The fundamental challenge of marketing is deceptively simple: how to reach your target audience most effectively. Most marketers use all the same online platforms and social media sites, so what makes some marketing campaigns so much better than others? The answer is also simple: great marketers are always innovating, testing out new approaches with their audience, and maximizing the capabilities of each platform they use.
A basic choice that all marketers have to make is between reaching their audience organically (through organic marketing) or using performance marketing, to drive traffic. But which one is right for your business? A B2B marketing agency NYC can help you create a customized marketing strategy that considers business’s unique requirements and goals, and can also help with SEO strategy and keyword identification and targeting, to boost customer reach, engagement, and conversion.
Read on to find out more about the differences between organic marketing and performance marketing, and which one is right for you!
Understanding organic marketing
The organic marketing approach is all about producing content to educate your audience and establish your brand as an expert or a leader in your industry. A successful organic marketing strategy relies on creating top-notch content (like infographics, blog posts, and web pages) that your audience will want to share. It’s the digital version of word-of-mouth messaging: you’re relying on the appeal of your product or service to speak for itself. Organic marketing seeks to build long-term relationships with your customers and aims to build a following.
Marketing agencies play an important role in optimizing your organic marketing strategy in a few ways. First, they can help with understanding the data of who you’re already reaching through tracking content-driven leads, organic traffic numbers, and search results page ranking.
Then, they can help with SEO (search engine optimization), which is the art of making your content easy to find through search engines and a key part of Think Design’s work. After you’ve created fresh content, digital marketing agencies can also help publish unique SEO-optimized content and promote your links through email newsletters and social media posts.
One of the main advantages of organic marketing is that it lets your brand share information at no cost. Content is more educational, helpful, and relevant to your audiences instead of making a sales pitch, so it feels more authentic. However, it can take a considerable amount of effort to make high-quality content and gain consumer trust, which is more of a long-term game. In that case, the B2B digital marketing agency NYC may add another strategy, which is performance marketing.
All about performance marketing
Performance marketing is based on the target taking action, like clicking on a website link. It combines brand marketing and paid advertising, but you pay only when the desired action occurs. In general, performance marketing is best delivered on larger platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media sites, or on advertising networks like Google 360.
A win-win marketing opportunity
With performance marketing, you can run campaigns targeting a set demographic in a high-ROI (return on investment) and strategic way while paying only for the clicks you get. Your target audience is primed when they find your campaign as they are already searching for it. With PPC (pay per click) you also get free brand exposure. This way, performance marketing can be a great strategy for customer acquisition and to expand marketing opportunities.
Sounds like affiliate marketing, but are they similar?
‘Performance marketing’ and ‘affiliate marketing’ are often used interchangeably, but affiliate marketing is just one form of the larger world of performance marketing, which also includes search marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing, and other marketing strategies where a partner exchanges exposure for payment.
When implemented correctly by a digital marketing agency, performance marketing can be a great strategy that can provide additional product and brand exposure for you at no additional cost. Plus, there are perks like higher conversion rates, consumer engagements, third-party endorsements, and higher average basket values, all of which lead to brand loyalty, better buyer retention, and sales.
Which one is best for you?
Both organic and performance marketing can be great ways to make your business succeed online, and many businesses use both. The important thing is to make sure that these strategies are implemented and carefully planned by an experienced B2B marketing agency NYC, like Think Design. For retail businesses, we recommend performance marketing, whereas organic marketing is best for service companies.
When consumers are searching for a product, they’re focused on getting the product as quickly as possible, and at the best possible price. Many retailers are selling the same products, and consequently, retail businesses have high customer churn rates and less brand loyalty; it’s all about the product, price and delivery. This is why getting customer attention at the beginning of their search is key. Performance marketing can get your product to the top of the page and grab that all-important attention of the consumer early on. Depending on the amount you spend, you can become the first result in the ranking overnight.
Service businesses tend to have a longer customer journey, with a sales cycles measured in months rather than seconds. They also tend to have slower churn, with many customer relationships lasting for years.
The intangible qualities for service offerings are harder to distinguish, so the best serve providers create content to educate their audience and new prospects. In the service industry, it’s hard to know the quality of the offering until you consume it, which is another reason for the long sales cycle, as customers want to look before they take the plunge. Having strong content will build consumer confidence and trust.
Think Design’s services include internet marketing and social media consulting that can help you come up with an effective digital marketing strategy combining organic and performance marketing to capture your audience like never before.