You have a great company, providing services and products you know are valuable to consumers, so you invest in advertising to get the word out. You’ve chosen a great strategy, but it may not be as effective as you’d like if you haven’t paid much attention to what you are showing your customers organically.
Think of organic marketing much like the organic produce in the grocery store; it has been grown without use of outside influences or aids. Bringing customers to your business organically means they have found you naturally, without the help of any paid links or boosted social posts. So the question becomes: How do I get customers to find me without relying solely on paid advertising? This is where effective storytelling and your organic content become your key components.
The first step is to take a step back and look at your website. Ensure all of the information, from products and services provided to contact information, is accurate and up-to-date. Nothing will turn off potential customers more than a business website that seems out of touch, uninformed and irrelevant. Refreshing the content on your website frequently will also help provide your site with a natural boost in search results. If you provide any hyperlinks on your website, or if you intend to use any particular pages to link back to from an ad, make sure they are relevant and functioning properly. Once you know that your information is accurate, it’s time to engage your audience with storytelling.
While the information you provide to customers is essential, with the addition of storytelling, you are able to build a better connection with your audience. According to Forbes, there are five tips you should follow when presenting your story to customers:
- Set the parameters to keep everything in focus, engaging readers with a coherent story.
- Keep everything transparent and authentic; people can sniff out lies fairly easily, creating a lack of trust before you’ve even had the chance to show them what you offer.
- Be sure your story provides an obvious message for customers, compelling them to connect with your business.
- Remain consistent across everything for your business. Don’t change up color schemes on your website from page-to-page, or use different logos or slogans on various advertising mediums.
- Allow customers to feel like they are involved with your business. Share stories with your customers, letting them know how certain experiences shaped your business today.
The thing to note about storytelling is that it is not simply a set-it-and-forget-it piece that you place on your website. As long as your business is still going, so is your story. Continue to update your customers and share with them, showing that you care to involve them as you grow. This can be done fairly simply through blogging.
Typically, one of the biggest platforms that companies decide to utilize to grow organically is through the use of social media. Unfortunately, this medium can actually be quite ineffective if not done properly. Due to changes in algorithms and more preferential treatment of paid advertisers, only about 4% of followers on Facebook are going to be receiving any organic posts you share from your page. Although this statistic isn’t promising, you should not give up on these posts; simply be more strategic in how you use them.
For starters, make sure that any business page you have is filled out as completely as possible. People will turn away if there’s very little information about your business, or if the page seems neglected. Also, if you have built business pages across various platforms – such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram – know and understand that they are not equal. Each one appeals to a different audience and aesthetic. For example, you wouldn’t get a very effective response putting a straight-forward Facebook post onto the visual-heavy platform of Instagram. On any social platform, those searching for your business are looking for some validation about your brand, or trying to find out what others may be saying about your business. Be sure to stay (reasonably) available to customers through direct social communications, such as Facebook messenger. Not to mention, with social media, you can highlight the more creative side to your business, providing your audience with fun and engaging photos, videos, and more that will encourage them to share with their friends, spreading your reach even further.
Advertising is an essential piece to growing your business and getting your name to the masses, but you do not want to overlook the usefulness of simply updating your website information and just sharing your story with customers. As more customers turn to search to find what they need, having accurate organic content and a story that makes them feel like they know what your business is about will help bring them to you without the extra advertising spend.
If you are in need of a content overhaul, or would like an outside perspective on what is provided on your website, contact us today.
