which should you be using?

Digital marketing is a beast, and many small businesses struggle with figuring out how to share their product or service with as many of the right people as possible through online channels. As a business owner or solo-entrepreneur, your livelihood depends on ensuring that your company is found by the right people. If you advertise your new kids clothing line to a bunch of adults without kids, you’re probably not going to get a lot of people clicking through to your website.

However, if you’re able to find a way to get your product or service in front of the right audience, they’ll be  much more likely to click through to see what you’re offering. You can either do this through organic or paid marketing efforts – or you can implement a bit of both!

person working on computer

organic marketing

Organic marketing is the process of growing your audience naturally. This typically occurs over a longer period of time than with paid marketing. Organic traffic to your website mostly comes from social media followers who are inspired by your content on social channels. Engaging directly with your followers is a great way to build a relationship with them. Engagement is extremely important to consider, as this is what ultimately drives your audience to interact with you, and eventually your website.

To be engaging on social media, there are five important habits you should develop:

  1. Post content consistently! If you’re only posting once a quarter, changes are your followers are completely forgetting about you.
  2. Share the love! See something that resonates with your brand on your news feed? Share it! This can be a great way to increase your account’s visibility through relatable content.
  3. Converse with your followers! If you’re posting pretty consistently, you’re likely getting comments on those posts. Take the opportunity to comment back and let your followers know you care.
  4. Use hashtags! Hashtags are a GREAT way to tag your post with keywords that will ultimately increase your post’s reach. People use hashtags to find content they may be interested in, so this is a great way to increase your visibility.
  5. Make sure you include pictures or video with your post. Social media is a very visual platform, so give your audience something interesting to look at!

Email is another great way to increase your organic marketing efforts. Create an email list and keep your audience engaged with business updates and announcements! Don’t send too many emails, though. While posting a lot on social media yields positive results, sending too many emails can feel spammy and invasive. Make sure you’re sending relevant emails to the same audience only once or twice a week at the most.

man in a suit on his phone

paid marketing

Paid marketing occurs when you pay to increase your brand’s visibility on the internet. There are many ways to pay for online advertisement, but the most common term you might see regarding paid ads is pay-per-click (PPC). This is when you pay an ad publisher each time someone clicks on your ad. PPC opportunities exist through both social media platforms line Facebook, or through search engines like Google.

PPC is a great opportunity if people are likely searching for terms that are related to your product or service. Why not get in front of them right at the point of their need? However, because of the highly competitive digital space, PPC can be expensive if you are bidding on popular key phrases. You’ll need to outline a specific monthly budget and set parameters in your ad account to ensure that monetary boundaries exist.

It’s important to ensure that you have a solid website and social media foundation before you begin using paid advertisement. The last thing you want to do is pay for someone to visit your website, only to disappoint them with a negative user experience.

spruce it up

Are you ready to spruce up your marketing efforts? I’m committed to helping small business owners and solo-entrepreneurs like you to expand your marketing strategy and get in front of more people. Check back here for new, regularly posted content. You can also subscribe so that new information comes straight to your inbox!