Whether your idea is unique or not, you branding should definitely be. There are multiple strategies that a business can follow to promote their products or services. We discuss and compare two of the most effective strategies.
BRANDING OR MARKETING: WHAT STRATEGY TO CHOOSE?
Starting a business is never a piece of cake. Once you get the idea for your business, much work is to be done.
Whether your idea is unique or not, you branding should definitely be. There are multiple strategies that a business can follow to promote their products or services. We discuss and compare two of the most effective strategies.
Branding
Branding for your business is an identity as is name for individuals. Your promotional activities can only start once the business branding is done; the best time would be right after it’s done.
Branding will always be the first impression and the image of your brand as a whole for anyone who sees your branding elements. A customer recognises a business from its branding – name, logo and design are the first elements to be noticed. Branding defines your business, its mission and its values to audience.
A business logo must be defined in a way to be self-sufficient in explaining your business to the viewer. It is easier to speak through a logo than to explain what a business is all about – the logo defines your business. Even advertising (a type of digital marketing) is majorly dependent on your branding as it involves the introduction of your brand as a foundation for promoting your products or services.
To plan, execute and complete the initial branding requires a lot of efforts and strategies – in simple words, nothing about branding is simple! Things only get easier once branding is done and it should effortlessly define your business cause and/or support.
Branding (purpose) always comes before marketing (promotion) – purpose before promotion. When you have proper branding in place, marketing from there is both easy and effective. The goodwill of any business is always related to its branding.
Marketing
Marketing in short is promotion of a business’s products and/or services to target audience using various tactics. Most businesses go through a trial-and-error phase to learn what kind of marketing works best for their business.
Marketing has access to many tools and methods that have different success rates. Different tactics such as sales, offers, first purchase discounts, anniversary discounts, etc. are all sale tactics. Marketing tactics are based on understanding the customer’s needs and they are deemed successful based on customer satisfaction. Returning customers mean that the tactics were effective as well!
Under marketing, there is the advertising division which should ideally convey to people what you are into and why they must opt for you rather than your competitors. Combined with advertising, the success rate can be increased.
Digital marketing is a type of marketing that is done through digital media including electronic devices. Major examples include social media marketing (SMM), search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), etc.
An SEO-friendly website is a promising strategy for reaching out to vast audience around the globe. Once this is done, content marketing, SMM, SEM and many more approaches will be far easier to achieve.
As far as branding and marketing strategies are compared, they both hold equal weightage and the strategy that you choose among these entirely depends on what phase your business is in. In the entire process starting from forming your business to growing it into a full-fledged one, both branding and marketing are the top definers of your business growth. Application of the right marketing tactics will ensure to payback all the efforts that you put in the branding process for your business.
The relation between branding and marketing is that marketing is used to promote the branding on various platforms in order to attract target audience. That is, it creates brand awareness on different channels. The common goal in both the strategies is conversion of leads to customers. While branding is for audience, marketing is for target audience.
GSS Webtech is a modern IT consultant that understands your business and provides curated IT solutions. We understand that no two businesses can work with the same solution. Contact us to learn how we can transform your business.
