In the constantly changing world of digital marketing, there are two broad categories by which companies go about their advertising efforts: paid and organic. It’s generally not one or the other — both paid and organic marketing complement each other and serve their own distinct purposes.
The goal of organic marketing, in short, is to bring people to your website by providing what they need rather than directly advertising to them — in other words, if you build the garden, butterflies will come, as the adage goes.
Read on to learn how you can get started with organic marketing and, in turn, attract the right leads via audience- and purpose-specific content.
What is Organic Marketing?
An organic marketing strategy generates traffic to your business naturally over time, rather than using paid advertising or sponsored posts. Anything you don’t spend money on directly — blog posts, case studies, email marketing, guest posts, unpaid tweets and Facebook updates — falls under the umbrella of organic marketing. That email blast you just sent out? Yup, that’s organic. So is that user-generated content campaign you just launched.
Now, it’s important to emphasize that the term “organic marketing” doesn’t mean that no money is spent. You’re still going to invest in your marketing strategy and any related software (Hubspot for inbound, MailChimp for email lists, Buffer or Sprout for scheduling organic social media posts, and the like). Rather, organic means you’re not paying to boost the specific post itself.
In some ways, it’s easier to define organic marketing by what it isn’t rather than what it is. Let’s go to a visual example:
Every listing starting with “Garden Tools — Gardener’s Supply” and below is an organic search result. It’s listed on the search engine because of organic marketing. The ones above? Businesses paid money to appear there, so any traffic resulting from these links isn’t organic.
Usually, paid links will have an indicator next to them (in the example above, the words “Sponsored” and “Ad” fill this role) while organic links are left bare. You’ll likely remember seeing paid posts on social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You may have even seen sponsored posts on industry websites, where brands will pay a publication to write about their product or something related to their business.
So, What’s the Point of Organic Marketing?
An organic strategy brings customers to your business naturally over time. Instead of directly advertising to your target audience, you’re drawing them in by providing the information they’re looking for. This process is also known as inbound marketing or content marketing.
With that said, there’s no fast track to results. Implementing an organic marketing strategy won’t boost your traffic overnight. In fact, it can take months or years to see the kind of performance you’re looking for. Sources of traffic can be pages and blog posts discoverable through search, unpaid guest posts on industry blogs, social media updates linking back to your website and more.
Organic marketing efforts are utilized for all facets of the consumer funnel. The evergreen content serves as both an effective brand awareness tool as well as a means of converting potential customers. In essence, an effective organic marketing strategy positions quality content in such a way that it reaches potential leads in a natural, non-invasive yet highly relevant manner.
Building Your Organic Marketing Strategy
Think of it this way: An organic marketing strategy convinces search engines that your website is not only relevant to what your audience is looking for but is also reputable. This is why such strategies take time.
Remember, we’re trying to build long-lasting sources of traffic that will help turn users into potential clients. What do these sources look like?
Content and assets hosted on your blog: Ideally, these will populate search engine results when people Google a related term, bringing traffic your way.
Guest posts: Content on an influencer’s or industry-related website is another way to get your content in front of a wider audience. Make sure to link back to your content.
Social media posts: A tweet or LinkedIn post with a link to your website will stay live indefinitely, bringing new traffic to your site.
Video content: As an increasingly popular and engaging form of organic marketing video content can fulfill a host of purposes — product explanatory videos, top-of-funnel informational videos and content repurposing among them.
Email: Segment your audience and offer highly-tailored organic content, reaching far and wide with little to no associated costs.
Case studies: As a means of effectively invoking domain authority, case studies — via in-depth organic — work to build trust, credibility and an increased follower base.
Again, a single post won’t do much to boost your traffic — it’s about building credibility over time. Organic marketing works by building on the work you’ve done before via a series of sustained marketing efforts. The money you invest in the first month keeps bringing customers in the years to come. You may only see minuscule traffic gains at first, but your expenditure decreases as your traffic increases over time.
So, let’s get started creating your new strategy:
Analyze the Traffic Habits of Your Target Audience
How does your target market discover a business like yours? Maybe they rely on review sites, read industry publications, or search “What do I need to solve [X] issue?” Perhaps they follow social media influencers or track hashtags, looking for a new or interesting solution that’s better than the one they already have.
Once you can answer this question, post the type of content they’re looking for, and where they’re looking for it.
Build Your Website’s Content Library
Be sure not to neglect your website in favor of building external links. After all, people will click these links expecting to find quality information, and they’ll be disappointed when they don’t find it. Having a site with little to no content cuts significantly into your sales.
Variety is the spice of life, they say, so there’s no need to stick to one content type. Blog posts are important, but don’t forget about videos, infographics and downloadable assets like white papers and ebooks.
Optimize Your Website for Organic Search
Search engine optimization helps your entire site — not just your content — rank higher and more often on results pages, leading to an increase in organic traffic. While SEO is complex and constantly changing, here are some long-standing quick tips to get you started:
Make sure each page has metadata: This helps search engines understand what your website is about. You’ll always want to include title tags with your most relevant keywords, image tags with alt attributes and a page description.
Design with mobile in mind: Google now ranks websites based on how well they read on smartphones and tablets. Plus, given that 81% of Americans own a smartphone, mobile functionality should be a priority.
Use Social Media Marketing To Boost Your Organic Reach
If you’ve got a great content asset on your website that you think will help boost traffic, share it on social media. Even if you use a paid scheduling platform like Buffer or Hootsuite, it counts as an organic campaign as long as you’re not paying the social media platform to promote the post itself.
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