320: What is organic marketing? Why you can't throw $$ at ads and it just...works

It’s easy to think that if you just post more or run ads, your business will grow… but real marketing doesn’t work like that.

The magic is in the foundations - understanding your audience, creating content that connects, and building trust over time.

Organic marketing is where that relationship is built. Paid marketing simply expands it.

So if things aren’t working yet, it’s not about doing more… it’s about going deeper.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah.

⁠⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ How organic marketing builds trust

✨ Why without organic marketing paid marketing is useless

✨ How to build an organic and paid marketing plan

✨ What to do if your marketing isn't working

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 320, and we're talking all about what is organic marketing and why we can't just throw money at paid marketing and hope that it works. Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur storyteller, digital nomad, creative content bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen.

With over 10 years experience in. Marketing. This podcast is here to help you create the ideal content marketing plan by blending storytelling and strategy. So let's get into it. Alright, the question, the age, old question of paid marketing, organic marketing, what is it? What is it not? And all the things.

So. The other day I was chatting to someone in my inbox about their download of the audio guide because one of the processes that I do when you sign up is I ask for your social media. Now I do this so I can follow you because obviously I [00:01:00] don't think I would be the ideal cheerleader or wing woman on social media and content if I didn't follow you and follow your journey.

And as part of that, I just send you a message to say, Hey. I saw you on the mailing list. I wanted to connect with you on, on Instagram, and if you had any questions like you could ask me, and she said something to me that I hear very often, or this belief that we have, and it was, oh, before I listened to your audio guide, I really believed that I could just post on social media and it would work Now.

That is actually not a silly thought, even though we think, oh, well, seems a little bit naive to think, especially if you've been creating content for a while, you've been on social media. That's just not how it works. But in the moment when you first get started, it's like, oh, well, why wouldn't it work?

Right? And with exponential growth, of course, potentially it can, [00:02:00] but the reality is without strategy, it doesn't really work like that. And this is where I wanna talk to you about organic marketing, what it is, why it matters, and really why we need to spend time on it before we even think about pouring money into ads.

And I wanna share a few stories of experiences that I've had working with so many different businesses across so many different sectors. And the first one is a bit of a contrast with a seafood, fish and chip shop that I do content for. So basically we create. Social media content for a local seafood market and fish and chip shop.

And basically, of course we have a strategy, right? And I posted the strategy and we always create, everything is very intentional and every decision is made is in alignment with where the business wants to go. Now on the contrast, there is another local shop, which is. Owner led content, which I think is great.

Great [00:03:00] idea, great plan. The only thing is there isn't a plan, there isn't a strategy. So they show up on TikTok and they don't have a strategy behind it. And basically what I saw last year, and the reason I found them is. Because they did a video on complaining about a customer. So a customer had ordered from them, had been double charged and message emailed them, mentioning they'd been double charged and expressed their concerns and asked for the refund.

Now the woman said, okay, cool. What? When did you purchase what? I need more information. And anyway, she went back and forth with his customer a few times 'cause the customer couldn't understand that their platform wasn't sophisticated enough to know that. It was her. And I mean, we're not bus, not all of us business owners.

We don't know how our platforms work, so she basically went on social media and bagged out this woman now. She didn't get any love and support really. She got actually a lot of negative comments. Um, she was arguing with people in [00:04:00] the comments and then she was doing a good strategy, which was replying to 'cause on TikTok, you can hit the reply button on a comment.

You can do this on Instagram as well, and you can reply with a video. So it kind of creates this chain reaction for people that yeah, wanna go back and watch what the video is about that they commented on. So it creates this strategy of like. Content upon content upon content. 'cause you're always responding to these comments.

But the problem was the video wasn't getting her any good reactions. So it was just her kind of fending for herself and, and trying to justify her actions. Now that video reached around 32,000, um, or had 32,000 plays, views, et cetera. That's how I found them, but was my first impression of that business. A good one.

No, it wasn't, and that could have been the first impression of a lot of other people. Right. On the contrast, the client that we work with, of course, as I mentioned, was strategic. Everything is strategic, [00:05:00] and they did have a viral video, had quite a few, but one of the most memorable ones. Reached had a reach of about 1.2 million.

What was that video about? No, it wasn't us backing out our customers. It was actually featuring two of our best selling products, which was a grilled sampler and seafood for two. Was there negative comments in there? Yeah, for sure. Like I bet this cost $200 or anything like that, but there was a lot of people tagging, oh my God, where is this place?

A lot of saves a lot of shares. So that's the difference between. Just showing up and hoping for the best, and yes, maybe getting a few viral moments and actually being strategic. Now, the intention with the strategy wasn't to go viral, although in their goal was to reach as many people as possible because they wanted to go outside of their current community.

But I just wanted to share that with you because it's really showing you the contrast between having a plan and not having a plan and how [00:06:00] having that plan. It can help you in the long run, but create that brand credibility. Now, this other seafood place does a lot of videos on them, backing out team members, customers, uh, Uber, reach drivers, everything.

And I just feel like it's not a good energy. And I don't know that they realize that because again, they don't have the marketing background. They're just business owners doing their best. Right. And that's. We all start like that, right? But anyway, it's really not about the posting, it's about. What you're posting, why you're posting it, and how it can connects back to your business and how you wanna be seen.

I'm sure if I sat down with that woman and asked her her business goals, all the things that that would not be the type of strategy that I would create for her. So the first thing I want to go into is what is organic marketing now? It's pretty simple, but often, yeah, we think [00:07:00] there's content marketing, there's this, there's that.

But if we think about organic marketing, it's any marketing material that you do that builds visibility, trust, and connection without paying for reach. So if you think social media content, blogging and SEO, email marketing, podcasting like this, YouTube partnerships and collaborations community, word of mouth, it's really the way that people get to know you before they buy from you.

So think about organic marketing, if anything that you do that you're not necessarily pouring money or spend into to increase that reach. So whilst I always specialize in content marketing, organic marketing is really what I help my clients with because I have helped them with partnerships and collaborations and building community, et cetera.

Now, why would organic marketing be a really good fit for most of us? And why? It's something that I think we naturally all spend our time [00:08:00] and energy in, but we might not be doing it in the most strategic way. So the first thing that organic marketing does is it validates what works. So what content people engage in, what messaging resonates, what people actually care about.

And without this, when you are doing any sort of paid marketing. You're just guessing. So if you do organic marketing, this is a testing ground before you actually spend money putting money into something else. So it might not be the exact type of content, but what are the general themes that people like?

What are the conversations that we're having? Because then once you do find the stuff that works and you do put money behind it, it just amplifies it like 10 Xs. Right? So. It validates our work. It's lower risk for higher, like more chance of learning. So, 'cause you're not spending money to learn, although you could be hiring [00:09:00] someone, but you're not putting money into, like with say even if you hired someone to help you with ads or you did them yourself, it's an energy exchange, plus the money.

Whereas for organic, it is just the energy exchange. So you're building data naturally by doing this. You are understanding your audience more deeply because you are not just putting money into an algorithm for, for it to be pushed out. You're actually having those conversations with people in the dms.

You're seeing the comments come through, you're engaging with your community, so you're understanding your audience more deeply because it's not just out to the masses that you, you can't see and you don't have that kind of visibility. So it gives you the space to figure things out without that pressure of having to get that return on investment very quickly.

And then of course, it builds trust. So, and this is so key for branding, and it's something that we don't often spend a lot of time trying to do. It's if, if people, [00:10:00] because we know now when we trust brands, they're not just. Buying because they see your ad. They're buying because they recognize you, they trust you, they understand what you do.

They are in alignment with your values. They really understand what you're trying to do. They get your mission, and especially as Gen X and Gen Alpha and all the gens after millennials, and even millennials too, as that generation ages, that sort of deep, meaningful. Brands are what we are looking for. We are now buying based on morals values because we know more, we're more educated, and we have, in terms of not that older generations aren't educated, it's just the accessibility to education, right?

Like we didn't know that smoking was bad. And, and there's gonna, there's things now that are happening that in 20 years we're gonna go, oh, well we weren't educated in that, but. We have so much opportunity to learn very quickly with [00:11:00] the tools that we have. So now people are buying based on so many different moving elements other than I need that product, hence I'm gonna buy it.

There's more competition, all the things. So this does come from organic marketing, building that trust because you're in front of the people. And then the fourth one is that organic. Can bring in leads without you really trying to do that. So this is an interesting concept and conversation that I had recently with a local golf club from back home where I'm from now.

They found me through a video that I did at Christmas time with Mitch and my dad on a golf cart with a laptop in hand. With Merry Christmas, sound like Felice dad playing. And it was meant to be this really serious, funny type video that was, it was just light, [00:12:00] um, for Christmas, Merry Christmas from the content queen team.

And it was actually funny because um, one of the girls in my team saw it and she's like, this is one of the best Christmas videos I've seen. And I didn't really think much of it. 'cause we spoke like in January. Then I, I had a phone call and it was someone from a volunteer because it all is all volunteer led, um, or mainly volunteer led calling me, saying, your video come up on my social media.

It made me realize, and it looked like our golf course. So I was like, that's interesting. Then I saw what you do, and then I realized, I think we need your help, so that's why I'm calling you and. So crazy, right? That you can post this non-serious video and it can turn into a potential lead. Um, and that's sort of how organic marketing works when you're building trust, when you're creating the stuff that connects sometimes without asking for a lead [00:13:00] or someone to do something, you can just naturally have that happen.

You know, I had a client, we posted a video on something they're building. Nothing to do with buy from us anything. And there was, um, a comment like, yeah, we need, I need you to talk to me about this. And I don't know what come of it, but that's what happens when we just are on these platforms to build trust, to show value, and to show that we're there.

So if we do lead into this golf club, and I wanna share what happened, the process of that. So we posted the funny video. I got this call. And you know, that is the power of organic content and organic marketing. And then I had a FaceTime with them and there was two of them and they were representing the whole committee and basically he said, we are really keen, we love what you do.

Sort of vibes. We just have a couple people on the board that, uh, probably. Not fully aware on the [00:14:00] process because they have in their mind that we could just pour money into Facebook ads and we'll get leads. Um, they used to run business 20, 40 years ago, and they would spend a hundred dollars a month and get loads of leads.

So he has in his mind that that's how it's gonna be now. So that's why he wants to try ads asap, because we think we can get new members from that. And I said, okay, well, what. What kind of ad are you gonna run and where are you gonna send people? Oh, well, we don't have an online booking process for, for members, but they can email us and we'll call them or they can call us.

The audience they wanna attract is a younger demographic, millennials and younger. I said, I've gotta be honest, if you don't have a booking or online system for me to join, you've lost me. [00:15:00] So yeah, you could put money in Dads and it looks like you're doing a great job. They had some really great content up there and you know, they, they said there's lots of members that have been like stopping us in the street and saying they're seeing the content and they, they love what we're doing.

But yeah, we don't, we don't have any of that. And I said, well, yeah, you might get good clicks, you might get some good metrics, but you're not gonna see any members because you are gonna lose people in the process. So no clear strategy, a little bit of a clear audience, but nothing really mapped out. Not as strong website, no customer journey equals.

Loss of money already. So they had in their mind that they could run ads and they could get all these members and they could spend a hundred dollars a month and see all the money come in, but that's just not how it works without, yes, they're doing some organic marketing, but it was mainly, this is what we've got on this week.

This is like, there weren't, [00:16:00] there really was just a notice board for members if you were a non-member. How like there was no real plan or strategy except for, yeah, we know how to communicate with our current membership base. So ads don't fix unclear messaging, weak content, no strategy, no good booking system process, no customer experience.

Really what it does is shines light on it for a cost. Where if you can audit that, fix it through organic, you know, fix everything, get some organic content up, measure it, and then create ads, that's how it's going to work. Because your ads don't create connection. They amplify what you've already done. So as I said, if you have a bad process, a bad customer experience or bad content, it's just gonna shed light on it even more so.

Having those conversations, really explaining that to them. They're going back to the board to explain that. And [00:17:00] it's hard, especially if you've been in business a long time and you know how things used to work versus how they do now. Or someone said that Facebook ads are the way to go and you just assume if you put money and, but the thing is, these platforms have changed so much.

It's like I have comments on some clients that have been in business for ages and they say, oh, well back in the day, it used to cost this. Well, yeah. Back in the day, petrol used to be a lot cheaper too. Hey, back in the day. But that's just how it is. Like things change and evolve and we have to go with that.

Otherwise we're just gonna get left behind. So really the real strategy, and what I would recommend anybody do is start with your organic, build your message, understand your audience. Test your content, create the consistency. Then you can go into phase two, which is the validation. What content performs, what converts.

What do people respond to? Then you can add paid marketing as step three. Amplify what's already working. Drive [00:18:00] traffic to proven content support conversions. I had a awesome meeting with a client recently and it was awesome because the marketing is working right, and that is great. We are getting people there.

They're not converting though, so we know that there's a hole in the website. So before we can do anything in terms of create more lead magnets, build an ads plan, which was her goal. We need to fix those leaks. Otherwise, again, as I said before, it's just gonna shine light on it. But here's a thing to know with the real strategy, once you've got that all worked out and you have ads running, it doesn't, the organic doesn't stop organic then works as a trust education brand platform and your paid is an amplification leads conversion platform or strategy.

Then what ends up happening is there's less pressure on the content, the organic content to perform and you will see a lot more momentum. And this takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. I'm still navigating it. I'm still working through it. [00:19:00] I have worked out my sort of marketing plan and now I need to be better at the sales.

That is my goal for this month because I'm getting all the leads through the email list and then I'm not doing anything. So, you know, even me, I'm not perfect, but I've, I, I've been able to validate what works. I've got the paid marketing, but then after that is of course making sure you've got the conversions and that becomes a sales issue.

I had a call recently, potential client question was, how much can you guarantee me from, you know, after three months if it's not working, do I, you know, what does that look like? And I say, well, define not working because I'm not gonna sit here and guarantee you X amount of leads, but I can guarantee you, you'll, you'll have a credible brand.

It'll be trustworthy. All these things and we will work on finding out what works, but I can't guarantee you that's gonna take three months. And then you need to remember that conversions is a sales issue, not a marketing one. Yes, it all works together, but it's up to you to [00:20:00] do that. So, you know, sometimes we can get a little bit skewed along the way.

There's so much messaging out there around people making all this money from social media and this and that, and we can forget. That that is not the reality for everyone, and everyone takes a certain amount of time to make it work and make it and optimize it, but you do have to put time into it, right?

It's not. About throwing things on social media and hoping it works. It's not about throwing money at ads and hoping that they save your business. I've got a really good podcast next week coming out about this, so stay tuned. We're, we're expanding the ad conversation, that's why I did this one. It's about understanding your audience, creating the content that connects then using strategy to grow from there.

And I'll come back to content strategy, organic marketing strategy every single time until you have one. And you work with it and you could say, oh, well before I got more engagement and now I've got a [00:21:00] strategy and I get less. It's not about likes, but then maybe the strategy's not a hundred percent right?

Like just 'cause you have a strategy doesn't mean it's always gonna work. You have to. Iterate. You have to always be iterating like, and this is the thing, even with this new potential client that I spoke to, I said, well, marketing doesn't just stop. It's not like you invest in it and then you just turn the lights off.

You always have to have it running. It's just how it is. If you're not marketing your business, you are not running a business like 'cause You need to always get new people. You need to nurture your current clients. You need to nurture past clients. You need to nurture. People in your pipeline. Like that's just how it is.

It doesn't just all of a sudden stop. And if your organic marketing isn't working yet, it's not a sign to give up. It's a sign to actually go deeper with it. Be more curious, learn, get help, get support. Keep working at it. 'cause it's, it's not that [00:22:00] organic marketing doesn't work for your business. It's, you haven't found the right thing that works for you.

And as I said, next week episode, we're diving all into paid marketing with a guest, but I wanted to. Prep you for that episode so that you have those foundations and you understand that those foundations are so important. Then you can work on that paid marketing. But be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business.

Thank you so much for joining me today, and please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. You can do this by. Share it. Your Instagram stories. Tag me at content Queen Mariah, or you can copy the hype, copy the link, share the episode, send it to them, whatever. And if you do leave a rate and review, it does really help me get amazing guests on.

Helps you improve the content, spend more time and energy because I know what you like, et cetera. But also people see the episode in the charts and then they pitch to be on the show. And obviously the higher up in the charts the more names [00:23:00] and more amazing guests that we get on. So if you do have time to leave a rating review, please do follow me on Instagram, TikTok.

YouTube, um, if you're on Apple and you wanna watch these, you can find 'em on YouTube. They are on video on Spotify. But anyway, follow me anywhere, LinkedIn, all the places. And if there are any topics you'd like me to talk about, send me a message. I'd love to hear from you and I'll speak to you next week.

Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment