Branding Vs Marketing
What is Marketing?
Marketing is the message you convey. Your message can be delivered in various strategies, including social media marketing, online marketing, content marketing and traditional marketing. As explained by the American Marketing Association, marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
What is Branding?
While marketing is used to promote your product or service, branding will actively shape who you are. Through branding, you can create brand loyalty, which is a significant goal for your business and will retain your target market. Overall, you must be strategic with both branding and marketing to achieve the individual end goal, which is to gain and retain customers.
Branding Comes Before Marketing
Although they do need each other to be effective, branding should always come before marketing because branding is the core of your marketing strategy. Even if you are starting, it is essential to define who you are as a brand before strategizing different methods to gain your audience. For example, you may be consistent with your logos and slogans. However, that does not mean that you have a strong, consistent brand identity. It would help if you defined your brand’s work in your niche industry. Once you’ve narrowed that down, you can develop your branding because you have a better understanding of who you are and why you exist. Then you can begin to move to your marketing strategy and campaign ideas.
Branding is Strategic. Marketing is Tactical.
People want a business with brands that align with what they believe in. Therefore, you must strategize on how to accomplish that. While your strategy is being created, having the right tactic to go about your marketing will help your brand use the right messaging that you need to build a connection with your customers.
Marketing Strategies Will Come and Go, But Branding is Forever.
Marketing is used to bring awareness to potential customers. It is how you inspire customers to believe and invest in your brand. To be current and meet your customers where they are, you must pay attention to trends. It is crucial to stay in the loop to communicate effectively with your target audience.
Bottom Line
Marketing is an essential part of building product awareness, new sales and gaining customer’s attention. However, to send a message that matters, marketing needs strong branding. Understanding the difference between branding and marketing is the key to better results. If you want to stand out, marketing and branding are necessary.
If you are interested in developing a great marketing strategy and strong brand identity that will take your business to the next level, contact us today at 334.446.6149 for a Brand New Idea.
Posted: Oct 19, 2020