Organic marketing: 7 strategies to grow your business

Marketing your business can take up a large percentage of your budget. Whether you go for ads on Amazon, Google, social media, or any other kind of paid advertising, the cost can quickly add up. While paid advertising can be quite successful, there are actually some highly effective organic ways to market your business.

Organic marketing is a strategy of generating traffic to your business without using paid ads. It is generally done over a period of time, and brings traffic more naturally than paid strategies.

This marketing strategy comes with two main benefits. Not only can it increase your customer base (and therefore your sales figures), but as it doesn’t cost you anything. That means it’s something you can do long term. Advertising that can be sustained for long periods of time can do a great job of continuously bringing in new customers to your business. This is key in taking your business to new levels of success.

There are several methods of organic marketing that you can use to generate traffic to your eCommerce business. We’ve gathered seven great organic marketing strategies. Read on to find out how to utilize this valuable tool.

1. Help Current Customers Promote Your Business

Your current customer base is a perfect advertising tool. They have found your business, they have purchased from your business, and they have experienced everything your business has to offer. They know how good your customer service is and they know that your products are of extremely high quality. If they share their high opinion of your business, other customers will likely come your way too.

A study found that 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know. That’s a fact that can be used to organically advertise your business. To start out, simply make your website, product pages, and blog posts shareable on social media. This can be very effective at starting conversations about your business.

You can also have an alert pop up when a customer makes a purchase asking them to share it on social media. If they do, it turns into free advertising. Some followers might decide to go ahead and check out the product as well, generating traffic. Others might ask your customer questions about it. If your customer was happy with their purchase, they’ll likely let their friends know. This could lead to even more traffic and conversions.

Another great way to go about encouraging customers to promote your business is by offering incentives for referrals. More than 50% of people are likely to give a referral if offered an incentive, social media recognition, or access to a loyalty program. Simply offering a small discount on their next order, a mention on social media, or some kind of small reward, could convince your customers to refer several new customers to your business.

2. Build An Online Community

An online community can be a very effective way of organically advertising. In order to build your following, try to be as interactive as possible with your social media accounts. Engaging posts, polls, competitions, and fun content can go a long way in bringing more people into your online community.

You could take this a step further and create a private Facebook group for customers and followers. Having a private Facebook group helps create a feeling of importance as the content shared within it is for members only. This creates a sense of exclusivity which can quickly build loyalty.

If your community is loyal and believes in your business, some of your followers will do all they can to help your business succeed. Whether that’s by telling their friends about it, sharing your posts, repeat buying, or leaving positive online reviews, your online community can be a powerful organic advertising tool.

In order to remain relevant and engaged with your community, you’ll want to stay on top of trends and keep up to date on what’s going on in this fast-changing industry. It’s a good idea to check out eCommerce resources such as EcommerceNext to do just that.

3. Always Keep SEO In Mind

SEO will always be a huge factor in organically marketing your business. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving your website’s standing in search engine results. This is one of the best cost-free ways to drive traffic to your business.

New trends and algorithms appear fairly frequently in the world of SEO, so it can seem like a never ending task. However, if you can continuously improve your SEO ranking, your website can pull in some big numbers resulting in an increase in customers and sales.

Improving your SEO involves a number of practices. Some common strategies include publishing regular blog posts that cover popular topics related to your business, updating product descriptions, correctly naming images, adding backlinks, and other similar tasks. While some business owners might see SEO as a very technical chore, small changes on a regular basis can be enough to keep your website climbing the rankings on search result pages.

There’s no denying that SEO takes work. It can be time consuming and tedious. But the benefits it can bring can not be overlooked. If you consider that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engine results, getting your website on page one of a Google search should be a top priority for organic marketing

4. Don’t Wait For Customers To Come To You, Go To Them

If your business’ niche has popular gathering places either online or in the real world, it’s worth joining them.

There are different parts of the internet where people with different interests hang out. For example, fashion fans are likely to use Instagram or TikTok, where they can share fashion images. If you sell apparel in your eCommerce store, breaking into the fashion Instagram space can be a great way to grow traffic.

If you know and understand the profile and behavior of your potential customers, you can find the places they spend time and engage with them. You don’t have to directly advertise, either. Simply joining in relevant conversations, demonstrating that you’re an expert in your field, and showing that you’re trustworthy can be great advertising strategies.

When it comes to real-world gatherings, conferences, events, and showcases can be very useful places to meet potential customers. If you take your business to one of these events, whether that be as a vendor, guest speaker, or sponsor, you might be surprised at how many people suddenly take an interest in your business.

5. Listen To Your Customers

Another great thing about your current customers is that they already know what it’s like to work with your business. That puts them in a strong position to offer useful feedback on how well your business is doing things.

Getting feedback and reviews is important, but it’s a good idea to take it a step further. Take the time to truly listen to what your customers are saying. Then, you can react appropriately. This can be a great organic advertising strategy.

Imagine one of your customers provides feedback about your business. They let you know that they love the product they got from you but they found the checkout process a little bit confusing. This feedback is then repeated by several more customers. If you take this feedback to heart, make some changes to the checkout process, and then let your customers know, it can build huge amounts of loyalty.

Listening to customers shows them that they are important to you and you truly value them. Once they feel valued, their loyalty to you grows and they are much more likely to want to help your business succeed. They may buy more products from you and even start sharing your business with their friends and family. This can lead to more customers.

6. Share Useful Content That Isn’t a Sales Pitch

Sometimes, one of the best ways of advertising your business is by offering useful information for free. This might sound counterintuitive, since a business needs to make money in order to stay operational. However, if you know what is important to potential customers and offer them related content, it builds a relationship. Then, when it comes time for the consumer to make a purchase, they’ll keep your business in mind.

Let’s say that your business sells TVs. A potential customer is at the research stage of their journey, so they aren’t ready to buy right now. However, if you provide them with resources on the pros and cons of different types of TVs, it will be an extremely valuable resource. They read through your blog post and make a decision based on the information you shared. When it comes time for the customer to make their purchase, they go back to the blog post, follow a link and end up on your product page.

If the content you share is too promotional and feels like you are just trying to make a sale, it can put the readers off your business. Instead, try to stick to high quality accurate and relevant information. It’s a great way to organically advertise your business to people who are likely to be customers in the future.

7. Meet New People

It can be easy to get lost in the world of SEO, referrals, marketing, newsletters, emails, and website updates. Business owners can quickly get into the habit of investing all of their time in technical strategies to promote their business.

However, there’s another organic marketing strategy that often gets overlooked: meeting new people. This could occur at organized networking events, on your daily walks, or even at a friend’s party. Meeting new people can be good for you and good for business.

When people meet someone new, one of the first questions that tend to come up is: what do you do for work? This opens up an opportunity to talk to others about your business. You’re not doing a sales pitch; you’re just talking about your job and what your business does.

While talking about your business to a new acquaintance might not seem so helpful, that person might keep you in mind when talking to someone else. Along the way, someone might hear about your business and decide to go ahead and make a purchase. Spreading the word is always beneficial to your business.

You also never know when you will meet someone who wants to collaborate with you, benefiting both businesses.

Meeting new people is a valuable experience in many aspects of life. It’s an added bonus that it can also help organically market your business too.

Organic marketing is a great way to grow your customer base. However, if you want to keep your business growing, you’ll need funding. 8fig offers eCommerce sellers continuous funding aligned to every stage of your supply chain. It’s fast, flexible, and equity-free. If you’re looking to grow your business, sign up for a personalized Growth Plan from 8fig and see how we can help you reach your goals.