In the world of digital marketing, there are three primary approaches: organic, paid, and owned. Each of these strategies serves distinct purposes when it comes to attracting and engaging your target audience.
For optimal impact, it’s often advantageous to blend these approaches, creating a harmonious strategy that amplifies your message’s effectiveness.
Ultimately, every business must communicate clearly. This involves articulating the problems your business addresses, explaining what sets your solutions apart from competitors, and outlining how potential customers can engage with you.
Before diving deeper, let’s clarify what marketing truly encompasses. In this discussion, we will focus on digital marketing as it relates specifically to digital advertising. However, it’s essential to recognize that marketing and advertising are not synonymous.
Marketing is a dynamic interplay of art and science designed to meet the needs and desires of a target audience with maximum intensity. Conversely, advertising is just one facet of the promotional mix within the broader scope of marketing.
Philip Kotler famously defined marketing’s four core components known as the ‘Four P’s’: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.
In essence, when we discuss digital marketing, we’re really delving into aspects like product pricing, design, promotion (which includes advertising), and the channels through which these products will be made available.
Organic Digital Marketing
Organic marketing is the process of earning attention and traffic through unpaid, natural means. This could include optimizing your website for search engines, creating valuable content, and participating in social media.
Even though organically is often understood as “unpaid”, the truth is that it is considered paid in the effort of actually getting it done.
For example, if you want to generate some organic traffic from a video posted on social media, you would have to be pretty good at video production and also come up with a very good idea in order to gain traffic. Those things are not easy and they require a great deal of effort. That creative effort is the “cost” of organic digital marketing efforts. The beautiful part of this cost is that it tends to be a more long term investment. Once completed, it can continue to bring results many months after the fact.
Paid Digital Marketing
Paid marketing involves leveraging advertising investments to capture attention and drive traffic to your brand. This approach can encompass a variety of platforms, including Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and other paid advertising channels. Essentially, when you invest in paid marketing, you are purchasing access to specific audiences.
For instance, Facebook enables you to selectively target your ads, allowing you to reach particular groups based on demographics such as age, location, and education level. Additionally, you can delve into psychographic targeting, which considers factors like interests and affiliations, ensuring your message hits home with the right people.
When executed effectively, paid advertising can yield impressive results. However, it’s crucial to acknowledge the inherent limitations associated with it. The most significant aspect of paid advertising is that it produces results as long as you continue investing in it. Once you halt your spending, the effects tend to disappear almost immediately, a contrast to the more enduring benefits often associated with organic and owned marketing strategies.
Owned Digital Marketing
Owned marketing refers to the practice of utilizing your own platforms to attract attention and generate traffic. This encompasses your website, blog, email list, and social media channels. For instance, you can promote your messages to followers on YouTube or engage those who have subscribed to your newsletter on your website.
What’s particularly intriguing about social media is that, while you technically have access to your own “friends” or “followers,” the reality is that only a fraction of your audience actually sees your posts. Social media platforms continually refine their algorithms, which can limit the visibility of your content in an effort to encourage businesses to invest in paid advertising for broader reach.
When you effectively combine all three types of marketing—organic, paid, and owned—you can create a powerful synergy that leads to more substantial results for your business. If you’re curious about how a tailored digital marketing plan can elevate your efforts and drive success, don’t hesitate to reach out!