The Difference Between Organic Marketing and Paid Advertising

Marketing is essential if you want to grow your business.  

It helps new clients and customers find your business, highlights important products or services, and controls your business’s online reputation. 

Employing the best method of advertising to target and engage the right audience is the best thing you can do to grow your business. However, since you have so many options, it can be hard to determine where, when, and how to advertise (a struggle we understand all too well!). 

Digital marketing strategies fall into one of two categories – organic and paid. 

For the best results, your business will want to use both organic and paid marketing, but it can be difficult to know the difference between the two.  

In general, organic marketing utilizes a grassroots, word-of-mouth style of marketing (do good work, customers will talk about it), while paid advertising distributes targeted ads and sponsored posts to social media and search engine users.  

But that’s just the tip of the advertising iceberg. Keep reading, and we will delve deeper into each form of marketing and how you can use both to grow your business. 

What is Organic Marketing and How do I use it? 

Organic marketing is a content-based strategy (i.e. creating social media posts, blogs, website content, videos, graphics, memes, etc) with the purpose of education and entertainment to build brand awareness.  

In short, it helps build trust between you and your audience.  

You will use organic marketing to establish brand tone and personality. Will your brand be witty and humorous (best for attracting younger audiences), or will you showcase style and sophistication (better for an older audience with more distinguished tastes)? 

Organic advertising will often teach your audience something or give them a resource they can take with them. This information should be useful and help them solve problems in their daily lives or clear up confusion.  

Organic marketing helps improve how your audience perceives your company and helps get your brand in front of their eyes more often. Write blogs, make videos, enhance SEO, and interact with your audience for maximum effect. 

What is Paid Advertising and How do I use it? 

If you have ever seen paid advertising on social media (if you’ve ever been on the internet, you have), then you have experienced marketing in the internet age first-hand.  

It is often shocking just how well these ads match our tastes and needs. You may have even thought “Wow! I was just thinking about a product just like this! How did they know?” 

It’s no mystery! It’s paid to advertise!  

This highly effective marketing technique allows you to dial into a specific audience and convert their clicks into sales.  

Paid advertising is highly effective because you can place an ad in front of the right people exactly when you want it placed. Not only that, but paid advertising generates new followers and customers and generates leads and conversions.  

While paid ads generally return quicker results than organic marketing, you will have to continuously pay (or pay even more over time) to keep the same results coming. 

To successfully run paid advertising campaigns, you will need to purchase pay-per-click ads, social media ads, banner ads, and/or ad retargeting.  

How Do I Start? 

The best place to start is organic marketing before you move on to paid advertising. 

Why? You can think of organic marketing as building your base. This is proof that your business keeps its promises and delivers top-shelf service.  

When you practice organic marketing, you attract the people who have the most incentive to find your business. These are generally the people who are actively searching for your product or service. Consistent communication and high-quality content will help prove to these people that your business is one to buy from.  

Organic marketing is most important during the preliminary stages of your business’s development when you are trying to develop a steady and loyal customer base and establish your reputation. 

Paid ads help attract a wider audience that might not necessarily come across your content naturally. Paid ads go after customers who might already have another supplier or are not actively looking for a new vendor. The job of your ad is to convince them that your product or service is worth looking into.  

Let’s look at some pros and cons of investing in organic marketing or paid advertising at different stages of your business.  

Launch 

• Organic marketing helps develop your reputation, and establish your business, and it compounds over time, meaning continued efforts produce exponential gains. 
  
  
• Organic marketing can be slow to see results  
  
  
• Paid ads can help you get seen by a wide audience quickly 
  
  
• You may not have the funds for paid ads right away 
  
  
• Without an established business, readers may be hesitant to believe your ad. 
  
  

Promos 

• Organic marketing helps reward those customers who already engage with your brand by discovering new promos 
  
  
• Relying only on organic marketing for promos can limit your audience 
  
  
• Paid ads help let a new audience know about your promotion 
  
  
• New readers may not understand the deal they are getting with your promo 
  
  

New Products 

• With organic marketing, your established audience can get excited about new products as they already know your existing catalog 
  
  
• With paid ads, you can attract new customers to buy your new product, but they might not be aware of how the new product is an upgrade over your existing line 
  
  

New Service Area 

• With organic marketing, you can build up a loyal customer base in a new area, but it takes time.
   
• Paid advertising allows you to expand rapidly, but it takes a cash investment and knowledge of the market 
  
  

Paid Vs Organic: You have the Power 

One of the biggest misconceptions about paid vs organic content is that you must choose only one approach and stick with it.  

The truth is that you can do both at the same time over multiple platforms.  

Facebook and Instagram are idyllic places to post and develop organic content, but you can also boost posts and create paid advertising.  

Not only that, but you can also do retargeting for your audiences on social platforms. That means if the reader visits your website, then goes back to your social media platform, they will start seeing your paid ads.  

Likewise, on Google, you can rank organically with your pages, blogs, and articles, but you can also choose to promote your site using paid listings on search results pages.  

Boost Your Business’s Marketing with Legend Web Works 

Marketing is no joke. It’s the best way to get new customers, generate new leads, and make more sales.  

Because of that, you need a marketing agency that understands your needs and creates content that works for you.  

Legend Web Works cooperates with clients from many different industries to create unique and compelling content to help their brands generate better leads and make more sales.  

If your company needs a marketing agency that is committed to making top-shelf content and driving sales, look no further than Legend Web Works.  

Ready for a marketing boost? Reach out to Legend Web Works today!