As an entrepreneur, you have to make several decisions daily that determine the fate of your business. One of the key aspects that entrepreneurs think about is marketing their products and services as it has a direct correlation to their overall success. There are many free avenues to get your products and services in the eyes of potential customers; however, at some point, you will have to invest in paid marketing as well to stay competitive. Learn how entrepreneurs can choose between organic and paid marketing to craft their online marketing strategy and enjoy high marketing ROI.
What is Paid Marketing?
Ever searched for something and then seen an ad about a product related to your search later on? That’s basically how paid marketing works. As the name suggests, paid marketing refers to getting more visibility for your brand by paying for ads.
Search engines and social media platforms help connect brands with people who are actively searching for products or services online. Paid marketing includes tactics like social media ads and email campaigns. These types of ads allow companies to reach customers immediately at scale. However, paid marketing can be expensive if not done correctly, so it’s important to consider outsourcing to a reputable PPC marketing service.
What is Organic Marketing?
Organic marketing refers to utilizing free avenues such as guest blogging and SEO to market your brand. This type of marketing generally relies on search engine optimization (SEO) to get your content seen by potential customers. Organic marketing can be likened to an athlete who doesn’t take any performance-enhancing drugs to boost their performance. They patiently put in the work and wait before the results start to show. If you’re patient and willing to invest the time and effort, then organic marketing can do wonders for your business.
Key Differences between them
Paid marketing provides more immediate results, while organic marketing takes more time. Organic marketing is also more sustainable as you don’t have to spend much to get your brand’s name out there. The right choice for your firm depends on your goals, how much you are willing to spend, and the amount of energy and time you want to expand in your endeavors.
In general, if you’re a new business that is short on cash, then start with organic marketing. When you start to generate cash flows, and there is financial space available, then move towards paid advertising. However, if you are a new entrant that has investors and wants to come out in the market guns blazing and steal the thunder from your competitors, then paid to advertise is the way to go. It also depends on the nature of your product. If you are a drop shipping business that uses viral products, then you have a short window to capitalize on, and paid advertising is what you need. On the other hand, if you are a restaurant in Manhattan and want to attract more people to dine in, then organic marketing is ideal.
Why not Both?
Choosing between paid marketing or organic marketing for your business can be a tricky decision. There are strong arguments in favor of both approaches. Ideally, you need a mix of both strategies to generate the most revenue. With paid marketing, you get access to customers you would otherwise miss out on by relying strictly on organic traffic. By balancing with organic marketing, you can reduce the cost of customer acquisition. A good PPC agency can help you get the most out of your marketing budget and balance between organic and paid marketing.
Types of Organic Marketing
Guest Posts
Writing guest posts is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. It involves cultivating relationships and earning the trust of popular websites in your niche and industry. It’s a way to establish “expert status” and social proof that helps the Google algorithm give you better rankings and drive traffic to your site. This helps improve your website’s domain authority. If you have a new site or a site that only has a few articles on it, then you should guest post to build backlinks. You must find the right keywords to use across the content piece to get the best results. Guest posting is also a great way to get new subscribers as it allows you to build your email list. To be successful, you must write compelling content. People will only share content among their networks if they find it relevant or entertaining.
SEO
Search engine optimization is an effective way to get more traffic without breaking the bank. SEO is all about improving the user search experience. Google rewards sites with a higher ranking that focuses on providing value to users efficiently.
By improving your website on factors such as page loading speed and quality of content, you will get more visitors to your website and increase the odds of getting a conversion. SEO services include on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO.
Facebook Groups
You can also make groups on Facebook to build a community. By engaging with your target market in these groups, you will improve their engagement levels, improve brand loyalty and stop them from churning to your competitors. By building a relationship with them, you can increase their customer lifetime value.
Types of Paid Marketing
Social Media Ads
Social media advertising is a good way to drive traffic to your site because it allows for targeted marketing. You can narrow down your target market based on variables such as location, age, gender, job title, etc. when advertising on different social media platforms. It’s also important to find out which social media platform will be more effective for your particular effective for each. For example, when advertising to corporates, you need to use LinkedIn. If you are targeting teens, then YouTube and Facebook are perfect.
PPC
PPC or paid search is an advertising model where advertisers pay for the delivery of their ads to relevant consumers via a pay-per-click (PPC) keyword bidding model. The goal of PPC is to increase awareness and lead generation. While search engine marketing can be quite challenging, it is also one of the most -effective ways of getting your site ranked in search results, provided you know what you are doing. Use long tail keywords to get the most benefits from this strategy.
The best way to use them is to show your ads on websites that are meaningful to your target market. If you have a product that is aimed at families, for example, then you could sponsor a post from a parenting website. If all this seems overwhelming, then consider working with an experienced PPC agency. They know the costly mistakes to avoid that throw the marketing budget down the drain.
