Episode #125: Organic vs. paid traffic
The great debate in the online space is ALWAYS this one thing…
Organic vs. paid traffic….which one is better?
And the truth?
One is not better than the other! There are pros and cons to both.
If we expect to grow our businesses, we need to be constantly in front of new potential clients, building the know, like and trust factor. And so we need to have a strategy in place for getting front of those new people.
We need to solve the HOW. HOW are we going to find these new people? Now there are a TON of strategies out there that involve both paid and organic marketing. And everyone has an opinion about which one is better.
I know some online entrepreneurs who have built 6-figure businesses on organic traffic, and organic traffic alone.
I know some online entrepreneurs who have built 6-figure businesses on paid traffic, and paid traffic alone.
Both types of traffic have their pros and cons and so in today’s episode we’ll work through some of those pros and cons and what this means for you, someone who is building a 6-figure business in the online space.
And before we dive into today’s content, I do want to say that I think that we, as online entrepreneurs, should be getting traffic from as many sources as we can. Organic and paid traffic are both equally valid in my mind.
Now as we go through these pros and cons I’m going to use a specific example of building your email list through downloading a freebie/lead magnet/opt-in, whatever you want to call it! It’s my point of view that every single thing we do should be to build our email list. And so in regards to traffic, I’m going to be talking about driving traffic to your freebie.
Let’s first dive into organic traffic.
PROS OF ORGANIC TRAFFIC:
The biggest pro of organic traffic is that it is free! As my 5 year old Camden would say, “DUH!” It’s pretty obvious, right? Organic traffic is preferred by a lot of people because it’s free.
Now another massive pro is that your organic traffic is more qualified. Odds are, if you are driving organic traffic to your latest freebie, that person who is downloading your freebie probably already somewhat knows you. They either follow you on Instagram, are friends with you on Facebook, maybe they’re in your Facebook Group, or even on your email list already. Your organic traffic is connected to you somehow, or else they wouldn’t be organic!
CONS OF ORGANIC TRAFFIC:
You can max out your organic audience. When you tap out your audience, you tap out your audience, you can’t undo that. Unless you’re constantly growing your audience, odds are there is going to come a point when they’ve already downloaded your freebie and that’s that. To avoid this con you need to be constantly growing your audience.
Another con with organic traffic is that it requires a lot of active work. Now I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get into online business to be tied to my phone or computer all day long. If you all have been hanging out with me for a while or if you’re brand new know that I believe STRONGLY in automation. Marketing to your organic market is a lot of active work. Granted, there are ways to automate this through Facebook or Instagram Ads, using scheduler tools, and things like that, but at the end of the day, a lot of it has you responding to messages, commenting on posts, and working in that way. Not that that’s a bad thing, there’s certainly a time and a place for it, but it is a lot more active work.
Now let’s transition and talk about paid traffic.
PROS OF PAID TRAFFIC:
The biggest and best reason why you should consider paid traffic as a way to build your audience is that it gets you in front of new people. Remember when I said earlier that you can max out your audience with organic traffic? This is the solution to that. You pay for this kind of traffic because it’s getting you in front of people who normally would have never known you through organic marketing strategies.
Another pro of paid traffic is that you can grow really quickly in a short amount of time. Granted, this can cost you some serious cash, but think about your ROI (your return on investment) on this. If you get 2,000 people into your new challenge over a 2 week time period and let’s go on the higher end and say you pay $4 per email address. You spend a total of $8,000 on that advertising and marketing. Through your challenge you convert your participants at 5% for your $1,000 course, meaning 100 people buy and you make $100,000. Now that $8,000 on Ads doesn’t seem so scary, does it? And these types of results will not happen if you don’t pay for advertising, unless you have a massively large audience. Like we’re talking hundreds of thousands of followers who eat up every single thing you do.
CONS OF PAID TRAFFIC:
It can be expensive if you don’t know what the heck you’re doing. And I see/hear this with Facebook and Instagram Ads often. If you’re tried Ads and over and over again you keep spending way too much with little to no ROI, you have to change something in your strategy. You either need to invest in a course or a coach or an agency to help you because you’re wasting a ton of time and money trying to figure it out yourself. It’s not that your industry doesn’t respond to Ads, it’s that your Ads aren’t effective and compelling. It’s a “you” thing, not a “them” thing.
Another con of paid traffic is that there is a testing period. Right out the bat you’re not going to have amazing conversion costs, even if you’re working with the #1 agency in your industry. There is a learning curve, even for them. They have to learn what your audience responds to, what they don’t respond to and then adjust and tweak. Granted, an expert can do this a lot quicker than most people, so you’re in good hands, but don’t expect immediate success right away.
What I really want you to know is that in your business you have to have a lead generation strategy that actually works for you. If it stresses you out, or if you’re not sure where your clients are coming from, or if you’re not sure when your next client will appear, or If you’re not booking clients consistently, then something has to change. You’ve got too big of a mission to serve NOT to have your business flourish. And if that’s you, if you’re riding the struggle bus when it comes to your lead generation strategy, then I want you to get in on the Clients on Autopilot Training Series. This 4-part video series will help you to develop a tried and true lead generation strategy, and even better, will show you how to take that lead generation strategy and maximize it by introducing automation.
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Music courtesy of www.bensound.com.
