Branding vs. Marketing 101
In the business world, it sometimes seems like there is a new acronym invented every day or a buzzword your colleagues will become obsessed with to describe a specific process or strategy. Although some of them do sound silly, it is important to be able to differentiate their meanings while understanding the concept they are describing.
Coincidentally, this happens all too often when describing branding and marketing. A significant amount of people believe these terms are interchangeable when in reality, they are not.
Although these concepts work in tandem when appropriately utilized to upscale your business successfully, they could not be further apart in terms of what they are and how they are implemented in your day-to-day operations.
How to Define Branding and Marketing
Let's start with properly defining each of these terms/concepts so you can better implement them within your strategic business processes moving forward.
Many people think branding is just the logo at the bottom of your email or on the front of your office door, but it's so much more. It reflects what you, your team, and your company represent.
It defines what your business stands for and distinguishes you from your competitors to help shape how consumers think of your products or services. For example, this can be done through your core values, mission statement, and company culture.
Examples of marketing would include:
Social media marketing
Sponsored ads
Content marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Direct mailers
Email marketing
Television and video ad slots
SMS texts
Telemarketing
Unlike your brand, your marketing strategies should constantly evolve to gain better insight into your customers and define who they are.
How to Build Your Brand
Now that you understand the importance of having a unique and distinguishable brand before implementing any marketing practices, let’s discuss how to combine these strategies to build your brand and market it successfully.
So let’s ask this: What separates your brand from your competitors, and what is supposed to make it so unique in the eyes of your consumers? Are you family-friendly, or is your product or service designed for only a niche age group? If you’re a lifestyle brand, are you luxurious or tailored for the everyday man?
Congratulations! You’ve successfully built your brand, and now it’s time to market it. With the introduction of the digital landscape, marketing has become much more lucrative than it once was, so having an integrated marketing strategy is essential to the success of your business.
Only utilizing one marketing strategy at a time, like sending emails to potential customers or placing ads on the television, just doesn’t cut it anymore. It would be best if you had a consistent and well-developed integrated strategy.
This means you need a user-friendly website, a social media presence, create Google Ads, optimize your content for SEO value, and have a blog that connects to each other so your potential customers can find you through multiple channels.
All of these forms of marketing act as the face of your brand, and it is important to be consistent with them. Consistency allows your brand to build recognition and reinforce your brand’s place within the community.
Remember, marketing drives sales, and branding creates loyalty.
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