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How to win when paid ads aren't an option
Alex Garcia
December 03, 2024
If you’ve wanted to get started with video but you’re stuck and don’t know where to start then this is for you… Next Tuesday, myself, Oren John, and Colin Landforce are launching our FREE 7-day short-form video challenge. The whole goal is to help you learn how to create, edit, and ship winning videos.
And a big thank you to Superside for partnering with us and letting us create media for a livin’.
Get your brand in front of 200,000+ marketers & founders.
In partnership with Superside
Your Creative Team’s Creative Team™
Scaling creative output without giving up speed or quality is a challenge.
And we usually need both, which is why we use Superside—and so do our clients.
Why Superside?
All-in-One Creative Solution: From ad design and video production to branding and web design—get it all under one subscription.
Ultra-Fast Turnaround: Projects completed in as little as 12 hours.
AI-Powered Efficiency: Superside has the top 1% of global creative talent, trained and certified in the latest AI tools.
Cost-Effective Scaling: Save up to 60% per project compared to traditional models.
Trusted by the Best.
Amazon, Shopify, Salesforce, and more count on Superside to scale creativity without compromise.
You don’t need paid ads to win.
And today we’re diving into how to grow your brand without a paid advertising budget, with two examples:
Marketing Examined
Mini Katana
Is it harder? Potentially. But is it worth it? Yes. Here’s why.
Invest in Your Organic Content
Last fall, we reached 200-300k people with a $10k ad spend. But, we reached the same amount of people through organic content.
With a critical caveat.
New audiences who watched my videos organically had a much deeper connection to Marketing Examined than those who came from paid ads.
Our engagement data on an organic subscriber vs paid ad subscriber proved it.
So in Q4 of 2023, we turned off paid ads and went all in on organic.
Organic Content Creates PR Opportunities
If you have a viral content idea, it’s much faster to whip it up and build buzz yourself than pitching it to traditional media like Good Morning America.
In fact, if your content goes viral, publications will jump at the opportunity to cover your story anyway.
And now, you don’t have to pay them for it.
Own Your Content And Distribution
The rest will take care of itself.
Mini Katana, a katana and sword company, built its entire brand through organic audience.
Because the product category isn’t allowed to advertise, Founder Isaac Medeiros had to pivot their content strategy.
They grew to $360k/day in revenue in under 23 months, 100% from organic video marketing.
With 1B views a month across all their channels.
Crazy, right?
You can do it too.
This is Isaac’s playbook for growing a brand with organic content.
1. Consistent Content
The real shortcut to viral growth is consistent content.
Mini Katana posts at least 1x a day on IG, YouTube, and TikTok.
They don’t skip a day.
More output = more eyeballs
More iteration = more feedback
It takes time to hone your skills and get people to see you consistently.
2. Grab attention with short-form to get people into the funnel
They use unique angles and crazy hooks to get as many eyeballs as possible.
Like the “Can We Slice It” series.
You have to keep testing and refining different content pillars, angles, and hooks until you find a viral button you can keep pressing.
Even then, you need to continue experimenting.
Because a hook or style can get over-saturated and stop working at any point.
3. Educate with long-form content that fits your brand
Any brand can go “viral”, but it’s hard to convert the attention into a brand fanbase.
Mix in long-form content to dive deeper and show the use cases of your products. Many of Mini Katatana’s long-form content ideas are based on questions from fans.
But they are still entertaining!
4. Community Matters
Turn viewers into fans.
Isaac makes it a priority to interact with their audience through Mini Katana’s social accounts, by replying to comments, personally responding to DMs, and creating videos replying to comments.
These seemingly small gestures make each customer feel valued.
They also leverage YouTube’s community polls to interact and broaden their reach, a strategy that not only engages but shows they value their community’s voice.
Creative is the variable to success whether you invest in paid ads or organic content.
As an early brand, you might as well invest your limited budget into getting really good at organic - because it’s extremely challenging to compete with VC-backed ad budgets without incredible creative.
And if you have incredible creative, well, you can drive audience through organic for a fraction of the cost.
Billboard Advertising: This has changed over the years. So, what is the modern way of integrating billboard advertising? (LINK)
Book: Let My People Go Surfing by Patagonia founder is a recent favorite. (LINK)
Landing Pages: A badass gallery of landing page design examples to inspire your next LP. (LINK)
Micro-Influencer: How to automate your Amazon micro-influencer campaigns. (LINK)
Calendar: A sick promo calendar template you might need for Q4 that you can copy and paste. (LINK)
Appreciate you reading,
Alex G