Organic content marketing is one of the most important elements when developing a balanced marketing strategy. One that appeals to your audience, while also driving leads, engagement and brand equity.

Many businesses have turned to the “pay to play” game, funneling all their efforts into ads. Yet, in our ad-centric world, consumers are inundated with marketing messages everywhere. While these serve as a regular reminder of your brand, and are likely is a top driver for targeted traffic, they could damage your brand as well.

Ad Reaction’s recent study found that 54 percent of those surveyed had a negative experience with targeted ads: 28 percent saw them too often, 21 percent felt they were not relevant, 19 percent had already purchased and 14 percent said it felt like stalking.

Organic content marketing, on the other hand, helps you drive authentic and impactful connections with your audience. Rather than asking them to buy something every time you interact, your organic content marketing educates, entertains and intrigues potential customers.

If you’re ready to build an authentic brand, here’s are a few ways that organic content marketing can help you.

More: 8 Straight-Forward Content Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners

Focus on Education First

Organic content marketing can lead to sales and new customers—but the focus should always be on educating the customer first and foremost. Consumers are 131% more likely to buy from a brand immediately after they consume early-stage, educational content. Why? You’re providing value to potential customers before asking them to buy from you.

In this way, organic content marketing also allows you to connect your brand values with theirs—something that doesn’t usually come through in an ad. This is what drives customer loyalty, suggests Adam Grow of Search Engine Land:

“In a recent survey we conducted, nearly half of consumers responded that they remain committed to a brand because the brand is closely tied to their identity or the brand’s core values align with the consumer’s values.”

Once they’re interested in your brand, you nurture them. As that person moves through your funnel, whether via random touchpoints or as a subscriber, they’re more likely to become a customer.

Repurpose to Hone Brand Value

Repurposing is the process of taking one piece of content and turning it into another. For example, you may turn a series of blog posts into a downloadable ebook to drive leads. The value in repurposing is saved time. You’ve already done the hard work of writing a great blog post. Now you just need to extract the details that promote the parts that highlight your brand.

One repurposing idea most helpful for developing your authentic brand is creating social media images. Grab executive or employee quotes from a recent blog post and turn them into a social media images that reflect the values of your business. Other ways to repurpose in this way:

Highlight stats that point to the value of your product or service
Share customer testimonials in an image format
Feature stats from your business. I.E. “We’ve maintained a 90% retention rate since our business opened 10 years ago.”

The reverse of this idea is adding other branded content into your blog posts as examples. I did this with a post for Honest Body Fitness (Gym Equipment You Never Use But Should). The idea is simple. You simply add supporting content to the blog post. You can embed social media posts, quotes from customers, or even data from studies your company has done. This is great to do when creating new posts or to give older posts new life.

Content ROI repurposing

Start Guest Posting

Guest posting is one of the best ways to create an authentic brand. First, let’s talk about what guest posting is and the benefits. Guest posting is the process of submitting content to another website or blog, to be published on their website.

The goal: get a natural, value-adding link into the text. When done correctly, this is what drives targeted traffic, gives you that boost in SEO, and provides opportunities to expand and build your brand. Why? You’re positioning yourself as an authority in the space, whether the article features your byline or someone else’s—like mine, when you work with me for guest posting (check out my guest posting services):

When it’s your byline, you’re able to share insights directly with the website’s audience. This is most valuable for trade publishers that are hyper-specific to your industry. Readers see your name on the article and your bio at the bottom, which is the branding element you want in this case.

Without your byline, the value comes in the linked content. If you already create great blog posts, guides and resources on your website, you’re ready to get going. When the article is published, and your guide is referenced—”According to this thorough guide, How to Buy a Home in San Diego, you need to…”—you boost your brand authority because you’re the creator of that content. Over time, this not only boosts the SEO of those linked pages, but positions you as an authority in your industry.

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Wait for the Long-Term Gains

Ads come and go—and in many cases, yours is just another flashing box in the sidebar of Facebook; gone as fast as it’s seen. Organic content marketing allows you to build a long-lasting authentic brand. As your content grows in SEO value, it will start showing up more frequently in SERPs (if you’ve optimized it properly). If the content is evergreen, it will continue to be valuable and drive clicks for many years to come.

Remember, however, that this doesn’t mean you need to do the work of promoting it. Drive that initial surge of traffic through your own community. Share it with influencers, posting on your own social media channels, sending it out as an email newsletter, and including it in a guest post.

Organic Content Marketing for Your Brand

Your brand is what drives lifelong customers. Organic content marketing is one of the best ways to make sure that the brand is both authentic and memorable. If you’re not sure where to start (content marketing is confusing!), check out my Building Your Brand Package.