This Is The Only Difference Between Marketing And Branding

I have seen many blog posts and social media content talk about how different Marketing and Branding is in business. I don’t really think there’s any huge difference between them.

I believe they are not mutually exclusive, one can’t run without the other. You need to work them together into your business to create a successful brand, otherwise, all your efforts might not yield profitable results.

It doesn’t get simpler than that.

But to make you understand better, let’s look at what each one is.

Marketing

Marketing is the business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.

It’s a set of tools and strategies that you use to actively promote your product, service and company. The steps you take to communicate your offerings to your target audience.

It is also 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.

Your website, social media and other content marketing platforms are all instruments of marketing. They are the channels that you use to get your business in front of your customers.

They serve as platforms where your audience can learn more about your business, find out what you are really selling and/or make a purchase if they are satisfied.

Branding

Branding is the process of taking deliberate conscious efforts to create a certain perception through the minds of people. And this is done by promoting your products and services or your business to your target audience as well.

When you use marketing techniques to communicate your offerings to people, you’ll then infuse your branding tactics to help shape the perception of those offerings in their minds.

When you’ve used your marketing techniques to grab people’s attention, you’ll use branding to retain that attention. By using Marketing and Branding strategies together, you’ll be actively creating awareness about your brand and increasing the perceived value of your offerings in people’s minds.

Your content marketing platforms also qualify as your branding materials because they serve as instruments to create and shape public perception of the business you are running.

For example, creating a good website and showing up on social media with great and valuable content are great ways to increase your industry expertise and improve your personal and business brands.

So Marketing and Branding go hand-in-hand.

Marketing is what gets people to engage with your company by bringing their attention to you. Branding is what keeps bringing that attention even after they’ve made their first purchase.

The only difference between Marketing and Branding is:

Marketing strategies come and go and may be tweaked, improved upon or changed completely, Branding lasts forever.