Investing in organic growth marketing could be the key to transforming your business, your advertising ROI, and your relationship with customers in the years ahead.
With growth marketing, companies take an agile and experimental approach to promotion. Using research and data, you uncover ways of consistently and sustainably building connections with new and existing customers, boosting your profitability.
With a growth marketing consultant, you can explore endless innovative ways of promoting your business, increasing sales, and optimizing brand loyalty.
However, there are two different ways to invest in growth marketing. You can focus on “organic” growth or inorganic growth. Organic growth marketing strategies concentrate on cultivating new opportunities without paying for ads. It’s a strategy that doesn’t rely on your budget for PPC on Google and Facebook to drive results.
Here are our top tips for building an organic growth marketing strategy in 2023, whether you’re running a B2B or B2C business.
What is Organic Growth Marketing?
Before we dive into our top tips for a successful organic growth marketing strategy, it’s worth taking a closer look at what this term actually means. As mentioned above, organic marketing refers to any form of marketing that isn’t a paid placement.
PPC campaigns, display advertising, and paid social campaigns are all forms of “inorganic” marketing. In other words, they don’t naturally drive leads to your business. Although they can benefit your growth, as soon as you stop paying for your ad placement, your leads will start to diminish.
Organic marketing strategies, such as content production, social media posts, and email campaigns, deliver consistent, compounding results. With organic marketing, you naturally drive leads and prospects to your business. The “growth” part comes in when you add experimentation and data to the mix. For instance, you might use insights about the number of visits each blog post gets on your website to design new content strategies and pillar pages.
Notably, “organic growth marketing” doesn’t necessarily translate to “free marketing.” While you’re not paying for traffic or clicks, you’ll still spend your marketing budget on things like creating content and sending emails. You might even work with consultants or agencies to achieve your goals.
The Benefits of Organic Growth Marketing
The concepts of organic marketing and organic growth marketing are nothing new. However, they have begun to earn increased attention in recent years. One study found that around 20% of companies invested significantly more in organic marketing during 2022.
The reason for this is organic growth marketing delivers clear benefits. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to generate new leads for your company. After all, you don’t have to spend anything on PPC ad placements and display campaigns.
It also helps to create a sustainable foundation for future growth. Rather than constantly increasing and adjusting your ad spend for paid campaigns, you can invest in a specific method once and see long-term returns.
Organic marketing can even boost your reputation and relationships with your target audience. Focusing on tactics like content creation, social media marketing, and email all help you nurture connections with leads, demonstrate thought leadership, and pave the way for long-term connections.
6 Organic B2B Growth Marketing Tips
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for effective growth marketing. The very nature of this promotional practice requires companies to commit to a constant process of experimentation and data-driven action. However, there are some tried-and-tested strategies that can work better for some brands than others based on their target audience.
Here are some of the best ways to invest in organic B2B growth marketing in 2023.
1. Create a Comprehensive Content Creation Strategy
Content marketing is one of the most valuable growth marketing strategies around. While it’s beneficial to both B2C and B2B companies, a comprehensive content strategy can be particularly useful in the business-focused landscape. The simple reason for this is that B2B purchasing cycles are longer and rely more heavily on research.
9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate or major effect on their purchasing decisions. Additionally, many B2B customers do up to 70% of their own research online before they ever connect with a sales professional.
The key to using content for B2B growth marketing is taking a holistic approach. Rather than just producing blogs designed to attract customers to your business at the “top of the funnel,” you need to consider the full buyer journey.
Map the average purchasing cycle of your ideal target customer, and ask yourself what kinds of content they’ll likely interact with during their journey. For instance, during the initial stages, they might be looking for answers to questions like “What is email marketing software?”. After they’ve identified their issue or need, they might want to compare products available on the market.
Before a customer reaches out to a sales team, they might even want to see how products and features work using demo videos on YouTube and other channels. Ensure your content strategy addresses every stage of the purchasing journey and every type of customer intent.
2. Prioritize Customer Success
One of the main ways B2B and B2C sales differ is in the length of the average customer lifecycle. While a B2C company might go through thousands of new customers every month, most B2B companies want to maintain long-lasting relationships with the same customers.
In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to up to 95% more profits for a B2B brand. This means if you want to optimize organic growth, you should be focusing on retaining and delighting your most valuable customers.
There are a few ways you can boost your chances of retention with B2B growth marketing tactics, such as:
- Creating educational content: Sharing educational content, such as product videos, webinars, and tutorials, can help customers make the most of the solutions they’re accessing. When customers know how to take advantage of the core benefits your solution offers, they’re more likely to see its value and stick with your company for longer.
- Gathering and acting on feedback: Actively asking your customers for feedback and responding to their requests makes a huge difference to customer loyalty. Send surveys via email, host polls on LinkedIn, and look for easy ways to improve your customer experience.
- Reward loyal customers: Identify the most loyal and lucrative customers in your pipeline and find ways to reward them for their support. This could mean giving certain people early access to new features, providing discounts on recurring subscriptions, or even just sending exclusive offers to your VIP clients.
- Provide flexibility to your clients: Delivering a smooth and differentiated customer service experience is critical to maintaining a high customer retention rate, and allowing clients to manage payments and appointment reservations effortlessly with flexible scheduling software improves their overall experience.
3. Optimize Your Presence on LinkedIn
Similar to content marketing, social media marketing is another core B2B growth marketing strategy. A strong presence on social media helps companies generate leads, but it also gives you an opportunity to nurture those leads and strengthen relationships over time.
In the B2B space, LinkedIn is by far the most valuable social media channel. It’s where your sales teams can reach out to potential prospects, learn more about companies and their needs, and share valuable content to demonstrate thought leadership.
Start by optimizing your LinkedIn presence completing high-quality profiles for both your business and your core members of staff. Next, look for ways to take advantage of the platform by:
- Sharing valuable content: Sharing blog posts, articles, videos, and even links to podcasts and other content on LinkedIn will help to establish you as a thought leader. It can also drive customers back to your website, increasing your traffic.
- Joining groups and discussions: Get involved in group discussions related to your industry and try to answer common customer questions. Focus on providing value with comments and responses rather than just promoting your business.
- Forming connections: Reach out to businesses directly on LinkedIn through direct messenger and ask them about the issues they might face that are relevant to your product or service. Concentrate on building relationships and long-term connections.
4. Take Advantage of Email
81% of B2B marketers say email is their most used form of content marketing. The simple reason for this is that virtually every professional buyer is likely to have their own email address. Plus, most of these customers check their emails on a regular basis, regardless of whether they’re searching for solutions on Google or interacting on social media.
A strong email marketing strategy gives you an opportunity to connect with potential customers wherever they are, build relationships, and increase long-term sales. It’s also an example of a B2B growth marketing strategy that you have complete control over.
Even if SEO algorithms change and AI takes over the content strategy, you’ll still be able to connect with customers via email. The key to success with email for organic growth marketing is having the right strategy. Make sure you:
- Personalize every email: Segment your customers into different groups based on their buyer behaviors, needs, interests, and demographic characteristics. This way, you can make sure you’re sending subscribers valuable content they’re genuinely interested in.
- Automate campaigns: Creating automated email campaigns is a great way to ensure you maintain a consistent connection with your audience. Make sure you’re getting the cadence or frequency of your emails right with A/B testing.
- Master re-engagement strategies: Use email to reconnect with customers who disappear from your sales funnel. Keep track of audience engagement levels and send offers, discounts, or other valuable assets to customers who might be ready to churn.
5. Invest in Engaging Events
B2B customers rely heavily on events to learn more about products and services, network with professionals, and stay up-to-date on trends. Investing in event marketing could be an excellent way to demonstrate your thought leadership as a growing brand and increase your chances of sales.
Although running an event can be expensive, taking part in an industry-focused conference or expo doesn’t have to cost a fortune. It can also deliver incredible results. 97% of B2B marketing experts agree that live events have a direct impact on their business outcomes.
Consider applying to host speaker sessions or keynote speeches at events that are relevant to your company and community. If you’re limited in terms of budget, you can consider running digital or hybrid events instead. Companies like HubSpot and Salesforce achieve phenomenal success by hosting regular, low-cost webinars and interactive online sessions.
You could even consider collaborating with other non-competitive brands in your space to host a regular educational event for all of your most crucial customers.
6. Use Data to Work Smarter
Growth marketing in all of its forms relies heavily on data. However, access to data can be particularly useful in the B2B landscape. With the right insights, you can make sure you’re targeting your campaigns to the right audience.
You can also keep up-to-date on trends and collect meaningful insights from customer feedback to guide future marketing campaigns and improve your ROI. The easiest way to take advantage of all that data is with the right technology. Simple tools like Google Analytics can give you a behind-the-scenes insight into what kind of content your audience is consuming.
Social media analytics on LinkedIn can help you learn more about your target audience and their preferences. You can even use tools powered by AI to track opportunities and trends in your landscape, examine behavioral information, and map your customer’s journey.
The more data you collect, the more you can optimize your marketing campaigns without having to invest more into your promotional budget.
6 Organic B2C Growth Marketing Tips
While many of the organic growth marketing strategies above can be converted for the B2C landscape, there are also some specific methods that can work more effectively for consumer-focused brands. Here are some of our top tips for B2C growth marketing this year.
1. Start a Podcast
Both B2B and B2C growth marketing strategies often rely heavily on content creation. In both environments, creating content for the entire customer journey is valuable. It ensures you can connect with your audience throughout each stage of the purchasing process.
However, the types of content you use in the B2C and B2B worlds may differ. Podcasting, for instance, is quickly becoming one of the most valuable forms of content in the modern world. Studies suggest by the end of 2023, there will be around 103.6 million podcast listeners in the US alone.
The great thing about podcasts is they’re extremely easy to create. Anyone can design a podcast about a specific topic and start uploading it online. Podcasts help to increase brand awareness, and they also assist in positioning your business as a thought leader in your industry.
You can even consider adding your podcast to your website pages and blogs, increasing the time customers spend on your page. When customers listen to your podcast, they’re more likely to be regularly inspired to come back and purchase more of your products.
2. Build a Community
Once again, this strategy can work for both B2B and B2C companies, but building a community can be particularly valuable for businesses that want to engage with a specific consumer niche. The rise of social media channels like TikTok and Instagram, as well as increasing interest in customer forums like Reddit, is leading to higher demand for community experiences.
Communities are a great way to build loyalty and keep customers engaged with your brand. They can inspire customers to become advocates and start advertising on your behalf. Plus, they’re excellent for collecting feedback and insights into your customers’ wants, needs, and pain points.
There are plenty of great examples of B2C communities out there already. For instance, Lululemon hosts regular in-person and online events for their customers and shares customers’ stories and interviews on their website. The brand also has a dedicated “Studio” filled with premium content for its most active fans. When building your own community, remember to:
- Deliver value: Make sure customers get something out of the community experience. This could be access to exclusive content, early notifications of sales, or just extra information about your products and services.
- Listen to your community: Pay attention to the conversations customers have on your social media channels and forums. This will give you a behind-the-scenes look at purchasing trends, customer expectations, and the sentiment buyers have toward your brand.
- Promote your community: Make sure customers know how to become a part of your community. Advertise it on social media. Allow customers to subscribe to your website or send email links to your existing subscribers.
3. Consider Local Search Engine Optimization
Alongside content marketing, SEO is one of the most common organic growth marketing tactics used by any brand. The majority of customer interactions still start with a search engine, regardless of whether you’re in the B2B or B2C landscape.
As a B2C company, investing in all forms of SEO can be an incredible way to increase sales and growth. Targeting specific keywords relevant to your company in your blog posts and pages will help to improve your visibility and strengthen your brand’s credibility.
However, depending on the size and nature of your brand, you might want to take a more refined approach to SEO at times too. Local search engine optimization strategies are great for engaging your community, strengthening your presence with your most valuable customers, and boosting brand awareness. A few ways to get started include:
- Optimizing your Google My Business page: Make sure you have an optimized listing on Google My Business. It’s free to create one of these listings, and you can use it to share information about your company’s location, contact details, and more.
- Add location pages to your website: Update your website with pages dedicated to the specific regions you serve. This will help you to rank for more specific terms, like “Organic Clothing New York” or “Phone Accessories London”.
- Create localized content: When writing blogs and articles for your specific target audience, think about how you can “localize” the experience. Draw attention to customer stories and services you offer in specific regions to demonstrate credibility.
4. Create Referral Programs
In the world of B2C growth marketing, your customers are some of your most valuable assets. Not only do they contribute to your profit and revenue directly, but they can also help you reach new customers without investing in lead generation.
Through word-of-mouth marketing, customers can actively drive new customers to your business, and these customers can even be more valuable than the leads you obtain elsewhere. Around 92% of customers trust immediate referrals from people they know. This extra layer of trust creates the foundation for an excellent relationship with existing and future customers.
The best way to encourage your customers to guide new buyers to your business is to create a referral program. This basically means offering your customers a reward every time they advise another customer to use your service. You can easily create referral programs that give customers unique links to share with their friends or access specific offers.
A good way to boost the success of your referral program even further is to reward both new and referring customers at the same time. If customers earn something every time they engage with your referral campaign, they’re more likely to keep using it. Alternatively, offering new customers a reward, such as a discount or free shipping, means they’re more likely to make a purchase.
5. Work with Influencers on Social Media
As mentioned above, great social media marketing strategies can accelerate growth for both B2B and B2C companies. In the B2C growth marketing world, you’re not limited to business-focused platforms like LinkedIn. You can invest in organic growth marketing strategies on a range of different channels, depending on your target audience.
For instance, if you’re trying to reach younger customers, it makes sense to have a strong presence on TikTok and Instagram. If you want to reach a wider range of consumers, you can use platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. While regularly posting valuable content on these platforms will help you grow, you can boost your chances of success even further by working with the right partners.
Influencer marketing is one of the most valuable tools any business has at its disposal today. Working with an influencer is one of the easiest ways to boost brand awareness on social media and improve the credibility of your brand.
You can even keep costs low with micro-influencers. For instance, the Fashion Nova brand uses around 5,000 micro-influencers to create and share content that feels natural and engaging with their target audience.
6. Invest in User Generated Content
Direct referrals aren’t the only way your customers can help you attract more leads and opportunities in the B2C environment. You can also turbocharge organic growth with a strategy for collecting and sharing user-generated content.
Studies show that customers believe user-generated content is the most trustworthy and authentic form of content there is. At a time when consumers are looking for more human connections with brands, “UGC” could be the key to your B2C growth marketing success.
There are plenty of ways to embed user-generated content into your organic growth marketing campaigns, such as:
- Showcasing customer reviews: Give customers the opportunity to leave reviews and comments on your product pages and website. Share those reviews whenever you can, on social media, in your email marketing campaigns, and in future blog posts.
- Create a branded hashtag: Designing a branded hashtag, such as Nike’s #JustDoIt, is an excellent way to encourage customers to share user-generated content. Invite them to use the tag whenever they post content related to your business.
- Share customer stories: Reach out to your valuable customers and ask them for their insights on your products and services. Invite them to talk to you about their needs, goals, and pain points. For instance, Airbnb regularly shares customer stories on its blog.
Mastering Organic Growth Marketing
Organic growth marketing is one of the best ways to increase profits and opportunities for your business without breaking your promotional budget. With an organic approach to marketing, you can build stronger relationships with customers and increase sales using a range of different strategies.
The tips above should give you the insights you need to start developing your own growth marketing campaign as either a B2B or B2C brand. However, keep in mind that many of the methods above will work for all kinds of businesses, particularly as B2B and B2C marketing grow more alike.
Of course, if you’re struggling to choose the right growth marketing strategy for your business, you can always seek some expert help. Reach out to the Growth Collective to find your ideal growth marketing consultant and start paving the way toward organic success.
FAQ
What is organic growth in marketing?
Organic growth in marketing is the art of attracting new clients and opportunities to your business without investing in paid advertising placements. It essentially expands your business by leveraging the skills, knowledge, relationships, and tools you already have.
What is growth marketing?
Growth marketing is a data-driven approach to marketing that focuses on retaining and acquiring new customers. It leverages analytics, data, and experimentation to discover new methods of potential business growth rather than focusing entirely on raising awareness or generating leads.
What is B2B vs. B2C Marketing?
B2B marketing focuses on promotional strategies used to attract business clients to companies. B2C marketing focuses on the consumer market. While there are differences between the two, related to the length and complexity of the customer lifecycle, many B2B and B2C advertising strategies are beginning to overlap.
What are the common types of organic marketing?
Organic marketing strategies cover every type of marketing that doesn’t involve paid placement. This could include content marketing and search engine optimization, video and podcast creation, email marketing, social media, and live events or webinars.
Is organic marketing better?
Organic marketing strategies can be an excellent way for businesses to drive authentic engagement with their audience, increase leads, and boost customer lifetime value without spending a fortune on ads. It can help educate and inform audiences, strengthen customer relationships, and improve a company’s reputation.
