Paid vs Organic marketing

Marketing is very important for your business but it falls into 2 categories, paid and organic. These two different types of marketing rely on different approaches and it depends on the resources you have. Both have the same yet different purposes and this blog will help you to distinguish the uses between the 2.

Paid marketing

Paid marketing is a great way to expand your reach to a larger audience but it comes with a cost. It’s a lot more expensive than organic marketing and there’s many ways you can go about this. It can be done on a larger scale and you can generally see results a lot quicker.

When you’re starting a new business and you maybe don’t have the time to do organic marketing, sometimes paid can be more helpful. Most of the time, it’s in the form of ads. On social media, you can boost posts or create your own paid ads, especially on Facebook and you can create your own PPC (Pay Per Click) ad on Google. With social media, the cost of the ad all depends on your ad budget and other factors such as duration and target audience.

When it comes to offline marketing, you may invest in marketing materials such as banners, flyers, leaflets, business cards etc.

The pros of paid marketing (online) are:

• It’s extremely and specifically targeted
• Fast results
• Ads are pretty affordable and measurable
• You can broadcast across multiple platforms
• Direct ROI

Have you ever searched for a service or industry in your area and been shown a list of different companies nearby on Google's search page that suits your search? If they have ‘Ad’ written underneath, then these are PPC adverts. They work by showing your brand at the top of search pages, above organic rankings, and you are charged every time somebody clicks onto your website.

Organic marketing

Organic marketing is used to build your brand and its voice, interact and engage with customers/your audience and educate them. You can do this through social media marketing and as it’s free, it’s great to get your business on all the different platforms that suit your niche. The blogs that you write for your website are part of your organic marketing as it is fresh content.

From these blogs, you are able to help your website’s organic SEO, therefore increasing your brand awareness. This is also the purpose of social media marketing, it helps to get more eyes on your brand as you are able to reach different types of audiences. It’s all about content, as long as it’s fresh, updated, educating and interesting, that’s part of your job done.

The pros of organic marketing are:

• Cost (free)
• Build-up of traffic over time
• Organic listing higher click-through rate

Whichever you choose, don’t leave organic marketing out of the mix completely. It’s important to use it as it helps to build better relationships with your audience/potential customers. Even though it does take time, if done correctly, the results can be very beneficial.