Organic content is dead.

Paid vs. organic marketing is not an uncommon topic. Recently, I attended a conference where a speaker touted that organic media is dead. This commentary can easily be misconstrued and warrants some elaboration, seeing as it has become a topic commonly discussed in recent client meetings.

What is organic marketing content?

Organic content is anything that you produce that is not paid and can be found by users through a keyword search. This could also be considered content posted on a social media profile that is not boosted to a larger audience outside of the core followers.

In short,

• you decide a topic
• research keywords
• develop keyword-rich content




and then,

• users search Google (Bing, Yahoo, etc.)
• find your content based on quality




In a perfect world, you are producing such amazing keyword-rich content that your ideal customer falls in your lap, and you are closing leads hand over fist. Because organic content is still a valuable part of a marketing mix, this is where comments like, "organic is dead," confuse businesses. It's not dead. Companies want to skip the line and get in front of users NOW.

Pull out wallet > Insert directly in trash can

By now, you should learn that money doesn't solve all your problems, though it makes things a little easier. However, we are in a current marketing state where there is one big bullshit detector, people. Call it the "dawn of the ethical" or the "too many questions" generation, but the consumer is now more informed than the average consumer in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Why is that? Blame the developers of in-pocket computers that can fact-check every statement that comes out of your mouth on the sales floor. I am a walking example of this type of consumer.

I, to my family and friends, might seem like I make substantial impulse purchases, but what they do not see is the multi-week research period that takes place when I get hooked on a new product that piques my interest. I would consider myself your favorite customer because I am there for you to reaffirm my purchase, not to be informed. I do one thing though. I will ask you questions to see how big of a bullshitter you are based on your knowledge of the product. (Pro tip: saying "I don't know, but I can find out" is not a sign of weakness or stupidity.)

When you produce informative ads backed by informative landing pages or organic content, you will find that your response-rate from the end-user could be higher than that of a company who merely pushes ads to users and likely need to offer discounts to capture leads. So, why not be better than your competitor?

Oversaturation and competition

I hate to break it you, but you are not special; at least not to Google, and definitely not to the end-user who is digesting your content. Unless you've stumbled on some new revolutionary service or product, you will likely be competing with hundreds locally, if not thousands nationally for the attention of a single user.

This is where a quality content strategy can benefit you. Many businesses fail to see the importance of content strategy and planning and, in turn, fail to see the return they expect in a new website project. Your website content should relay your brand message, service offering, unique process or approach, and direct users to take action. Just because you whipped up a simple one-page website to establish yourself online does not mean they will come. Users want to be compelled, and they want to see a return for taking action. So, what will you do differently to entice your potential customer?



Producing awesome organic content

Leveraging the power of email marketing workflows, you can take the organic content you are producing and elevating it with information exchange. Here is a real-world example.

Joe owns a gym and wants to provide customers with valuable information on health and fitness. Joe develops a series of nutrition-based downloads for his potential clientele.

Abbigail wants to learn more about nutrition and how she can implement it into her new lifestyle. Abbigail finds Joe's website and sees that she can download a document about nutrition in exchange for her email.

When a user is provided something in return (again, not always a coupon), they are more likely to give some personal information to get through the information gate. You might think that a single email is not valuable, but that email can be the one piece of information that becomes a valuable client through drip marketing.

Good faith marketing

I'll break this into two sections here for quick reference.

I just started a business and have time on my hands

1. Open excel and make a new spreadsheet
2. Lable the following columns: Date, Topic, Description of post
3. Develop topics that pertain to your service or campaign
4. GET WRITING
5. Continue writing
6. Understand this is the long game

I am too busy to care about content, but I need help!

We get it. You are busy running your company. You do not have time to write content, nor do you have the time to build email templates and build workflow, but this should stop you from being successful. Hiring a company like Kicks Digital Marketing to assist you in marketing efforts is only one piece of the puzzle. Still, plan to have in-depth marketing meetings to review concepts, but know that this is not Quaker-Instant Marketing.

Did you catch the theme here? Building an arsenal of quality content takes time and requires a lot of attention and research. Whether you are doing this yourself or hiring a company like ours to help, you will still be involved, or you can click here.

Remember, be the customer you want to see in the world.