Want Better Organic Marketing Strategies? Reject These Four Common Organic Marketing Myths.

As any direct-to-consumer brand understands, the landscape of paid advertising has become challenging, to say the least. Brands are facing rising ad costs on platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), with average CPCs increasing every month. On top of that, brands and advertising agencies often fail to optimize ad spend for profitability - instead focusing too heavily on ROAS (return on ad spend). A very high ROAS on an ad campaign may still create a lack of profitability for a DTC brand, and doesn’t often yield profitable long-term customers. Unfortunately, brands caught in this pay-to-play spiral continue to invest in more paid advertising, creating a very risky model that is very often a recipe for failure for many growing companies. 

So what can brands do to offset the cost of paid customer acquisition and improve profitability? First, a laser focus on strong customer retention is critical. But just as important is doubling down on your organic marketing channels in highly strategic ways. We are talking about email & SMS (very, very important), organic social media, SEO and organic word-of-mouth tactics. However, there are many myths about organic marketing that continue to hold brands back from investing properly in how to use these powerful channels. We want to dispel some of those myths so that you can start to use organic marketing to offset your customer acquisition costs and build a loyal customer base. 

Myth #1: It Takes Too Long to See Real Results 

Many people refer to organic marketing as “playing the long game” and we simply have to disagree. Yes, there is no way to build a massive audience overnight (at least not one that we’d recommend!) or to target new audiences at scale in the way paid advertising can, but with even a moderately-sized email list (20,000 is a good initial goal), an engaged social audience and solid SEO - you can absolutely see meaningful impact quickly. Many of our clients who have worked with us to improve their email, SMS and organic social media strategies have seen huge increases in website traffic, audience growth & email sign ups, and sales within 30 days. What matters is having a strategy to target where you’re looking to see results quickly. 

Myth #2: You Can’t Measure ROI on Organic Marketing 

We take ROI on organic marketing very seriously at 624 Agency. We want to make sure our clients understand what the right amount is to invest, and be able to compare that against concrete business results. Understanding attribution models and finding tools that give you one source of truth will help you understand what the return is on your organic activity. The tool we use to track ROI for organic social media marketing is Agorapulse, an analytics and scheduling tool for your social channels. Their Social Media ROI Reporting Reports tie directly into your current Google Analytics (GA4) campaigns and allow social media managers to automatically pull in the conversion, traffic and conversion value, just from your organic social media. 

Likewise, if you are using Klaviyo or similar for your ESP (email service provider), your results from each campaign and flow should integrate into GA4. In short, it should be crystal clear which campaigns are moving the needle, and which ones aren’t. 

Combined with features like Automated UTM Tracking code creation, you can trace the impact of your organic social, email marketing and SEO to website conversions and direct sales. Another amazing tool for DTC brands is Triple Whale - which provides two versions of linear attribution, which distributes credit amongst all traffic sources, including organic and non-paid traffic. It provides a balanced view of all marketing efforts by recognizing the contribution of each interaction a customer has with your brand. Long story short - if your marketing team or agency isn’t talking about ROI on organic marketing, it’s time to get some data! 

Myth #3: You Have to Constantly Be Creating New Content 

When it comes to organic marketing content, there are two rules to live by. One: invest the most in your evergreen content and two: quality trumps quantity. We specialize in helping brands find ways to be scrappy in their content creation for both email and organic social media, and are always finding ways to give new life to old content. Investing in evergreen content means understanding which questions, barriers to purchase or compelling value propositions are most important to moving your customers through the sales funnel, and creating content around that. Additionally, it means putting that content into the places where it will have the best chance of being seen (pinned IG posts, as a pin on Pinterest, in your welcome email series, etc.). Pinterest is particularly important here, because unlike most platforms, your pins don't expire—they compound. Pinterest rewards helpful, searchable content. So instead of constantly churning out content, you can create pins that drive website traffic for years to come (aka a very high ROI!) 

When it comes to quality over quantity, this does not mean expensive, highly produced video content. This means content that has shown to perform well - and creating content based on that model. You should NOT be overinvesting in your social media content - scrappy, strategic and outsourced is key here. If you’re not sure how to create quality content with less effort, schedule a strategy call with our team!

Myth #4: Organic Marketing Doesn’t Convert 

When DTC brands treat organic marketing channels as if they won’t convert, that’s usually a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, for most of our clients, email alone is often driving almost 30% of total online revenue (if yours isn’t - give us a shout.) Additionally, social shopping, Instagram stories and UGC campaigns can be highly effective at not just driving website traffic, but encouraging purchases, if done correctly. You need to be giving your audience a reason to move off of your social media channel or from their email inbox, and onto your site. Again, organic social media and email marketing may not be reaching new customers at scale the way paid ads are, however, it's unwise to underestimate the impact a strong social community and an engaged email list can have on increasing sales. We have strategically used “social only sales” and social or email-first product launches to supercharge sales for our clients, offsetting the cost of their paid ads. Additionally, as a partner agency with Yotpo, we have seen how collecting UGC through your social channels and using it strategically on your website can increase checkout by over 25%.  

While organic marketing is not a substitute for a paid strategy, it is a very important tool in your marketing toolbox to build a more profitable DTC business that can survive and thrive for the long haul. Want to elevate your organic marketing? Check out our 30 Days to Elevate Sprints!