In reality, branding and marketing are distinct elements of a business’s growth strategy, but they need to be used together for the most effective messaging. Learning the differences between these two processes will make it easier for your team to attract customers and build a strong foundation for promotion.
What is branding?
Your brand encompasses the “who,” “what” and “why” behind your business. Wrapped up in this is your mission, your values, your voice and the unique aspects of your company. Branding is also external—what consumers perceive and say about you.
Branding gives you the foundation with which to craft messages about your business. A strong brand informs who your business should be targeting, what tone you will use, what stories you tell and how you should communicate to drive sales.
What is marketing?
Marketing encompasses the tools and processes involved in sending messages to attract business. It’s the compilation of messages and customer touchpoints spread across channels to specific audiences. Every interaction you have with a potential customer makes up your marketing strategy.
Marketing creates the tangible elements of your business. It builds off your branding to include
your design, including logos and stylistic choices, as well as targeted campaigns, from social media, to search engine optimization, to TV advertising.
The perfect pairing
Where many businesses go wrong is that they think of branding and marketing as separate, skippable pieces. They might forgo strong branding and jump straight into marketing to promote their business. Or, they might develop a strong brand without building a marketing strategy to support it.
Branding and marketing are best used together, supporting one another, to grow your business. Without branding, your marketing efforts might be inconsistent, weak and misguided. How can you promote your business without a strong understanding of your voice and who you’re trying to attract? And without marketing, your branding efforts won’t get you very far. How will customers learn about your brand without the tools and processes in place to send your messages?
When you use branding and marketing together, you’re able to shape strong, highly targeted and
authentic messages
and push them to the right channels. This makes your efforts more effective and prevents you from wasting marketing dollars.
To start the process of promoting your business, you’ll want to begin with branding. Identify who you are and how you want to be perceived by your audience. Then, you can use the answers to your
branding questions
to inform how you’ll promote your brand through marketing—what platforms you’ll use, what goals you’re working toward and what calls to action you’ll leverage.
It’s also important to remember that neither branding nor marketing are one-time things. Your brand should constantly be revisited to ensure you’re staying true to what your business stands for as it grows and changes over time. Without this, your branding and marketing might fall out of sync down the road.
When you’re eager to promote your business to the world, ask yourself whether you’re building off a solid brand foundation first. If the answer is no,
say hello
to Spin Creative to start building your brand and your story.
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
