Marketing vs Branding: What’s the Difference?

Marketing and Branding: What’s the difference? More often than not, branding and marketing are used interchangeably. While both brand building and marketing efforts are important for the success of a business, they mean vastly different things.

Knowing the difference between the two is essential if you want your business to succeed. If you know how marketing branding differs, you’ll know when to employ what strategy. So, if you’re curious about branding vs marketing, keep reading!

What is a marketing strategy?

Very simply, marketing strategies are very broad. They aim to reach prospective leads and turn them into customers. All in all, marketing strategies promote a company’s product or service to target customers. Within this broad strategy, you’ll find various different marketing tactics. These include everything from tv commercials to social media campaigns. Branding, on the other hand, is more specific than marketing.

What is brand marketing or branding?

Essentially, branding is about defining your company or your product. It’s less about what you are pushing out to the target audience and more about how the public perceives you. There are many things that go into a brand strategy, such as your company name and logo. When it comes to branding activities, you want to come up with something that’s pleasing to the eye and catchy. For example, McDonald’s “I’m lovin it” tagline. All in all, branding is the expression of who your company is. It should express what your brand represents.

This also means that branding impacts a company’s work culture. Branding, since it defines your company, is also related to the core values of your organization. If your employees believe in what your brand stands for, if it resonates with them, they are more likely to work hard.

Branding and marketing strategy: the differences

To put it quite simply, branding is who you are and marketing is how you attract consumers towards you or your product/service. Here’s a breakdown of branding vs marketing:

• Marketing attracts consumers, while branding allows you to retain customers
• Marketing campaigns promote your branding to consumers; this is called brand marketing
• Branding efforts are always long-term since they define your brand, while marketing can be both short-term and long-term
• Branding and marketing can share a common goal but have their own individual goals as well
• Marketing drives sales while branding drives brand loyalty
• Branding has an impact on a company’s internal environment, while marketing does not

Is a logo a marketing strategy or branding?

A logo is not a brand, nor is it a marketing tactic. However, a logo is a part of what makes up a brand. It is important for a strong brand to have a good logo and build its visual identity. Hence, the logo is an important component of brand management.

However, other equally essential components of a brand include your name, mission, social media presence, public presence, community involvement, and much more. Marketing teams are always actively promoting the logo as a push tactic. Due to this, many people incorrectly believe that a logo is part of marketing.

What comes first: marketing or branding?

Branding always comes before marketing. A lot of people think that marketing promotion comes first. As a result, they think that brand strategy is a part of marketing. However, this is wrong.

As already stated, a brand’s identity represents who they are and what they stand for. It is only after you know the brand values that you can pursue any marketing activity. This is because all your marketing activities have to be in line with your brand expression.

If you end up running a digital marketing campaign that counters your own brand, you’ll lose a lot of loyal customers and end up confusing a customer’s mind. So, marketing departments must first be aware of the brand personality and then plan marketing campaigns in accordance with the brand messaging.

What is more important: brand identity or marketing?

One is not more important than the other. Both branding and marketing management are important to run a successful business and work in sync with each other. Without a brand, you have nothing to market and nothing to tie together all your performance marketing. A unique brand is what will set your marketing campaigns apart from those of other companies. Without marketing, you have no way of creating brand awareness. So, they work hand in hand with each other.

Think of your brand as your company’s heart and soul. If your company was a person, your brand would be their personality. On the other hand, marketing consists of the tools and tactics you use to tell people about your brand.

While both differ considerably, they are equally important when it comes to the success of your business. If you need help marketing your brand, you can get in touch with our marketing professionals today.

We hope this article helped answering the question, Marketing vs branding: What’s the difference?