In today’s digital world, many brands are aware of the phrases, ‘organic’ and ‘paid’, in relation to marketing.

These brands know each strategy comes with *pros* and *cons*. However, they still seek to find out which is best to push their efforts towards (hence the many Paid vs Organic blog posts you can find on the web)

‍And the conclusion? It remains the same! 

Both approaches to digital marketing complement each other extremely well, and often perform better when they work together rather than separately.

Would you like your organic and paid marketing to work in tandem but feel unsure where to start?

Well, keep reading!

We are going to discuss 3 scenarios where your organic and paid media can work together to benefit your results.

Example 1 - Building Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is your crucial foundation to acquiring customers and keeping your brand ‘top-of-mind’.

You’ll want to take advantage of paid media to get in front of a broader audience at a faster rate. 

Here, traffic can be reached straight away and this is very appealing for businesses who want to generate data or sales quickly. Whilst sales can’t be guaranteed, you will be able to learn from the data, especially if split testing is carried out strategically. 

Furthermore, providing you are willing to invest and spend capital, you can scale your ads as quickly as you want to.

Organic media on the other hand, generates slower traffic and results. However, the traffic will continue coming in overtime - whereas paid traffic will stop as soon as you stop paying! 

Patience and persistence can go a very long way with organic media because it is the most robust way to attract ‘high quality’ traffic to your business. Through organic SEO, you are placed in-front of people who are searching for a product or service like yours. 

Therefore, when SEO puts your business above others as a solution to their online inquiry, it results in higher conversion rates. 

Moreover, consistent amounts of content on your socials and website results in users taking more time to get to know your brand. Ultimately, by educating users you are creating a more loyal fan base of people who will continue to purchase with you.

So why not take advantage of this high quality traffic with paid media? 

Custom audiences can be created from your organic reach, enabling you to target a range of retargeting audiences. This is a great way to skyrocket results because you can put information out quickly - towards people who already have trust in your brand. 

Plus, depending on how you segment these custom audiences, you do have the opportunity to be more specific with messaging, helping conversions further. For example, you could target an audience that has visited a specific product page and talk about that product in more detail.

Another great way to take advantage of your organic reach is with lookalike audiences. Using your custom data, these audiences help you find new people with similar characteristics and interests. As a result of being similar to your existing ‘high quality’ audience, it’s likely that conversions will be just as successful.

Example 2 - Launching A New Product

Launches can be a very daunting time for businesses because of the ‘fear of the unknown’... Not to mention the fact that businesses usually have a lot of capital invested in their new product! 

Successful product launches can pay dividends but unfortunately, only a tiny minority of launches convert into ongoing success. 

So how can you increase your chances of success when launching your new product online?

Well, as your organic marketing is predominantly going to be viewed by people who are already aware of your brand and existing products, this is a prime opportunity to launch a teaser campaign.

What’s a teaser campaign? 

Essentially, a build up to the product launch. For example, a countdown to the date of launch featuring limited information on what can be expected.

This helps to build interest in the product before it has been officially launched, ensuring instant traction for the product upon its release. You can even use this as an opportunity to secure pre-orders!

Once the product has gone live, this is the key time to push hard on your paid marketing.

Running ads to broader audiences which lead to a sales page is a good way to gather sales and interest as well as key insights into what content converts well… But don’t neglect your organic marketing after the launch!

This is the perfect place to provide high value content to your followers by giving more information about how the product works, how it was developed, and how it can benefit your audience. 

This longer form content is less likely to work within ad format but can help to engage your organic reach and make them feel that they are receiving true value and insight by following your account.

Example 3 - Gaining & Utilising Social Proof

When it comes to shopping and browsing, there is no denying that we’re spoiled for choice! 

In a matter of minutes, you can find endless online comparisons - whether you’re ordering ‘take out’, shopping for a pair of shoes or swiping for a potential partner. 

This wealth of options leads to one key issue however - how can a consumer be confident in what they are purchasing?

None of us want to waste our money… or our time! So naturally, we want to ensure we’re making the right choice.

Consequently, social proof is an important asset for businesses. 

Social proof helps to increase buyer confidence as well as playing on the emotional desire to be “part of the crowd” (even if that’s totally subconscious).

This can resonate faster with your organic audience because they are more likely to engage with a range of your content. However, this is dependent on you having the content and spreading it over your socials and website! 

For example, some of your organic reach will respond better to reading customer reviews, while others will be drawn to your collaborations with other brands or influencers. 

However, getting traction with social proof on paid media can be more of a challenge. 

Not only are your paid ads going to a less engaged and more skeptical audience, but you also have just seconds to grab your viewers attention. For that reason, your paid ad needs to ‘hit the nail on the head’ from the outset.

If you’d like to expand your social proof methods and ensure quality content goes towards paid media, you should definitely consider utilising user-generated content. UGC is any form of content - text, images, videos, reviews, etc. - created by individuals (not brands) and published to an online or social network. 

It’s a simple and effective way to combine your marketing efforts because you can ask your organic audience to create the UGC, and push that same content with paid ads. 

For instance, you could email your customer base with a challenge to send in their best image of them using your product and offer a small giveaway as an incentive. 

Such challenges will help you build a better relationship with your organic reach, generate a collection of unique and high quality content, attract new customers, increase trust/authority from the outset and improve click through/conversion rates for your online campaigns. 

And there you have it!

Our top 3 examples of scenarios where your organic and paid marketing efforts can work hand in hand!

Now, while the ideas above are great starting points, we advise experimenting as much as possible to discover what works best for your business.

Have you had success with combining your organic and paid strategy using a different  approach? We'd love to hear what works for you!

And if you feel you’d like some further guidance on building out a thorough marketing strategy, why not get in touch? We’d love to work with you!