In a study conducted by Guidantfinancial, one of the most compelling motivations for people to start a business is to be their own boss. This is 55% of the respondents as opposed to only 39% whose reason was the pursuit of a passion. However, managing your own business isn’t as simple as we think and can be trying at times.
Starting and handling a business means having a full plate. Add to that all the marketing branding concerns you need to address. And most of the time, these two get mixed up. To get your business on the right track, we listed the difference to make them clear-cut.
What is Marketing?
It is the collection of strategies, processes, and tactics that businesses use to promote their products or services. Marketing includes advertising and market research. It is the set of actions companies take to get people to buy from them.
Marketing uses multiple platforms, offline and online. The most common forms of marketing are as follows:
- Pay Per Click Marketing
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Email marketing
- Television
- Radio
- Print Campaigns
At a more fundamental level, marketing involves understanding, building relationships, and connecting with your customers. The primary purpose of marketing is to know who your customers are and give them the solutions they need. It is to understand when, how, and what to communicate to them.
What is Branding?
How you shape and establish your business image as you want your customers to see you is what defines branding. It is the process of creating a positive customer perception of your brand. Branding is what tells consumers what to expect from your company.
The following comprises what branding is for a business:
- The core principle and values
- The mission statement
- The Unique Selling Proposition
- How the company wants consumers to see them
- The professional characteristics
While marketing focuses on making sales, branding has more to do with the packaging. It’s relatively easy to confuse the two. But once you understand their differences, you’ll know that you need both to succeed.
Which Should Come First in the Marketing Branding Quest?
Before you can start with marketing your business, you need to create the identity first. For startups, it would be easy to go with marketing first as you want to gain traction as quickly as you can. You want people to know about your brand and gain recognition fast to see positive results on the revenue side.
However, you need to dress up your company first before you can begin with the advertising and promotion. Branding is what will make customers remember you and seek you out. Therefore, marketing comes first. Only when you’ve built your brand strategy can you proceed with the marketing.
Marketing vs. Branding
Now that we understand the definitions of marketing branding, let’s see how they are different from each other.
The Purpose
The primary reason you use marketing is to get customers to notice your business. Branding, on the other hand, has the purpose of keeping your customers interested. Getting people to see you is essential, but so is keeping them engaged.
The Objective
Marketing is what you do if you want to bring in the sales. Branding is what you do if you want to drive recognition and loyalty. In this regard, it would not be reasonable to think that marketing has the edge over branding as the former gets you the money. Customer loyalty, the right brand image and reputation, and positive sentiment for your brand can increase sales.
The Timeline
The strategies you create for your marketing efforts change frequently. When you start a campaign, a product launch, for example, it ends when you see people being aware of it. Then you begin a new strategy altogether. And this is a cycle that you’ll regularly contend with.
For branding, however, the work is never-ending. You’ll always be working on shaping your brand image and building that connection with your customers. Simply put, marketing strategies come and go while branding work remains as long as you’re in business.
The Impact
Both marketing and branding have an impact on your customers and your team. While marketing does impact your customers, it isn’t as much compared to branding. Branding does more for your company than you might think.
Your team develops and implements the marketing strategies. That’s just about it, nothing more. Branding goes much deeper than that. The right branding can instill in your staff the belief that you’re all doing something that contributes to society. This, in turn, will have everyone become more passionate and more productive.
Where Marketing and Branding Meet
Now that we learned the differences between the two, let’s get to know what they have in common. Businesses that aim to succeed have to have both. This is where marketing branding meets.
Another area, and probably the most important, is the use of fantastic imagery. Your marketing and branding strategies would never be complete without excellent graphic design. This is the area where marketing and branding overlap.
Humans are highly visual beings, and for consumers to notice you, your marketing strategies must have visuals. More so for your branding endeavors where people will remember you for your logo, fonts, or colors. For this, you’ll need a graphic design service that’s reliable and affordable.
Penji offers unlimited graphic design services at a fixed, monthly rate. Our professional graphic designers will take care of all your visual needs for both marketing and branding. Watch our demo video today to learn more.
Final Thoughts
We create branding to show our promise to our customers. We use marketing to deliver that promise. While the two have differences, businesses need to have them both to grow and succeed.
They also share the need for great design. Design that Penji can provide your business. Let us help you meet the graphic design needs for your marketing and branding strategies. Sign up for any of our plans to get the designs your company deserves.
