Organic Marketing Success: Best Channels for Your Brand
Launching a business is tough. We agree. But you know what’s tougher? Getting people to notice your business. After all, a great business deserves a great audience. But how do you attract the right people? Sure, paid advertising methods like flyers and digital ads can offer quick results. But if you need a more sustainable and cost-effective way to build brand awareness and drive long-term growth, there is one answer – organic marketing.
Organic marketing is all about cost-free exposure. Done right, it helps steadily nurture brand loyalty without the expense that comes with traditional paid advertising options.
But the real question is – what are the best channels for organic marketing? And what strategies will help you succeed with each of these channels? This blog covers all that and more—let’s dive in!
Organic Marketing: What It Is and Why Brands Need It
In simple words, organic marketing is all about attracting leads, driving website traffic, and boosting your brand’s visibility without relying on paid advertising.
So, why do businesses need to prioritize organic marketing?
- Unlike paid ads that incur a cost, organic marketing is free and hence makes a valuable asset to businesses with a tight marketing budget.
- Ads forcefully place your business in front of the relevant audience. While this does bring a host of benefits, nothing beats the impact of naturally appearing in front of your audience. Organic marketing aims to provide customers with the answers they are looking for and therefore look more authentic. This helps build the brand’s credibility.
- Organic content is known to encourage more meaningful interactions since they are not forced.
- Organic marketing is all about long-term growth in contrast to the quick results and temporary benefits that most paid marketing strategies are known for.
- Finally, organic marketing also helps boost traffic to your website and therefore strengthens your brand’s digital presence.
Having tackled the brass tacks, let’s discuss some of the most productive organic marketing channels and some strategies to make them work.
6 Organic Marketing Channels Every Business Needs
1. SEO
There are plenty of informative and engaging websites in the world. But not all of them appear on the first page of search results, do they? Data shows that about 95% of all search traffic is driven to the results on the first page of Search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing your content so as to get your website to be ranked well by search engines. In other words, about improving your website’s position on the search results page.
Within the SEO umbrella brands need to focus on technical SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
- Technical SEO is about ensuring that your website and content are crawlable. Because, a website that search engines cannot see and understand is definitely not one that’s going to be ranked well.
- On-page SEO is about content optimization. In other words, it is about understanding what the relevant keywords are and building your website content around them. This also includes image SEO.
- Off-page SEO is about link building. Getting backlinks, referrals and more. In fact, most of the other digital organic marketing channels we’ll cover in this blog help drive off-page SEO.
As you can see in the above screenshot, Google’s AI Overview now holds a special place in SEO considerations. To display content in the overview, Google’s search algorithm prioritizes pages with quality content and consistently good user engagement among other factors.
These are pages that appear even more credible and tend to drive more traffic to your website. The video here from WebFX discusses some factors that affect a website’s appearance in the AI Overviews.
2. Blogs
Blogs are one of the most effective tools in organic marketing. By providing users with the answers they are looking for, educating them, and challenging their perspectives, blogs are known to help attract new traffic and retain existing audiences as well. And, they are immensely useful in boosting your SEO. Because with each blog you create, you have a chance to rank well for relevant search terms.
For instance, when you search for SEO-related queries, Semrush’s blogs often rank among the top results. And Semrush is one of the most popular search engine marketing companies out there. Their blogs establish them as the go-to source for search-related news and insights.
Most businesses create blog posts but not all of them manage to make an impact with their blogs. So, how do you make the most of blogging for organic marketing?
Start by clearly defining your target audience and your niche. In other words, have a clear picture of who you are talking to and what you are talking about. The Semrush example we explored earlier is a good example.
Secondly, ensure that your blogs deliver unique and valuable information. Comprehensive content, unique perspectives, and engaging formats are what get your blogs noticed.
In addition to these, you also need quality visuals to enhance the impact of your blogs. From a cover image that attracts attention to engaging blog images that break down the content and make it more engaging, you need high-quality visuals to elevate your blog.
For instance, HubSpot is a leading name in the digital marketing realm. Their blog posts don’t just stand out with their informative content but also with their aesthetic presentations.
To know more about creating blogs that drive traffic, read our blog on the essential types of blog posts in marketing.
3. Guest Posts
The next most important channel for organic marketing is guest posting. This is all about writing blogs or posts for other websites and blogs in an industry relevant to your target audience. It is an excellent digital PR strategy that lets you position your brand in front of a fresh audience.
Moreover, this strategy is all about leveraging the popularity and reach of the chosen website where your guest post would appear. Therefore by understanding the target audience and the existing traffic to the chosen site, you know exactly who your target audience will be in this case. This lets you curate ideas and content and optimize your tone for a more accurate presentation.
Finally, collaborating with other bloggers or brands can lead to valuable relationships within your industry. These connections can open doors for future partnerships, collaborations, and other marketing opportunities as well. Therefore, guest posts are effective networking tools for startups in particular.
So, how do you make the most of guest posting?
- Choose websites or brands that share your values and share your target audience as well.
- Ensure that you stick to the guest posting guidelines defined for the chosen website.
- Come up with unique ideas that add value to the existing content on the website.
- After your guest post goes live, promote it on your social media and other channels.
4. Social Media
Social media is one of the most productive organic marketing channels suitable for all kinds of brands and in all industries.
One of the biggest advantages of social media is its versatility. There are endless ways in which you can use social media channels. From promoting your sale to introducing a new product, building momentum for an offline event to boosting sales during holiday seasons, there are plenty of applications.
For instance, here’s a post from Etsy promoting their Holiday Pop-Up in NYC. The post itself can help build anticipation for their Pop-Up and can easily be converted into a promoted post for targeted marketing when required.
But yes, the social media space is crowded. Hence you need a combination of captivating visuals and a unique tone to cut through the noise. Learn from the popular brands on social media. Take cues from their strategies and content formats to gather ideas to work on your own social media strategy.
So, why is social media a great option for organic reach? Because the way people search for information online has evolved over the years. They don’t just use search engines but also social media to find answers (about 31% of consumers).
Considering the shifting search landscape, it makes sense for brands to evolve their marketing approach to organically reach the right audience at the right time through the right channels including social media.
For example, say, you own a home decor store. A customer looking for home decor ideas might be searching for ideas on Pinterest or even Instagram. Therefore, a well-crafted Pinterest page and an aesthetic Instagram page filled with ideas can place your brand in front of this customer.
5. Email Marketing
Emails are timeless tools in organic marketing. By curating email lists with relevant audiences and segmenting them into meaningful groups, you can deliver personalized content that boosts conversions.
Despite the constantly evolving trends in the digital space, emails continue to be some of the most effective ways to reach customers organically. Additionally, email marketing is also one of the best options when it comes to measurability. You know exactly how your strategy is performing and can therefore make continuous tweaks to fine-tune your results.
So, how do you boost your brand’s organic reach using email marketing?
- Know who your target audience is. Inaccurate targeting in email marketing leads to an increase in bounce rate which can be bad for your marketing.
- Fine tune your email content, design and format to suit your target audience’s likes and dislikes.
- Use your marketing emails to make your customers feels like insiders. Exclusive offers, discount codes, timely updates – there are many ways to do this.
- Explore the different types of emails in marketing and use the ones most suitable for your goals.
With these strategies, you have an email marketing strategy that complements your SEO efforts.
For example, here’s an email from Skillshare, a popular online learning platform. By leveraging actual user testimonials, this email convinces users to try the platform. This works better than ads that look forcefully placed or ads interrupting content. In other words, emails like this drive more traffic to your business website or get you more signups at a much less price than paid advertising, in most cases.
6. Podcasts
Audio is one of the underrated secret ingredients in organic marketing. If you are still skeptical about investing in podcasts to boost organic reach, know that about 60% of consumers are more likely to remember podcast ads better than billboards. If that’s the power of advertising through podcasts, imagine reaching customers organically through this channel!
One of the main reasons why podcasts help organic marketing is that they allow businesses to connect with their customers in a more personal and engaging way. They are also great for building a tightly-knit community of like-minded consumers.
For example, the popular American grocery chain, Trader Joe’s has a thriving podcast called Inside Trader Joe’s. This podcast is all about content relevant to Trader Joe’s customers and leads looking to know more about the brand or their offerings. From curated shopping lists to discussions about new launches, their podcast keeps their online community engaged.
Moreover, podcasts let you infuse your brand’s personality into the content more naturally. From the tone to the delivery of the content, every little detail can be tweaked to talk the talk and thus connect better with your target audience. When they feel that strong connection with your content, when your content entertains them and keeps them coming back for more, they feel motivated to check out your website or interact with your business in other ways, more organically.
KIMP Tip: Include a catchy cover image for your podcast preserving your brand identity while also representing what’s unique about your podcast. This helps boost the image of your podcast.
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Tackle the Design Side of Your Organic Marketing Strategies With KIMP
From the examples we analyzed and the strategies we discussed, one thing is clear, you need to have quality content both in the form of text and visuals in order to grab attention and boost organic reach. This is where working with an unlimited design service like KIMP makes a difference.
For a flat monthly fee, you get unlimited designs and a dedicated design team working on all your design requirements. Therefore, constantly adding to your organic marketing efforts becomes simpler.
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