In the business world, people often question the differences and impact of branding and marketing. While the two are obviously connected, there are minute differences between the two. If you own a product or a business, it is important that you learn about both, branding and marketing with precision and detail. Doing so will help you successfully apply them together.

Before that, let’s get to know them separately first, starting with “branding”

Before understanding about branding, you need to know what is a brand exactly? Generically speaking a brand is a name, logo, sign, mark, slogan or a combination of the above, used to identify and stand out your products or services from other vendors. But it also comprises of abstract things, particularly a brand voice, personality and purpose. To sum it up, branding is a set of operations that requires establishing a unique and striking name or an icon or picture for a product or service that resides in customer’s mind, with help of advertising strategies.

What is marketing?

Marketing is described as the management system, that collaborates the company with the consumers, and results in the interchange of goods and services for consideration. It includes a variety of activities, i.e. researching, developing, promoting, purchasing and supplying products or services that have actual worth to users at a profit. It is not just about informing and selling but consists all the activities done to get access to customers and establish a connection with them.

This whole operation requires knowing the customer’s opinions and feedbacks, identifying the magnitude of the target audience and revenue prospects, determining which department of the company will assist in the best manner possible to the consumers, advertising the products or services with the intention of selling, building client and customer relationship and much more.

What are the common factors between these two?

Marketing and branding are two side of a coin when it comes to the total content development strategy for a business. Your marketing strategy must include your branding into it for building loyalty amongst users. Branding gives you that platform upon which you can demonstrate your company in a particular manner and construct a path off the insights acquired by the right marketing. The correct approach in marketing enables you to develop compatibility with your audience and helps promote the concept of your brand. These concepts are parallel to each other, but not identical. In matters of visual representation, choosing the appropriate images is significant. For that, branding and marketing have the same agenda to follow, i.e. selecting the colours for logo, design, graphics, etc. for the company as during marketing campaigning’s, it will have a strong role to play.

Key differences between Branding and Marketing

• Marketing is a spectrum of actions and measures executed by the company to draw together potential buyers and sellers and enhance the trade of goods and services. Having said that, branding is the procedure of consigning a brand name with a service or a product, that helps costumers recognise and identify the company manufacturing it.
• Marketing is for the upliftment of the company/organisation whereas branding is for users/target audience.
• Branding is applied for establishing belief and brand reliability among consumers whereas marketing is used to promote and encourage brand in customers.
• Branding affects whether or not the customer is going to make a purchase and the impact that is has created in the user’s mind. On the contrary, it is marketing that consequences in customer’s direct response to purchase
• Marketing reveals perks and advantages of the product or service provided by the company. Alternatively, branding displays intangible feels.
• In terms of strategy, marketing is a push, i.e. ‘pushing’ the company’s products onto customers by making them aware about it, during the purchase. On the other hand, branding is a pull, as the company knows through right branding, the customers will come back to them (or will be ‘pulled’ towards) for more products/services.
• Branding creates value of a product/service; however, marketing advertises and boosts the value of that product or service.
• The whole agenda or purpose behind marketing is to generate revenue/sales. Meanwhile, branding is responsible for shaping the reputation of the brand.
• The sole objective of branding is to establish a strong and transparent bond with their consumers, although marketing targets at user issues and demands.
• Branding evokes emotions, whereas marketing addresses to target audience.

Conclusion

To grow and foster customer needs and target audience of any company, (for any product/service) marketing is the primitive step. In reference to branding, that trails marketing and targets at generating value for consumers. Even though your existing marketing actions are intended to involve, it is the continuing branding that allows the customers to come back for more. Competition keeps getting intense with time, and obviously there are already a lot of brands that offer the similar product or services in the market. So, what differentiates you from them? Your brand identity. It is your branding that will help you grow your customers and make them ask for more each time. Branding provides you your own unique concept and an identity which is unlike any other. Click here to build your business.