Organic Marketing Strategies: What Works and What Doesn’t In 2020
By: Robyn Kyberd
Tags: Digital Marketing Tips, Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Marketing Strategies

Meet Desiree Robards, founder of the Naked Digital Marketer agency and specialist in organic marketing strategy.

Desiree believes that marketing your business online doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s why she helps small businesses reach their full potential by getting their brands into the hearts and minds of their audiences without fancy bells and whistles.

When she started out, she knew she didn’t want to build just a typical marketing agency. Her service now focuses on providing organic marketing strategies for small businesses who also want the know-how to DIY.

Whether helping with a one-off project or providing ongoing support, Desiree loves making the complicated, simple. The impersonal, personal. And turning clutter into clarity. And that’s why we here at Optimise & Grow Online love what she’s about.

I asked Desiree to be a part of the Spotlight Series to share her best recommendations and tips for how you can create an organic marketing strategy that increases reach and connection. And I started the interview with this question that so many people ask…

Does organic marketing still work?

Yes, absolutely!

Organic marketing provides long-term and sustainable results as it builds relevance, brand authority, and trust with both search engines and potential customers. It works for any type of business across all industries and sizes. Businesses are able to engage and nurture their target audience, thus leading to a higher conversion rate.

An organic marketing strategy requires you to fully understand how your target audience uses the internet to find businesses such as yours (e.g. what keywords would they use?). You also need to understand how to analyse data (e.g. Google Analytics) and use that data to optimise your marketing activities.

The good news is these tasks are easily outsourced so you don’t have to be an expert in order to have a successful organic marketing strategy.

What organic marketing strategies work really well?

Lots can be done for organic marketing to be successful, but I’ll list my top suggestions that can be applied to any business.

My first suggestion is that you need a strategy. Without a strategy, you can’t measure whether you’re doing it well or not. And if you can’t measure, you run the risk of doing the same thing over and over again, but with no real results. My next suggestion is to optimise your website. I believe the ultimate aim of all online marketing activities is to drive traffic back to your website where you will convince and convert leads into paying customers. By optimising your website for search engines (SEO) and great user experience, you don’t have to work as hard to find and drive traffic. Your website will be found a lot easier thus it’ll be working *for* you, not against you. My third suggestion is to create and share evergreen content for both your blog and social media. No one likes to read old news, and the added advantage is that you can also repurpose your old content and share it as though it’s brand new. Use bits of this content to share across various platforms like social media and email marketing. If written well, one blog can give you multiple Facebook posts! Last but not least, try to feature as a guest on relevant blogs or websites, with a link back to your website. This will boost your credibility and authority not only in your industry but also in search engines. The more relevant backlinks you have to your website, the higher your ranking authority will be within search engines.

What doesn’t work for organic marketing success?

No strategy.

Not having a strategy just leaves you vulnerable to inefficient use of time, energy and possibly money if you outsource the tasks.

Not sharing the right content.

You might be producing and sharing a lot of content, but if you don’t understand what your target audience wants to see from you, then you’re not providing valuable content that engages them.

Un-optimised website.

One of the biggest contributors to a failed organic marketing strategy is a poor website. A website that is not built to appease the Google gods or potential customers means all of your marketing efforts to drive traffic back to the website will only result in people either leaving your website almost immediately or Google not even showing your website in search results.

Some of the factors of a poor website are slow page speed, poor navigation, not enough information, too much information, and no onsite SEO (page metadata, etc) — just to name a few!

What are your best recommendations to anyone who wants to DIY organic marketing?

Know your audience.

Seth Godin said “Everyone is NOT your customer” and it’s SO true!

Once you narrow down your target audience, you’ll be able to market to them specifically and pull in the right people who are more likely to convert into a paying customer of yours.

Create a brand persona for each of your target audiences ( you might have more than one) by assigning them a name and a background story which identifies some of their pain points, of which your products or services can help solve.

Use your time efficiently.

Your time is precious, so use it efficiently! Start by planning your content 2 weeks in advance. Set aside half a day each fortnight to plan and create your content, whether it’s for social media, blogs, or email marketing.

When you plan your content, it’s much tidier and streamlined, as opposed to posting on the go or bulk posting when you have 1 hour to spare. Aim to have 3–4 posts a week for each platform and at least one blog post and email a month.

Once you have this down pat, you can extend the time-frame to 3 or 4 weeks in advance.

Use my handy social media content calendar to help take the stress out of creating content.

Have a plan.

I probably sound like a broken record right now but it needs to be said again….

Have a plan or strategy or you’re not going to be able to maximise your efforts. Decide where your target audience hangs out and pick 1–2 platforms to focus your marketing efforts in. Set some goals that you can measure in a couple of months’ time.

Outsource.

You don’t have to know everything or try to juggle it all by yourself!

It is totally okay to outsource what you can so that you can get your time and energy back into doing what you love to do. The old saying ‘you have to spend money to make money’ rings true here.

What are your top recommendations to anyone who wants to outsource organic marketing?

Have clear contracts/agreements in place.

Make sure they outline the following:

scope of work

time-frames

payment terms

accountability

ownership

and what happens if outcomes aren’t delivered as agreed.

Do background checks.

ABN: Is their business registered? Does the person have multiple businesses or identities?

Reviews & Recommendations: Unfortunately, reading online reviews and recommendations is no longer reliable. You need to dig deeper and look into the reviewers as well to determine if they’re likely to be a paid review or recommendation.

You could also contact previous clients from their portfolio and get their feedback.

Be in control of your logins and accounts.

This way, if you’re unhappy with them and terminate their services, it’ll be easy for you to remove their access or change your passwords.

Use a project management tool.

To keep track of your outsourced projects and contractors. It’s also a handy way of keeping all communication in one place. Some great project management tools you can use are Trello and Slack.

Be very clear and detailed with your instructions.

When handing over tasks. In addition to typing up a brief, I tend to record videos of my screen and share them with contractors to train them on how to perform certain tasks within my business. Loom is a great free tool for this purpose.

How do you help people with organic marketing?

I work exclusively with Australian small business owners, ensuring their website works *for* them and developing organic marketing strategies that provide long term, sustainable results. I also acknowledge that some business owners are eager to learn how to DIY their marketing so I provide training sessions either virtually, 1:1 or in group sessions.

If you’re ever unsure of how to implement any of these suggestions or if you need some clarity with your organic digital marketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I offer a complimentary initial consultation to see if we’d be a good fit. You can book a suitable time using my calendar here.

Master your Organic Marketing with Desiree Robards

You can find Desiree at:

Website: nakeddigitalmarketer.com.au

Facebook: facebook.com/nakeddigitalmarketer

Instagram: instagram.com/@nakeddigitalmarketer

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/desireerobards

Get more expert online business and marketing tips in the Spotlight Series Interviews.