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Organic vs Paid Marketing: Which Gives Better ROI For Your Business?

Organic vs Paid Marketing: Which Gives Better ROI For Your Business?
SEO Oct 07, 2023

With Malaysia’s growing population of internet users, it is essential to take your online marketing scheme to the next level.

Having a well-researched and carefully crafted lead generation campaign isn’t enough to bring in leads to your business’ marketing funnel. You also need to make sure that your campaign will get to your target market.

Therefore, it is beneficial to have an effective marketing plan to drive traffic to your business. If you miss this and just rely on hope, your marketing resources will be put to waste.

There are two primary traffic sources - organic and paid traffic. Organic traffic comes from unpaid search queries, while paid traffic is a website visitor resulting from your sponsored posts. You can either reach your audience naturally or dive into your budget to boost your campaign ads.

However, before deciding as to what approach to use for your business, it is important to understand the differences between paid marketing and organic marketing.

Organic Marketing Defined

Organic marketing generates leads to your business naturally rather than spending money to boost a specific post or campaign. Also known as inbound marketing, it aims to optimize relevant content for better search results.

Hence, this approach draws your target audience by providing them information or solutions that they’re looking for.

Some examples of the best organic content marketing strategies are blog posts, unpaid social media updates, guest posts, email blasts, and case studies.

Pros

1. Budget-friendly

The major benefit of organic marketing is that it’s cost-effective because you don’t need to pay to get your content to your target market.

2. Builds lasting relationships with clients

People would engage not only with compelling content but, more importantly, with the information they care about.

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Most people often avoid paid marketing tactics as they feel they are being forced to it. Since you’re not paying for your marketing materials to get noticed, the organic marketing approach feels to be less sales-y and more authentic.

With word-of-mouth recommendations, the right people would be more likely to show interest in your business, allowing you to build credibility over time.

Cons

In the saturated internet world, drawing your audience’s attention doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of time to land on search results for your potential leads to see your posts.

If you're in a rush to get results, an organic marketing campaign may not be the right fit for you.

Paid Marketing

Paid marketing is when you spend money to drive online traffic.

Traditionally, paid marketing is in the form of print ads, posters, and billboards. With the advancement of technology and the enormous number of online consumers in the country, marketers switch to paid online marketing schemes.

Paid marketing focuses on achieving results at a faster rate. Having one of the highest counts of online consumers in the Southeast Asia region, marketers take advantage of paid digital content marketing in Malaysia.

Some of the paid marketing strategies for businesses in Malaysia are pay-per-click and sponsored posts on search engines and social media platforms.

Pros

Contrary to organic marketing, paid marketing strategy allows you to reach your audience directly. In addition, it will provide you with a faster result. Rather than waiting for your blog posts or social media updates to get noticed, you can have your ads placed right in front of your potential clients.

Paid ads would also bring in fresh new leads to your business. Moreover, it allows you to target a very specific audience to let you find the type of buyer you’re looking for.

Cons

While it is an effective way to build brand awareness, paid marketing can burn a hole in your pocket. Therefore, if your company is starting up with a tight budget, you may want to consider other strategies rather than paying for ads or sponsored posts.

The Verdict

In a country with a promising online industry like Malaysia, you need to develop marketing strategies that are both customer-focused and advanced. Both organic and paid marketing strategies would help your business grow. But they also come with certain drawbacks.

When it becomes challenging to assess organic vs. paid traffic for a more suitable approach for your business, it is beneficial to focus on your traffic goals.

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Would you want a faster return of investment over a lasting customer experience? If your business has enough funds to spend on boosting your campaign materials, but with a time-constraint, then you can use paid marketing schemes.

Meanwhile, if you have limited money but with marketing experts in your company, then organic marketing is a way to go.

However, both paid and organic strategies would often work better when you put them together rather than separately. For example, you can promote your blogs regularly, and pay for search engine and social media campaigns to get more traction.

Another way of combining these two marketing tactics is by posting unpaid social media campaigns on a regular basis and boost one or two posts from time to time. You can also partner up with other blogs, linking your website to theirs.

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Before nailing down what marketing approach would be the right fit for your business, it is always best to get to know your audience, understand their needs, and study their buying behavior.

What do they want? What would attract them? When you put your audience's preferences and needs first, and when you provide them with relevant information and solutions to their queries, you can never go wrong with your marketing scheme.

Putting your customers' needs ahead doesn't mean you have to put your business goals behind. Therefore, you need to sit down and map out your sales targets.

How much do you want to sell this month? How much money are you willing to shell out in order to achieve your sales goals?

Moreover, it is important to balance customer experience with your company goals, needs, and resources. When you learn to juggle both organic and paid schemes, your marketing efforts would be a great success.



Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash


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