Written by Trevor Mauch Shifting Your Marketing Mindset
Evergreen vs. Hamsterwheel Marketing
Watch the video below to learn how to use Carrot’s tools & create content that will resonate with your audience long-term and not disappear into the clutter!
You can have the best website in the world, the fastest loading, the highest converting… But if you don’t consistently get the right people visiting your website that you can help with the services or products you offer, it won’t do much for you.
On the other hand, you can have lots of traffic, but a terrible website, which can be a leaky bucket costing you tens of thousands per year.
With the shifting business landscape and changes in how people consume information online, this requires a full strategy shift in the way you’re approaching marketing.
Inbound evergreen marketing (SEO and content) takes time and patience. This isn’t a tactic or technique that you try for a few weeks and stop.
Lots of people create content. Everything you post on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok is content.
The problem with most content is it has a very short shelf life.
If you’re posting videos on Facebook, great! But the average lifespan of a FB video is 72 hours… then it’s pushed down the feed and no one will see it… so you have to keep cranking out new content. And that video you uploaded a month ago, it’s not going to be pulling leads and customers in 6 or 12 months.
This is what we call “Hamster Wheel” marketing: Marketing that stops bringing you results after you stop the activity. You’re required to always be on the hamster wheel cranking away. It works, but is tiring and long-term a grind (opposite of freedom and flexibility). This can include direct mail, cold calling, text message marketing, short-form social media content, in person networking, you get the idea.
Then there is Evergreen Marketing: Helpful Evergreen content like blog posts, resources pages and long-form videos can continue to work for months and years after you put it out to the world. You find out what your best clients or customers want to see online (answers to their problems, content, value), you create content around it, upload it online, and they find it. That content stays online forever… as long as you keep your website live. People can continue to find it for years. You stack content pieces over time… momentum builds and you can get off the marketing hamster wheel.
We suggest a mix of BOTH.
Evergreen marketing isn’t fast or usually won’t bring in leads immediately. Evergreen marketing is like eating healthy foods, taking your vitamins, and doing things to build energy and health in the long-term.
Hamster wheel marketing is like taking a 5-hour energy shot. Yes, it’ll quickly give you energy… but then you crash once it wears off and if you keep only doing it, you’ll end up exhausted.
Long-term health and wellness take a commitment… a shift in the way you live. Evergreen Marketing likewise takes a commitment, a shift in the way you look at marketing.
Just uploading content to a website isn’t evergreen marketing. Yes, it’ll be on your website, but is it continually attracting high-quality prospects to your site and converting them? Is it unique from what your competitors are sharing, and does it differentiate you as a trustworthy brand?
Hamster Wheel marketing can be very useful in the short term and/or to grow your deal volume, and Evergreen marketing can build for long-term momentum for high-margin deals consistently with decreasing cost over time.
Evergreen Marketing Framework
Build Out Your Lead Gen Hub
It takes patience. Momentum with ranking high in Google for the phrases your ideal clients are searching for can take 3 – 12 months, depending on the size and competitiveness of the market (when executed properly). Agent/Investor client Tyler Ford calls it the 2-6-1 method. Hard work for 2-6 months for big results within 1 year.
But it’s worth it. But once momentum is gained, consistent and predictable leads (the highest quality and most motivated) is the result. This is where true freedom and flexibility come from.
Here’s proof!
- Brian Rockwell: From school teacher to $600k+/yr 100% from Carrot
- Tyler Ford: 20-year investor/agent vet was going to quit, now LOVES his business and earns more than ever… with more freedom.