I once read that organic marketing is like the soil where you plant your seed and paid marketing is the sunshine that helps it grow.

Simplifying things, of course, but I think this is a good analogy to understand the differences between these two types of marketing.

Have you heard of them?

As a surf business owner, you might be aware these two forms of online marketing exist.

Knowing exactly what they are, what they do and how to leverage them for results is another story.

In this article, I’ll break down the main differences between organic marketing and paid ads as they relate to surf businesses. I’ll be taking learnings from working with over 30 surf businesses in the last 4 years — from tropical surf camps to eco-friendly surf clothing brands, small surf schools and beyond.

The aim is to help you make a more informed decision about where to invest your resources and/or better understand what your marketing team or agency is doing for you.

With that in mind, let’s get cracking.

What is organic marketing?

Organic marketing refers to the strategies and tactics used to gain exposure, visibility and traffic without actually paying for the clicks.

Blog articles, newsletters and social media posts are all examples of organic marketing. SEO is a powerful weapon within organic marketing too, but ultimately you’re attempting to make long-lasting connections with your target audience by providing useful content and not just going hard on keywords.

What is paid marketing?

Paid marketing, on the other hand, refers to marketing efforts that involve paying for exposure, visibility and clicks.

This includes Google Adwords, Meta Ads, influencer collaborations and sponsored content. Paid marketing allows you to reach a wider audience quickly and can be highly targeted to specific demographics.

Your content needs to be on point, for sure. But since you’re paying for clicks, the relationship between yourself and your reader is more transactional.

The differences between organic and paid

Affordability / Organic

When it comes to cost, organic marketing is much cheaper.

You can create and distribute content literally for free, although it does take time and effort.

Paid marketing differs in that it requires a daily or monthly budget to run campaigns and ads.

Small businesses will find organic marketing to be much more accessible for the sole reason that its free. With zero initial financial investment, you can reach your target audience and start building brand awareness.

Then, once you’ve built a solid foundation and have more resources, you can start incorporating paid marketing into your strategy.

Speed of results / Paid

If you have a marketing budget and you want results fast, whether it be for a product launch or a seasonal promotion, paid marketing is the way to go.

With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising you see immediate results in terms of clicks and conversions.

Organic marketing takes time to build momentum and see results. It requires patience and consistency, but once you establish a strong presence, it can be just as effective as paid marketing.

Relevance / Organic

Organic content can be created to be evergreen, which means it will remain relevant and useful for a long time.

For a surf business like a surf retail store, an article on the best surf spots in a certain area will continue to attract readers and potential customers even months or years after it was published.

Meanwhile, paid marketing is more focused on short-term goals, seasonal trends and promotions. A Black Friday ad in 2023 will most likely need to be reworked for 2024, for example. Paid marketing also tends to have a shorter lifespan, as once the campaign or ad is over, it no longer has a purpose.

ROI measurement / Paid

It’s notoriously tricky to measure the return on investment (ROI) for organic marketing efforts.

While you can track metrics such as website traffic, social media engagement and email open rates, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how much revenue is directly generated from organic content.

Paid marketing is more straightforward in terms of ROI measurement. You can see exactly how much money was spent on a campaign or ad and compare it to the revenue generated from those efforts. This makes it easier to determine the success of a paid marketing campaign and adjust accordingly.

Usefulness / Organic

Tell me, what’s more useful to your reader? An article about the top 10 beginner surfboards or an ad about an upcoming discount that’s only valid for one week of the year?

Organic marketing provides value to your audience by providing them with useful information, entertainment or inspiration. This can help establish trust and credibility with your target market.

Paid marketing, on the other hand, is often seen as more sales-oriented and can be perceived as pushy or intrusive (when done poorly). In fairness to paid marketing though, it can be deemed useful in the sense that it’s able to direct readers towards a specific product or service they may be interested in.

If we’re purely going off the quality of information contained within, organic content wins hands down.

Control and targeting / Paid

Last but not least, paid marketing channels such as Meta Ads allow you to have much more control over who sees your content.

You can target specific demographics, interests and behaviours to ensure your ad is seen by the right people. This level of targeting is not as readily available in organic marketing, where you rely on algorithms and audience engagement.

Should I lean towards organic or paid ads for my surf business?

Wondering whether you should go all-out on organic marketing or start allocating some budget towards paid ads?

The short answer is: it depends on how much coin you have to spend.

If you have a marketing budget…

If you’re rolling in cash or you’ve had a particularly good quarter, then by all means, invest in both types of marketing.

You could pay someone to build out a logical, helpful, SEO-friendly blog article campaign to increase your authority then use paid channels to reach a wider audience with your content.

Keep in mind that you’ll need a minimum budget of approximately €500 per month for both organic and paid channels to get decent results.

If you have only a small marketing budget…

If you have a budget of less than €300 per month, you can still make an impact in your market. One thing I often see with clients is that they either go all in on one while neglecting the other.

With a budget like this, the best approach is to break your marketing efforts down into phases. Start by building out your blog article pages, creating some e-books or guides and reguarly post to social media.

All of this can be done with a small monetary investment but a solid time investment on your behalf.

Then, after 4-6 months and assuming you still have a small budget, scale back your organic marketing efforts (without stopping them) and switch over to a paid campaign. This’ll help keep your brand in the minds of potential customers while giving you a bit more reach.

If you have zero budget…

Organic, organic, organic.

You’re going to need to do a lot of heavy lifting until your business grows and you can dedicate more resources towards marketing.

Start by creating quality, helpful content that will attract readers to your website and social media channels. Try to target niche, longtail keywords. Engage with your audience, collaborate with influencers and participate in online communities related to the surfing industry.

In my experience, organic marketing done well can be just as effective if not more effective than paid marketing. It may take much longer, but the results can be long-lasting and invaluable for your surf business… especially if you’re marketing on a shoestring budget.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, it all comes back to how much you have to spend and how quickly you want to see results.

If you have a decent budget of €500 or more per month, consider investing in both organic and paid marketing for a well-rounded approach. If you have a smaller budget, break your efforts into phases and prioritise organic marketing first. And if you’re on a shoestring budget, focus on creating quality organic content to establish your brand and attract potential customers.

Since most surf businesses fall into the small to medium-sized category, a combination of organic and paid marketing efforts is often the most realistic and effective approach.

Experiment with different strategies, track your results and adjust accordingly to find what works best for your specific business and audience. And remember, consistency is key in any marketing approach — whether it’s organic or paid.