Always-Ready Content Sells Year After Year After Year
When developing content, go green—evergreen that is. Content is all the rage, but how do organizations best promote themselves in this age of short attention spans and trending topics? The best way is to prepare content that is evergreen and optimized for search.
Always-ready content is search engine optimized (SEO) content that is always ready for a search of a particular word, phrase, idea or concept. It is evergreen, or content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers and viewers for many years. This allows you to continue to add more and more content so eventually you cover every possible search-word or phrase possibility that is pertinent to your organization.
Nearly 4 years ago, we produced a series of informational videos on specific maladies for Water’s Edge Dermatology in South Florida. One of the videos was on Tinea Versicolor. There was no boosting for this video, it’s audience of viewers built organically over time as people searched for the video tags and found the information they were seeking. And it keeps selling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when people are in the market for the information.
Videos like this need strong titles, meta data and search terms. They also need to be constructed in such a way so that the look and music is timeless, as well. Today, the video has received nearly 56,000 views. If just 1% of the people viewing called Water’s Edge and booked an appointment the results would be (Source for average patient revenue is Eric Schweiger, MD, Schweiger Dermatology Group):
- 560 patients
- nearly $130 average per patient revenue
- $73,000 in total revenue
Now that is evergreen.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.