Is there a place for evergreen content in newsletters?

What do I mean?

There is this idea in content creation that some stories are timely:

Breaking news

Trending topics

Of-the-moment commentary

And then there’s evergreen content:

Topics that aren’t timely, but are important, and likely to be found helpful

Media editors tend to assign a mix, asking both “What’s new this week/month/year that we should cover?” and “What will our readers ALWAYS care about?”

Typically, evergreen content is on hand at any given time to be used as valuable filler.

I remember writing evergreen stories for Parents Magazine about topics pregnant mothers cared about: creating birth plans, a guide to prenatal classes, etc.

And I also remember the residual revisions they required when new editors were hired and looked to update the repository of evergreen articles waiting to be published.

Because even evergreen content needs to be refreshed to reflect new information to be published.

But how should this be adapted for newsletters?

Confession: I have 500+ collected links that haven’t made it into the 60 published issues of Opt In Weekly.

I should probably go through and delete the ones that are outdated or now seem irrelevant, but even then I’ll probably have 100 or so that I’m not ready to let go of just yet in the case that I truly need content and can justify sharing it.

And I’m assuming you have an idea file of some sort you could turn to if needed.

But I think that many of us value the timeliness of newsletters and attempt to publish content that captures the events, thoughts, and narratives of the here and now.

It’s part of building rapport and intimacy with our readerships.

We experience things together.

And, oftentimes, what we learn today changes what we believed yesterday.

So, as I begin 2022 and consider ways I can improve my newsletter and the process behind it, especially the idea that I probably should have something evergreen waiting to save me in a moment of creative panic, I’m going to test out creating backup content.

While some might be able to create an entire backup issue, I think I’d prefer to have backup bits (an evergreen Prologue or 2, some evergreen Newsletter Tips, etc.), so that, if needed, I could toss together these bits, finesse, and have a less-effort-required issue.

But the challenge will be in deciding what can be evergreen, and what will lose its luster the longer I wait to publish.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Now, let’s get to the curated newsletter goodness…

Ashley Guttuso