What Does It Take to Manufacture Organic Marketing?
When we talk about brands “manufacturing” organic marketing, we’re referring to the intentional effort that brands put into creating and distributing this type of content. Organic marketing can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness and engagement, but it requires a significant investment of time, effort and resources, and may be subject to several barriers that can prevent brands from effectively creating it.
This 2023 benchmark report by RivalIQ, shared here, presents a new analysis of social media activity from 2,100 companies across 14 industries and found that Instagram engagement has been steadily declining since 2019, and, as per the chart below, that Facebook and Twitter engagement have also been trending downward.
The same 2023 benchmark report highlighted these additional stats:
Posting frequency is on the decline: Posting frequency is flat on Instagram, but took a ~20% dive on both Facebook and Twitter
It’s all about the holiday hashtags: Almost every industry earned top engagement rates from holiday-hashtagged posts, while contests and giveaways were less popular than in other years
Instagram Reels Icon: Every brand should post Reels on Instagram. Reels have officially entered the chat on Instagram, dethroning the ever-popular Instagram carousels for many industries in the race for the most engaging post type
TikTok is topping the charts: With a median engagement rate of 5.69%, TikTok was every industry’s best friend last year
This has left B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) brands asking how else can they cost effectively manufacture organic marketing?
Why Is Organic Marketing Important?
For many years, digital marketing, especially social media, has been a cost-effective go-to marketing tactic for driving organic growth. Yet, the influx of new platforms, an increase in social media noise and the growing cost to acquire customers are all making it harder for brands’ organic marketing efforts to stand out. Consider the organic and content marketing efforts of Deloitte, HubSpot, Glossier and the travel site Black Tomato are all doing on their respective sites to increase site retention and category relevance.
“The goal of organic marketing is to create high-quality, engaging content that attracts and connects your customers to your brand, resulting in increased brand awareness, customer loyalty and a positive brand experience.”
Organic marketing refers to a set of strategies and tactics that brands use to build an audience and promote their products or services through non-paid channels, such as social media, blog content and search engine optimization (SEO). The goal of organic marketing is to create high-quality, engaging content that attracts and connects your customers to your brand, resulting in increased brand awareness, customer loyalty and a positive brand experience.
When we talk about brands “manufacturing” organic marketing, we’re referring to the intentional effort that brands put into creating and distributing this type of content, which is both deliberate and strategic, with the goal of building an engaged audience and promoting the brand through organic channels.
By manufacturing organic marketing, brands can achieve several benefits:
They can build a strong brand identity and establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry
They can build an engaged audience that is more likely to trust and buy from the brand
They can generate a steady stream of traffic to their website and other digital properties, which can lead to increased sales and revenue
As we first shared here, organic marketing can help create a first-party data set by encouraging audience engagement and interactions with the brand, through newsletter registration, email marketing, contests, or surveys, which can then be used to personalize marketing messages, create targeted advertising campaigns, or improve the overall customer experience
Striking a Balance Between Cost and Execution
Organic marketing can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness and engagement, but it requires a significant investment of time, effort and resources, and may be subject to several barriers that can prevent brands from effectively manufacturing it, such as a lack of resources, difficulty in measuring ROI, a crowded competitive landscape, limited expertise, or simply a lack of patience to wait for the efforts to have a chance to pay off.
Here are a few suggestions about how brands can strike a balance between the cost and execution of their organic marketing budgets, goals and outcomes:
Define clear goals: Start by defining clear goals for your organic marketing efforts, such as increasing website traffic, generating leads, or building brand awareness. This will help you to focus your efforts and measure success.
Focus on high-impact tactics: Not all organic marketing tactics will be equally effective for every brand. Focus on the tactics that are the most likely to have a significant impact on your specific business, such as creating high-quality blog content, building an engaged social media following, or creating educational videos.
Leverage existing resources: Look for ways to leverage existing resources, such as repurposing existing content or tapping into your team’s expertise. This can help to reduce the cost of content creation and increase efficiency.
Outsource strategically: Consider outsourcing certain tasks to experts who can execute these tasks more efficiently and effectively than your in-house team. This can help to reduce costs by improving results and by not wasting internal hours.
Measure and optimize: Continuously measure the results of your organic marketing efforts and optimize your strategy accordingly. This can help you to identify areas where you can reduce costs or increase efficiency, while still achieving your goals.
By taking a strategic and measured approach to their organic marketing, B2B and B2C brands can strike a balance between the cost of executing these efforts and achieving their goals. Remember, organic marketing is a long-term strategy that requires ongoing effort and investment, but by focusing on high-impact tactics, leveraging existing resources, and continuously measuring and optimizing, brands can effectively balance the cost with tangible results.
Questions about how to develop or scale your current organic marketing initiatives? Email us here, we’d love to help. As always, thank you for reading!
Photo by Pavel Neznanov on Unsplash
