The concepts and practices of branding and marketing are pretty broad… and for some business owners, a bit fuzzy. We all know we need both in order to sell things and grow our businesses. So aren’t these just two terms to describe kind of the same thing? OR — isn’t branding just having a logo designed? These common misconceptions can impact the success of your marketing efforts, so its important to be clear on each one.
Simplified, the difference between branding and marketing is this:
Branding is clarifying what you represent.
Marketing is promoting that idea to your audience.
The process of branding involves understanding, establishing, and maintaining your brand — the perception others have of you. So yes, that includes your logo, colors, and business name. But more importantly, it includes things like:
The process of marketing involves making your brand known and actionable. In other words, it causes people to be aware of your brand and compels them to engage with it. Marketing includes things like:
For a long time, I was helping budding business owners with their marketing collateral. The problem I ran into over and over again was that the people who were coming to me for help weren’t quite sure what they were marketing, who they needed to be marketing to, or even why they were in business to begin with.
Seems odd, right? Surely any business in operation should know such things — how else would it still be in business?
The issue wasn’t that the business owners couldn’t answer these questions. The problem was the answers they provided were superficial — the equivalent of asking a teenager how their day was, and getting the oh-so-illuminating response: “Fine.”
A typical business owner would tell me what they were marketing was “their product X”; they were marketing to “those who need X”; and they were in business to either “make money” or “make people’s lives better.” And without fail, they would list their values as integrity, customer service, and quality.
Okay, great. (“How was your day?” … “Fine.”)
This is all well and good, but it doesn’t actually say anything worth marketing. It’s empty and generic.
(If I had a dime for every time I heard “quality” as a brand value, I’d have $56. It’s become a meaningless word that is rarely backed up by any objective proof, but business owners love to tout the quality of whatever it is they are selling.)
I think we can all do better. There’s so much more to your brand than “fine”!
Better answers dig deeper. They uncover underlying themes or ideas, core motivations and values, the heart and soul of the business. The personality and voice. The pragmatic along with the philosophical. The special qualities that differentiate. And this is all “branding”.
Branding reveals that you’re not just selling product X to people who need product X. If that is the only basis of your marketing, it will fall flat every time. Consider instead the words of Charles Revson, founder of Revlon: “In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope.”
Marketing is the how. But if you don’t know the what, who, or why, then the how is the last thing you need to be spending time and money on.
These business owners were coming to me to solve what they perceived to be a marketing problem, when in fact, their dissatisfaction with slow sales or lack of growth was due to a deeper issue of weak branding.
So you understand that there is a difference, but how do you really know which one you need? The easy answer is: if you’ve never done any focused and intensive branding work, then branding is what you need.
But the answer can also reveal itself in a few other ways:
If you can relate to any of these scenarios, consider that your issues may be brand-related before you spend money on other marketing tactics.
If, on the other hand, you find these don’t really apply to you, congrats on knowing who you are! You likely just need to focus on your marketing creative and execution, making sure your brand is conveyed appropriately through it.
There’s a large measure of research, analysis, and discovery involved before you get to the execution of your marketing tactics. If you’ve ever created a marketing plan, you know marketing includes competitive analyses, market research, user segmentation, and so on. It sure is a lot to focus on!
But the way to make marketing easier is to have a solid brand to serve as its foundation. While branding is also an investment of time and energy, it’s an investment that will pay for itself over and over again, each time you market your brand.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the whole concept of branding, start with our brand personality quiz. In ten minutes or less, you can find out your top three brand archetypes that can serve as a framework for your branding efforts. Then just take it one step at a time. Start to gather feedback from your customers and clients to understand what your brand actually is. Determine if you are even reaching the right audience. Take a look at your operations and pinpoint the top values that are revealed through the way you do business. If ever you need a helping hand, we offer brand consulting packages for businesses with different needs.
Marketing is not something you want to just jump into because you are desperate for sales. But it’s also not something you want to neglect entirely. So, be intentional about your marketing. Before you rush into another marketing idea, ask yourself if it’s really marketing you need, or if you should go deeper into your brand instead.
As you’re developing your brand, one of the first questions you’ll need to answer is,”Who am I doing this for?” Defining and reaching your target audience will be your main challenges. If you think you need to target every Tom, Dick, and Harriet in the world, then you may be in for a rude awakening.
No, I’m not referring to the singing competition with the ever-delightful Simon Cowell. Good news: you don’t need to be able to sing or perform in order for your brand to have an x-factor. Do you know what yours is?
With 7 billion people in the world, it can be a daunting task to stand out from the crowd. While we like to think we are unique, so does everyone else…right? No less apparent in the business world, it can be difficult to differentiate between similar businesses. So, what makes one bug exterminator, or plumber, or dentist different from all the others in your city? What distinguishes your branding from your competitors?
