What is Organic Marketing and can it lead to your business’ long term success?

Common misconceptions about organic marketing

That it’s easy to do with AI and keyword stuffing

Content is becoming a lot easier to generate because of ChatGPT, but it's not necessarily becoming easier to generate good content or useful content. You need to be able to create content that is helpful or useful for your customers rather than just stuffing keywords on pages like you used to be able to do back in the day. 

The good news is that there are many ways to tackle content creation, whether it’s through visual infographics, photo, video, written copy or a mixture of all. Find out what you’re good at, what you can outsource and what works best for the nature of your industry.

That it generates an instant return on investment

Organic marketing is a long-term process where you are building your presence overtime rather than trying to drive someone instantly who is ready to convert, so it might take a few months for organic marketing to deliver a return for a business. 

The good news is that once it's at that point where it's delivering a return, it makes sense to continue investing in it. At that point, it's all the cream on top. So if you can get to the point where your organic is paying for itself, then the more that you can build on that.

Why organic marketing is so important

It’s cost effective and great for long-term sustainability

In the long term, organic marketing is typically more cost-effective than paid advertising. Instead of shelling out cash for every click or view, you create good content and build real connections. This takes some work and patience, but it generates some long-term results by earning your audience's trust and loyalty. 

Builds relationships and trust

Organic marketing centres on building genuine connections with audiences, rather than one-time transactions. People are generally driven by emotions, so if they feel like you’re a helpful source, or even just enjoying your content, they’ll start to build trust in you and use you as a source whenever they’re ready to inquire, buy, or learn more. 

Increased search engine visibility

One component of organic marketing is search engine optimisation (SEO). Content fuels SEO. If you carefully map out relevant keywords that your audience is likely to search and then optimise your content with those keywords, the right headings, URL, meta descriptions, rich content and internal linking, then you’ll set your visibility up for success. 

It gives you a competitive edge

Your original content will help you stand out from all the digital noise which is only getting more and more saturated. Whether it’s the way you talk to their pain points, reach their emotional motivations, or present your story, there will always be someone invested in your content, brand and offerings.

It reduces your dependency on ads

Diversifying your approach to digital marketing ensures that you cover all bases, including reducing your vulnerability to sudden ad-related changes on Google or other social media platforms. Organic marketing helps you stay relevant even when you need to pause your ads or change your ads strategy.

Things to think about before creating an organic marketing strategy

If you’ve made this far, it means you’re interested in getting your organic marketing strategy rolling. But just like anything new, there are always going to be things to know, do, or consider before you get cracking. 

Brand clarity - where do you want your business to be?

Your brand is how you make people feel. It's the vibe, values, vision, mission, and USP’s (Unique Selling Points) that sets you apart from competitors in the market. Your customers instantly get to know what you're about and why they should choose you. From your image, to your tone of voice, and your messaging, every experience at every touchpoint needs to align with your brand, and create a consistent and memorable experience. 

And not just for today, but where you want your brand to be in the future, and then making sure your organic marketing encompasses that entire journey from start to finish.

Customer journey - who do you want to attract?

Understanding your customers from beginning (top of the funnel) to end (bottom of the funnel/conversion) is crucial for any digital marketing strategy, as your business exists for your customers. Your customers don’t just exist in the middle and bottom of the funnel. In fact, that’s only a small percentage of customers that are ready to buy today. 

Think about it from the top of the funnel approach, and who else you can get in front of before they even need your product or service. Understanding the whole customer journey is key to getting your brand known from an organic marketing perspective.

Rich, helpful and useful content - how will you talk to your customers?

Once you understand the vision of your brand and who your customers are at all stages of the customer journey funnel, you then create the content with the right messaging for the right channels to reach them at the right time. But it’s not just about creating content and choosing a marketing channel. 

Your content needs to be compelling, rich and helpful to generate the best engagement, which signals to algorithms that your content is positively gaining traction. 

Hint: If you’re currently running paid ads, you can see what kind of ads are working and which aren’t. So you can actually take that information and build content from what’s working.

Ways to do organic marketing

Organic search with blog posts

People are constantly on Google searching for solutions to various types of problems. Whether it’s “my back hurts suddenly” or “how to fix a leaking window” or even “why was Sharknado a flop”, there is always an answer to every question. And you can get amongst that and provide your own expert knowledge within your industry. 

For example, you might be a finance broker providing insights on the best ways to budget for a house, how to have a healthy credit score, or things to consider before buying a house. 

Or, you might be a beauty product, showcasing best night time routines for dry skin, how to choose the best moisturiser for your skin, or how to know what skin type you are.

Sharing your expertise no matter what industry you are in means you can put your brand in front of your audience and position yourself as a trusted authority, gaining the appeal of Google and improving organic traffic.

How do you get started with blogs? 

1. Understand your audience: Determine who your target audience is. What are their interests, pain points, and questions? Tailor your blog content to address their needs.
2. Keyword Research: Find out relevant keywords and phrases that your audience is likely to search for. Tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush can help you find valuable keywords to target.
3. Plan your topics and content: Decide on your topics and what you’ll talk about within each topic. Write well researched, engaging and high-value content. Make sure your content is informative and shareable. 
4. Optimise your content for search engines: Sprinkle relevant keywords within the copy, use headings, image alt text, meta-titles and the right URL. 
5. Include Internal and External Links: Include links to relevant pages within your own website (internal links) and reputable external sources (external links). This enhances the credibility and authority of your content.

Try back-linking and PR outreach

Back-linking is finding opportunities in making yourself a source of information on another brand's content, that is in a relevant or complimentary industry. PR outreach is essentially the process of getting those backlinks from a content perspective. How do you go about getting backlinks from other relevant sources?

1. Choose an angle: What are you hoping to achieve out of the back-link and what you can give the other brand in exchange for linking to you? 
2. Compile a media list: Research and identify big players in your industry that you want a backlink from
3. Leverage Social Media: Share your information on your social media platforms to reach more people, especially other journalists, bloggers and influencers. 
4. Build Relationships: PR outreach is about building relationships, not just getting coverage. Engage with journalists on social media even when you don't have news to share.
5. Outreach: When the time is right and relationships are built, introduce yourself and explain why your source is relevant to their audience and why they should link to you. 

Leverage social media marketing

If you don’t currently have a website to write blogs or back-link from, social media marketing is also a great way to do organic marketing. It involves creating engaging content, building a community and fostering relationships.

1. Choose the right platforms: Identify where your audience hangs out. Each platforms caters to a different use, audience, demographic and interest. 
2. Optimise your profile: Create compelling bio descriptions and make sure your branding is consistent across your platforms. 
3. Use a variety of content types: Share a mix of organic content from articles, videos, photos and infographics. They should all provide value and have visual appeal. 
4. Engage with your audience and similar brands: Give engagement to get engagement. Comment on other peoples posts, reply to messages, share their content and essentially get your brand in their notifications list, and they’ll do the same back which will positively impact your own reach. 

Humanise your brand: People are driven by emotions. So show the human side of your business. Share stories, employee highlights, and values to connect on a personal level.

See where organic marketing fits in your business growth plan

All in all, organic marketing plays a crucial role in your overall business growth strategy by providing sustainable, cost-effective, and authentic methods to expand your brand's reach, build credibility, and drive customer engagement. 

If you want to grow your business beyond what you envision, stop relying only on ads and become a household name, you absolutely need to consider an organic marketing strategy.