Your top two concerns as a CEO are lowering risk and boosting corporate growth. I'll talk about the latter in this piece. However, there are two types of growth to consider: organic and inorganic.
So, how can you change your firm into a high-growth brand without putting it in jeopardy?
Invest in organic expansion. As a result, a high-ROI, self-compounding revenue model emerges, which grows stronger over time.
I'll lead you through five tactics for building an organic growth company that regularly provides shareholder value in this book.
Points to Remember
- Organic growth is the process of a company's internal expansion using its own resources, talents, knowledge, marketing, content, and contacts.
- Marketing efforts that promote organic growth at an exponential rate are more cost-effective and long-term than inorganic growth tactics.
- Use SEO to connect, amplify, and compound your organic growth efforts.
Invest in your firm in a way that grows over time.
Consider organic business growth to be similar to compounding investments that yield long-term results.
A flywheel effect, for example, is created by an organic ecosystem of content, SEO, PR, word-of-mouth, emails, and social media. You may harness all components of the ecosystem to magnify your value proposition and improve organic sales with an omni-channel marketing approach.
And the advantages keep on coming. Each time you invest, you will reap the benefits for many years to come.
With one eye on what's now in front of you and the other on the future, you may achieve a high organic growth rate.
Organic vs. inorganic development
What is organic development?
Organic growth (internal growth) is the process of growing your company by using your own strategic efforts, resources, capabilities, knowledge, marketing, content, and partnerships, among other things.
What is the definition of inorganic growth?
Buying growth is what inorganic growth (external growth) is all about. Paid media, such as display, native, and search adverts, can be used to do this. It might also take the form of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Facebook's acquisitions of WhatsApp ($22 billion) and Instagram ($1 billion) are good examples of a corporation investing a lot of money to pursue inorganic growth.
Organic development has several advantages.
A solid organic growth strategy will position your company for long-term success. Organic marketing outcomes continue to compound in sharp contrast to sponsored advertising when comparing PPC and SEO. When you stop throwing money into the engine in the realm of paid, revenue goes to nothing.
When it comes to breaking into new markets or launching new product lines through business mergers and acquisitions, the results might be mixed. In the Harvard Business Review, Ken Favaro, David Meer, and Samrat Sharma wrote:
Yes, it is theoretically conceivable to justify purchases only on the basis of cost synergies, and to do so indefinitely. However, according to studies, only 36% of purchases result in substantial cost reductions to offset the premium paid; in the other 64%, annual total shareholder returns are on average negative 2%. Investors can tell the difference between companies that have experienced significant organic growth as a result of their acquisitions and those that have merely become larger. Even the most committed acquisition will eventually have to figure out how to generate robust organic growth.
To put it another way, even if you have the financial means to keep buying clicks and acquiring businesses, you'll eventually need to figure out how to build your business organically.
5 Ways to Boost Organic Growth
Then, using five tried-and-true tactics, I'll show you how to accomplish organic growth.
1. Use SEO to unify and magnify your marketing mix.
SEO improves the return on investment (ROI) of marketing campaigns.
The most effective organic growth marketing technique is SEO. Organic search is, in fact, the only marketing medium that grows in value over time. The amount of traffic and money you create increases even if your SEO spend remains essentially same. This is because higher rankings lead to more visibility, which leads to more backlinks, which leads to even more visibility, and so on.
That is how SEO improves marketing ROI.
When compared to PPC, where you get a fixed, temporary, and lower return on ad expenditure, this is a much better deal. To put it another way, you don't get more — or less — than you pay for.
In fact, Google admits that SEO has a 5.3X return on investment compared to merely 2X for sponsored search advertising.
Furthermore, SEO can be used to increase brand awareness and sentiment, resulting in increased brand equity. As a result, you'll lower your reputational risk and have better control over your messaging.
Align your thinking with that of your target audience.
Why is organic search such a powerful growth driver? One of the most important reasons is that it precisely reflects how your audience is thinking at the exact moment they are most open to your message. If you want to be a customer-centric business, starting with SEO as the foundation for all of your marketing is a fantastic place to start.
SEO is also one of the few marketing tactics that does not detract from the client experience. When you're listening to a podcast and an advertisement comes on, it interrupts your listening. When you're browsing through Facebook and come across an ad, it doesn't add to your experience; it detracts from it.
When done correctly, SEO allows you to walk alongside potential consumers, providing them with material, answers, and solutions that truly help and support their buying journey. SEO provides the framework that allows them to achieve their goals.
Increase the lifetime value of your customers.
"SEO does more than merely generate visitors to your site," according to a commissioned report by Forrester Consulting. "An SEO strategy implemented across marketing functions can improve your brand's reputation, eliminate bad mentions, and improve lifetime customer value."
At each point of the funnel, SEO gives clients with the ideal answers to their questions at at the correct time. This is just one example of how SEO may help you improve your digital client experience. As a result, you'll see increased client loyalty and LTV.
Read our post on how to increase CLV for better business outcomes.
2. Create interesting content
Develop differentiated content if you want to stand out in a crowded market. One of the most important aspects is that it should be high-value, memorable, and distinct from other items in your location.
Consider Red Bull. By churning out a flood of interesting, attention-grabbing content, they've branded themselves as the drink for extreme sports. The company is continuously releasing new and unusual content, ranging from recordings of soapbox cars crashing to clips of skateboarders in Ethiopia.
Another excellent example is HubSpot. Every month, the HubSpot blog receives millions of organic search visitors. They've achieved tremendous organic development for the company by routinely providing extensive, informative tutorials on a range of marketing issues.
So, how do you make content that sticks out? You can employ a variety of tactics, including:
- Rather than being boring and dry, elicit an emotional response.
- Create relevant content that aids in the resolution of customer issues.
- Make use of "feel good" content that inspires or uplifts your audience.
- Customers will connect with you if you tell them stories that they can relate to.
- Include a surprise aspect.
Read 8 Ways to Create Viral Content That Gets Shared Like Crazy for more inspiration.
3. Develop novel products or business models.
If your organic growth has slowed, developing new items or developing a new business model will help you re-energize your business. Shopify is a great example of pivoting to develop organically. Tobias Lütke, a cofounder, founded the company by selling snowboarding equipment on a customer ecommerce site. They eventually realised that selling ecommerce software would allow them to generate more money. They've grown into a multibillion-dollar corporation.
Google began as a simple search engine. Email, analytics, phones, operating systems, browsers, augmented reality, cloud services, advertising, and many more items have been introduced to their range during the last two decades.
Amazon started out by selling books on the internet. AWS servers now power a major section of the internet and bring in more than $35 billion in revenue each year.
Adobe began with graphics design and marketing tools, but after switching to a subscription-based income model, it burst with growth.
Apple transitioned from a product-based business model to an ecosystem-based business model, and went on to become one of the most valuable firms in the world.
Is it possible to introduce new products or services to increase customer acquisition or upsell existing customers? Is there a new model you can implement that will help you expand your business faster?
4. Make a big splash with digital marketing.
You might be shocked to learn what digital marketing entails. You can uncover major avenues for organic growth that you couldn't achieve any other way when you fully implement a solid digital strategy.
Your company needs to undergo a seismic digital revolution, with consumer shopping behaviour fast evolving and staff working remotely. You're losing market share by the bucketload if you don't meet your clients where they are. Going ALL IN on digital unlocks crucial consumer data to help you follow user activity across all channels, in addition to the benefits of simply being present.
To be successful, you'll need a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
You should have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and who you're marketing to. You must also determine your top marketing channels and methods, as well as your budget allocations, in order to fuel sales growth. It's also critical to leave money in your budget for strategic experimentation and testing.
Follow these steps when making your plan:
- Make SMART objectives.
- Define your characters and audience groupings.
- Analyze your competitors' landscape.
- Make a SWOT analysis of your own business.
- Make a budget for digital marketing.
- Determine which marketing methods are the most effective for you.
- Create marketing strategy and approaches tailored to each channel.
- Make a comprehensive marketing calendar.
- Measure the outcomes and KPIs, then make adjustments as needed.
5. Keep track of SEO and marketing analytics.
It's critical to keep track of crucial marketing indicators so you can figure out what's driving your growth and where you need to improve. The indicators you monitor will be determined by your individual growth objectives.
Organic revenue, average order value, profitability, cash flow, and customer lifetime value are just a few examples of metrics to keep track of. You'll want to keep an eye on market share in addition to organic statistics.
As these measures demonstrate, it's critical to keep your finger on the pulse of your total business performance. Don't stop there, though.
Make sure you're tracking the most critical SEO data on a more granular level. Domain authority, keyword ranks, organic traffic, organic conversions, and referring domains are all important factors to consider.
You'll want to keep track of MQLs, SQLs, cost per lead, cost per acquisition, and conversion rate if you're performing lead-gen campaigns.
Look for strategic approaches to optimise these metrics as you track them for greater performance.
- Is it possible to restructure your site for better performance?
- Where can you employ SEO copywriting to boost your content's search engine ranks and increase organic traffic?
- Are you able to develop new material that more successfully engages your audience?
- Are you able to tweak components of your CTAs to boost conversion rates?
- Should you make opt-in forms easier to use in order to reduce friction and enhance the number of leads you get?
- Are your website's behavioural analytics indicating any friction?
- Where on the website can you run A/B tests?
On the road to organic development
Organic growth isn't something that happens by chance. It's the result of consciously implementing techniques that succeed over time, capitalising on development opportunities, and continually optimising your efforts.
When SEO is at the heart of your marketing strategy, you can continually attract new organic search traffic and then deliver exactly what people want at each point of the buyer experience.
Because it attracts your audience's attention when they're actively seeking answers, unique content that targets customer search behaviour is a critical difference. You open up new, more profitable revenue streams with new goods, offerings, or models. When you go all-in on digital, you're tapping into the current behavioural zeitgeist among individuals and businesses. When you track metrics, you can consistently improve your outcomes.
This flywheel generates compounding effects that can lead to organic growth that is exponential.
Questions and Answers about Organic Growth
What is organic development?
Organic growth (internal growth) is the process of growing your company by using your own strategic efforts, resources, capabilities, knowledge, marketing, content, and partnerships, among other things.
What is the difference between organic and inorganic growth?
Organic development is slow, steady, self-sustaining, and compounding, much like an investment. Like a fixed-price acquisition, inorganic development is sudden, constrained, and time-bound.
What are the benefits of organic development?
Organic growth has numerous advantages. It has a good long-term return on investment. Organic growth is more long
-term than inorganic growth. Investments in one sector have an impact on marketing channels in other areas.
What can you do to boost organic growth?
– Invest in SEO
– Create compelling content
– Increase the number of items and services you offer
- Invest entirely in digital marketing