Organic marketing channels are a powerful way to grow your business without relying on costly ads. They boost brand visibility, generate sales leads and drive ecommerce revenue, with many efforts delivering lasting benefits.
In this post, we’ll help you take a closer look at your efforts. Are your CRM, website and organic channels, like AI and search, shopping, video, social, email, referral and direct, working together to drive results? In today’s competitive landscape, trust and credibility are everything. Let’s make sure your organic marketing is ready to thrive in 2025.
CRM
Your CRM is the core of your marketing efforts. Every interaction with visitors, leads, prospects and customers are stored here, tracking how people engage with your business. From that initial click or email to becoming a new customer and beyond, a strong CRM helps you identify what’s working, what needs attention and where you can improve. It’s your key to keeping customers satisfied, discovering new growth opportunities and managing everything from follow-ups to referrals.
If you’re not sure your CRM is pulling its weight, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Are you tracking anonymous visitor activity on your website, like the referral and entry URLs for each visit?
- Are you connecting anonymous visitor activity to contacts once they identify themselves (ex. by filling out a form with their email address)?
- When a visitor converts into a lead through a form submission, phone call or other methods, are you attributing the lead source across all touchpoints leading up to the conversion, making sure each channel or campaign involved gets credit?
- For phone leads, are you using a call tracking tool to capture accurate lead source data or are sales reps manually entering leads without knowing how the caller discovered your business?
- Do you have a clearly defined, step-by-step sales process set up in your CRM that your sales team follows to guide leads from prospect to customer?
- What steps have you automated in your sales process within your CRM to save your team time?
- Are you able to quickly measure the ROI of your marketing channels and individual campaigns?
- Are you capturing and storing all emails, phone call logs, meeting details and other interactions with your business in your CRM under each customer account?
- How are you using your CRM to retain customers, encourage reviews, generate referrals and drive cross-sells and upsells?
- Are you continually gaining new insights across the entire customer lifecycle and using that information to improve your sales process, customer service and internal operations?
Website
Your website remains a central hub of your business’s online presence, giving you complete control over user experience, conversion paths and performance metrics. As one of the few marketing assets you fully own, it is a foundational part of your organic marketing efforts. Channels like AI and search, shopping, social and email rely on its functionality and content to deliver engaging and relevant experiences that drive action. When operating at its best, your website transforms interest into sales leads, new customers and revenue.
Here are some important questions to help you figure out how well your website is working:
- Does your website have a modern design that is a true reflection of your brand and speaks directly to the audience you want to reach?
- Is your website content written to highlight what makes your business unique and provide visitors with a compelling reason to choose you?
- Do you have dedicated pages for each product/service that contain helpful information in multiple formats (text, images and videos) to engage users?
- Are there enough pages on your website to cover all questions that people have about your business?
- Does each page of your website include enough detailed content to provide clear answers to these questions?
- Are testimonials, success stories, awards and examples of your work presented to visitors to build trust?
- Are your CTAs placed where they’ll grab attention and written in a way that makes it easy for visitors to take the next step?
- Does your website have a blog with all needed functionality for publishing fresh content regularly?
- Is your tracking set up to measure traffic, understand user behavior and see how well your website is converting visitors?
Websites have long been the gateway to online visibility, but things are changing as users discover and interact with brands in entirely new ways. AI platforms and search engines are often delivering direct answers without requiring a visit to a website. At the same time, visitor’s paths to discovery are becoming less predictable, bouncing between search results, social media and video platforms before they ever think about visiting your site. In addition, major platforms are doing everything they can to keep users within their own walled gardens, so brands have to find ways to show up where their audiences are spending time.
Even with these shifts, your website still plays a central role in your strategy. But to stay visible, it’s not enough to focus on the website alone. Expanding your efforts across multiple channels is key to reaching and engaging your audience. From here, we’ll dive into how you can audit your organic marketing channels to build a stronger, more effective strategy.
AI & Search
AI has been a driving force in Google search for years, but its role is evolving faster than ever. AI-generated overviews now dominate the top of many result pages, while platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answer user questions and drive website traffic. While many foundational SEO principles still matter, staying competitive in 2025 means evolving beyond the basics. To thrive, you’ll need to adapt your organic marketing strategy to excel in AI-enhanced search and on emerging platforms.
Here are the key questions to audit your organic AI & Search strategy:
- Have you researched and analyzed all informational and transactional keyword groups (including root keywords, their variations and questions) that people use to search for your products/services?
- Do you monitor the structure of AI and search result pages for your keyword groups to guide your optimization efforts?
- Are you continually adding new pages to your website, increasing the depth of content on each page, creating content in different formats (like text, graphics and video) and improving your internal linking structure?
- Are you using experts in your business as authors to create unique, high-value blog posts enhanced with custom graphics, videos and strategic internal links?
- Is your website free of technical SEO issues that could prevent it from being crawled, indexed and ranked properly?
- Have you implemented structured data to help your website show up more effectively in search results?
- Are there improvements you can make to improve speed and UX and achieve better Google Core Web Vitals performance?
- Do you track visibility and traffic data on AI and search platforms to evaluate the effectiveness of your optimization efforts?
- Are you maximizing your Google Business Profile and other trusted business listing sites by ensuring your profiles are fully completed and optimized?
- Have you been increasing your business ratings on Google and other review websites?
- Do you focus on building relationships with authoritative publisher websites to create and share high-quality, expert content in multiple formats?
- Are you earning linkless brand mentions and backlinks to grow your business’s authority and visibility?
Shopping
Getting your products to show up for shoppers who are actively looking for them in organic search and shopping results can increase sales. Google and Bing provide opportunities to showcase your products, helping you reach new customers without relying entirely on ads. To obtain successful results, it is especially important to focus on detailed product data, high-quality images and customer reviews.
How well is your organic shopping strategy working? Ask these questions to find out:
- Are your product titles, descriptions and attributes detailed, accurate and using keywords that help more shoppers find your products?
- Is your inventory updated regularly, with accurate pricing so customers always see the correct information?
- Do your product photos look clear and professional and do they follow the image guidelines for Google and Bing Merchant Centers?
- Have you added structured data to your website’s product pages to help them stand out in results?
- Are you doing everything you can to encourage more positive customer reviews and ratings on your product pages?
- Does your website include product feed functionality to share product data with Google and Bing? (ex. the URL of an Does your website support product feed functionality to share data with Google and Bing, using options like an XML file URL or a CMS plug-in with API integration?
- Are your Google Merchant Center and Bing Merchant Center accounts opened and is all information about your business fully populated?
- Is your product feed configured correctly, free of errors and meeting the platform requirements for Google and Bing Merchant Centers?
- Are you using a product feed management tool to address the limitations of your website’s feed, segment and improve the quality of your data and have AI optimize your product feed using data insights?
Video
Organic video is about creating and sharing content that naturally draws in viewers, without relying on paid promotion. Whether it’s hosted on your website or platforms like YouTube, video content offers a powerful way to connect with audiences, build trust and expand your brand’s reach. YouTube, the world’s second-largest search engine, gives businesses an incredible chance to connect with people looking for answers, tutorials or even entertainment. As more people prefer video content, having a solid strategy can help you attract followers, drive traffic to your website and establish your brand as a go-to resource in your industry.
Here are the questions to evaluate your organic video strategy:
- Do my videos answer the questions my audience is asking and offer information they can actually use?
- Am I creating videos on a variety of topics, such as tutorials, product demos, customer stories, educational videos and behind-the-scenes moments?
- Have I researched the right keyword phrases to mention in my videos and used them to improve titles, descriptions and tags so my content is easier to find?
- Are my videos embedded on key website pages to enhance user engagement, provide additional context and improve the overall visitor experience?
- Am I sharing my videos across other marketing channels, like email campaigns, social media platforms and blog posts, to expand their reach and maximize their impact?
- Is my YouTube channel well-organized, with consistent branding and an “About” section that invites people to learn more?
- Are my video thumbnails attention-grabbing and appealing enough to make viewers want to click?
- Am I encouraging viewers to subscribe, comment, like and share so my channel continues to grow?
- Have I added ways to guide viewers to more of my content and keep them watching?
- Am I creating videos regularly enough to keep my audience interested and engaged?
- Am I using analytics to track what’s not working and make improvements to my video strategy?
Social
Organic social gives businesses a way to connect with their audience, share valuable content and grow a following without leaning on paid ads. It’s all about creating moments of real interaction, building trust and strengthening relationships. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Pinterest and Reddit are always evolving. Trends like short-form videos, bold visuals and tools that bring communities together are reshaping the way brands engage.
Use these questions to audit and improve your organic social strategy:
- Am I creating a steady stream of content, like blog posts, videos or infographics, ready to share on social platforms?
- Have I chosen the platforms where my audience spends most of their time and focused on them?
- Is education, entertainment or providing value the purpose of most of my content and not direct promotion of my business?
- Do the posts I am making encourage people to like, share and comment?
- Am I using analytics to see what is working, where are the opportunities and how can I improve?
- Have I used social media platform specific tools or features that may enhance engagement or touch?
- Am I using third-party tools to help manage and improve my organic social marketing efforts?
Reaching your audience through email is one of the most effective ways to drive growth. It gives you a direct line to deliver valuable messages that engage, inform and inspire action. To succeed, you need to build an engaged subscriber base, craft personalized messages and maintain consistent communication. When done right, email marketing becomes a powerful tool to nurture leads, earn trust and turn interest into tangible results.
Wondering if your organic email strategy is effective? Ask yourself these key questions:
- Is our email list filled with high-quality subscribers and are we actively growing it?
- Are we creating content that meets our audience’s needs, keeps them engaged and provides real value?
- Have we segmented our email list to send personalized messages tailored to each group?
- Are our emails designed for mobile devices, with short subject lines, responsive layouts and proper element spacing?
- Do our emails include clear, compelling CTAs that motivate recipients to take the next step?
- Are we encouraging subscribers to share our emails and refer others to help grow our list organically?
- Are we using automation and a consistent schedule to send timely emails that nurture leads, build trust and keep our audience engaged?
- Are we monitoring deliverability and maintaining a clean email list to prevent messages from being blocked in spam filters?
- Are we tracking performance metrics like open rates, click-through rates and conversions to improve our approach?
Referral
Referrals are one of the strongest ways to drive growth without relying on paid efforts. Being mentioned and linked from relevant blogs, forums, industry association, partner websites and business directories, boosts your credibility and sends traffic directly to your website. To maximize this potential, focus on building relationships with trusted sites that align with your audience. A strong presence across these platforms can turn referral traffic into a steady stream of conversions.
Ask these questions to audit your organic referral marketing strategy:
- Am I leveraging the right online review platforms to establish trust and attract customers or taking steps to build a presence on those most relevant to my business?
- Are my business details accurate and up to date in the most important industry directories?
- Is my profile optimized in local directories to attract nearby high intent customers, how well?
- Have I built strong connections with partner websites that can bring quality leads to my business?
- Is my business listed on comparison sites where potential customers are making decisions?
- Is my business effectively showing up on aggregator platforms, so users see my products or services?
- Have I sought media coverage from blogs, news outlets or other reputable sources within my industry?
- How am I leveraging community forums to engage users and secure valuable referrals?
Direct
Direct traffic reflects strong brand recognition and trust, occurring when visitors reach your website without a traceable referral source. This includes typing your URL, clicking bookmarks, accessing links in PDFs or untracked emails or arriving from platforms that block referral data. Understanding these pathways helps you identify how visitors are engaging with your business and uncover opportunities to drive more traffic and conversions.
To boost organic direct traffic and grow your revenue, ask yourself:
- Is my brand memorable and easy to recognize for my target audience?
- Am I promoting my website through offline channels like business cards, flyers or events?
- Am I encouraging customers to share my website link with others to increase visibility?
- Does my website make it easy for visitors to bookmark and continually return?
- Are my email campaigns designed with clear calls to action that bring users back to my site?
- Have I used QR codes in offline marketing or on product packaging to drive traffic to my site?
- Do I make the most of PDFs, desktop apps or shared documents by adding direct links to my website?
- Is my messaging consistent enough to keep my brand top of mind and encourage repeat visits?
As you refine your organic marketing plan, focus on how each channel contributes to your growth and builds lasting connections with your audience. Whether you are improving your website’s performance, driving referral traffic, crafting engaging email campaigns or strengthening your social media presence, the goal is to stay consistent and align your efforts with your business objectives. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your tactics will help your business thrive in 2025, driving steady revenue growth while building trust and loyalty with your customers.
The last post in this series will provide a detailed guide to help you audit your paid advertising channels.
If you haven’t yet read the first part of this series, be sure to check it out: Is Your Digital Marketing Ready for 2025? Prepare for the Future.