up.) Think about how great it’d be to have a selection of content you could literally rely on for that many years!

Evergreen content is the type of stuff you write once, and get mileage out of for years to come. And, not only is it helpful content prospects are looking for and want to read, but it helps create a more prepared client for you to work with!

“Evergreen” Content Isn’t Just Good for Years to Come… It’s Good Year-Round!

An evergreen tree may not be as flashy or impressive as a brightly blooming tree in spring or summer, and may not have the spectacular colorful foliage some trees do in fall, but its green needles never fade, fall, or take a day off. And, much like its namesake, evergreen content should not only stand the test of time and be useful year after year, it should also be useful to people every day throughout the year.

Unlike timely or trending content, which has a short lifespan and quickly becomes obsolete, evergreen content remains fresh and informative, providing value to your audience long after it’s been published.

A person who’s on the verge of buying or selling a house is likely looking for useful information about buying or selling a house. And there isn’t a single season when people buy and sell houses. There’s constantly new people just starting the process throughout the year.

So having some content that addresses timeless questions, concerns, and information about the process for buyers and sellers is a great way to find prospects, build a relationship with them, and eventually convert them into a client.

Start by Creating These 5 Key Pieces of Evergreen Real Estate Content

Evergreen content comes in all sorts of formats. Articles or blog posts are probably the most common form, but they’re not as substantial or memorable as a full blown how-to guide. In fact, having a solid selection of how-to guides makes any articles or blog posts you write in the future even more useful, since you can use them as a way to route people to your guides and offer them as a lead magnet to get their contact info.

Here are a few ideas for some timeless, universal guides you should create to start off your library of evergreen content:

• A seller’s guide that prepares and educates homeowners about everything they need to know all the way to the closing table.
• A guide on how to prepare their house for sale is an even more specific guide to offer potential sellers. Offer them tips and tricks on how to get their house show-ready in the quickest amount of time, and maximize their return-on-investment without spending a lot of money.
• A buyer’s guide that addresses the most common hiccups, hurdles, and objections buyers face throughout the process.
• A guide to help renters figure out if owning a home makes more sense than renting. Rather than just telling people it always makes more sense to buy, help them figure it out for themselves by writing a guide that gives them the pros and cons of both. A non-pushy approach may be just what they need to pull the trigger and become a homeowner.
• A first-time buyer guide to help buyers who need a little more info and insight into the homebuying process than other buyers.

While it wouldn’t be a bad idea to add more and more evergreen content over time, these five pieces alone could be the only workhorses you need for years to come.

A Couple of Tips for Writing Them

It might sound like a lot of writing when you look at that list of guides, but think about it, once you write them, they’re going to be working for you for years to come! So they’re definitely worth the time and effort you’ll need to put into them.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Make them fun and entertaining. The term “guide” or “how-to” may not sound like something fun to read (or write!), but if you can jazz yours up with some conversational wit and humor sprinkled throughout it, you’ll keep their attention and people will enjoy reading it more, and make it more enjoyable for you to write. The bonus to doing this is that people will connect with you more because it’ll sound and feel like a real person is speaking to them, rather than a dry booklet that could’ve been written by artificial intelligence.
• Keep them short and to the point. Don’t skimp on info, but people also don’t need (or want) a long book to read. Give them the scoop in bit-sized pieces that they can read in a sitting or two. Break down each topic you decide to cover into separate “chapters” and make them a page or two. So, for instance, if you can come up with 20 main points you want to share in your guide, make it 20 one-page chapters of concise insight. Doesn’t sound like quite as much writing now, does it?
• Format them so that they can be sent as a PDF download, or a print version. Downloadable PDFs are great for snagging someone’s email address online, but having a nice printed copy of your guide that they can request be sent to their house gives you a chance to either mail it, or use it as an opportunity to swing by with it in-person and try to meet them. (Not a bad idea to have some print versions with you at open houses either! Offer them for free in exchange for peoples’ contact info.)
• Have a friend, relative, or past client review it before you click the publish button. Getting an outsider’s perspective on your guide can help make sure you’ve included everything people would want to know about the process, and they can catch any glaring mistakes. But you may also want to hire a professional editor to give it a once over as well.

You can add your branding to them and make them look like you authored them with just a few clicks of your mouse, and start sharing them immediately. And you can even turn on a lead generation button that’ll automatically offer up your Branded Booklet as a PDF download in exchange for the readers’ contact info whenever you share one of the over 1,600 articles you’ll also have access to, ranging from humorous, to informative and resourceful!

And of course you’ll also have access to tons of timely, trendy Lighter Side content (like our memes!) to share daily and stay top-of-mind with your audience, in addition to the evergreen content you’ll use for years to come… without spending years creating it!