Businesses and organizations in all industries have similar goals: to sell their products/services, attract new customers, and stand out amongst competitors. Marketing efforts encompass and work to make all of those goals a reality.
While there are a variety of marketing techniques, marketing methods can be split into two categories: organic and paid. Read on to learn more about the two marketing types and discover how to use multiple marketing methods to your company’s advantage.
Organic Marketing
The goal of organic marketing is to drive new audiences to discover and connect with your brand without using any paid materials. Another way to think of it is word-of-mouth marketing. Using organic marketing skills, you hope your new or current audiences will think of you first when they need your product and service and travel to your website not only to buy from you but also to seek out educational and entertaining content.
Organic marketing includes:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): This means using keywords relevant to your product/service in all copy to be placed at the top of search engines like Google.
- Blogs/Articles: These pieces will establish your brand as the expert on certain topics and help your business gain credibility and trust among potential new consumers.
- Social Media: Regular posts across multiple platforms increase brand discovery and keep current customers informed.
- Email marketing: This marketing material provides educational and entertaining content to audiences.
Paid Marketing
On the other hand, paid marketing is sales-focused; the purpose is to pay to drive audiences to your website to purchase your products/services. Paid marketing includes buying clicks—from Google, social media sponsored posts, and banner ads, for example.
Paid marketing includes:
- PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads: This tactic will display ads you created on search engine result pages or social media when customers use certain keywords or phrases to search. You pay a fee per click.
- Google Ads: This is similar to PPC ads; Google Ads allow your website to take the top spot, or be near the top, of a search result on Google.
- Influencer marketing: An influencer is a user of your product/service with a sizable social media following who promotes your brand on their social media platforms in exchange for free samples or a fee.
Pros and Cons
There are benefits and risks in using both techniques. Organic marketing allows you to establish your brand personality and voice, while paid marketing brings your business sales.
Organic marketing materials like blogs and social media posts can be visible for years after they have been published for no cost. However, it is time-consuming to create content, and it may take time to reach consumers since you’re depending on algorithms or word of mouth.
It costs to run paid efforts like ads, and once you stop paying, your brand will not be as visible. However, with paid marketing, you will likely see immediate results, reach a large audience quickly, and gain instant visibility. In addition, you’ll be able to track ROI to guide your marketing strategy.
Combining Multiple Marketing Methods
Optimum results often come from using both methods in tandem. Organic content works well for small businesses that can target audiences with blogs, social media posts, or SEO. Paid marketing works best when your organization is launching a new product/service or you’re looking for a sales boost.
You can promote your organic content with paid advertising, you can see what organic content performs well and focus your paid efforts on that, or you can analyze SEO performance in your paid media to use in your organic materials.
Need help with organic content or paid advertising? RSPR is an expert in strategic marketing plans. Contact us today to discuss using multiple marketing methods to reach your business goals.