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Organic marketing gives 3x more leads at 62% lesser cost.
What is organic marketing?
Any marketing effort that is free is called ‘organic marketing’. These marketing tactics still require time and effort to create and execute, but will not need additional finances. A few examples are social media profiles, landing pages, blogs, podcasts, networking etc.
Why is organic marketing better than paid marketing?
The biggest advantage of organic marketing is that it is free. These efforts are especially useful for companies that have a small budget or just starting out. Organic marketing gets 3x more leads for a business at 62% lesser cost than paid marketing. In addition, organic marketing can also be used as a test-bed for strategies that could be converted to a paid campaign later.
The second advantage comes from the nature of organic marketing efforts. Since this kind of marketing is primarily focused on building awareness and converting strangers into leads, it engages people early in their purchasing process. This helps to build a more loyal audience. 64% of online shoppers said they are influenced to make a purchase by seeing a video on social media. These people will have time to understand your business through content and make an informed purchasing decision.
Why is it worse?
Organic marketing is a slow process because it waits for people to find the brand first, and then engages them. In comparison, a paid ad can immediately target the relevant people and show them the ad.
It takes considerable effort to create the content required for organic marketing. The business needs to have a clear strategy, goals and objective for organic marketing and be consistent in its implementation.
Things to remember for organic marketing
As with any marketing strategy, it is important to have a clear plan. Here are some of the aspects that you should plan for.
What is the overall objective of your organic marketing? – Broadly speaking, it could be brand awareness or lead generation. You could be focused on spreading the word about your business and getting more traffic to your website. Or you could be focused on collecting contact information of people who are in your target audience.
What channels will you use? What is the objective of each channel? – The marketing strategy will (and should) contain multiple channels like website, social media etc. This will help you to reach out and attract maximum people, in a way that is convenient for them. Each channel must have a clear place in your objective and contribute towards the same goal. E.g. your social media’s goal could be to engage your followers in creative discussions about your products, while your website’s goal could be to attract new users through SEO-optimised product pages. In both cases, you are providing more knowledge about your products to people, eventually converting them into customers.
What content will be the most effective for you? – There is no right answer to this question. The content that works for you will be decided by your product, target audience or location. It may also help your business to ignore the tried-and-tested and go with creative content. Whether you are picking the tried-and-tested route or the creative one, always test to see how it performs for YOU. If the test is successful, then scale up your efforts.
How much can you do? – As I mentioned, organic marketing requires a consistent effort that takes time. Before launching a multi-channel strategy, research the amount of effort required for each channel. Nothing kills a great marketing strategy faster than lack of effective execution. This is where your testing will come in handy, as you can pilot it for a short duration. If you find that you are putting in too much effort for little return, then scrap that tactic and move onto another one.
Now that you know what is organic marketing, you should definitely include it in your marketing plan. In the next few posts, I will look at different organic strategies to grow your customer base. Or you can skip ahead to the specific post from here:
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