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5 min read

Branding Versus Marketing and How They Work Together

4/2/20 7:39 PM

Infographic describing the intersection of branding versus marketing

Whether you’re getting quotes from different digital marketing agencies or you’re reading marketing publications, you’re likely hearing the words “branding” and “marketing” thrown together a lot.

Like, a lot.

While we love to talk about the big picture as marketers, lumping these two words together can be problematic because it may get you thinking “what’s the difference between marketing and branding anyway?” And the answer is: So much!

While marketing and branding go hand-in-hand when it comes to selling your business, they’re still two separate concepts and should be treated as such. That’s why we’ve developed a quick little crash course, or a refresher, to clearly define the difference between branding and marketing, and how your videos can be doing both.

Branding is about defining your company

First things first, branding is all about defining who you are as a company. That’s why the word “brand” is often used interchangeably with the word “company”. Crazy, right?

It's also why, when we talk about branding, we’re really talking about who you are as a company:

  • What are your core values?
  • What is your company culture like?
  • What is your mission statement?
  • How do you choose to communicate with your audience?
  • What makes you different from all of the other companies selling the same thing?

Branding is what decides how your audience feels about your company. It’s the core tenant to brand, or company, loyalty. A great promotion or marketing campaign may be enough to get a new customer through the door, but it’s how that customer feels about the brand that determines whether or not they’ll return. In fact, 59 percent of buyers prefer to buy a new product from a brand that they trust as opposed to an unfamiliar one. So creating a rock-solid brand and understanding your brand identity is the first step in the ongoing communication you plan to build your audience.

Final thoughts: Branding is what comes before and what is underlying all your marketing efforts.

Marketing is about driving that message

By its simplest definition, marketing is the array of tools you use to communicate your brand’s message and grow your audience. It’s your marketing tactics that attract new customers and convert leads into sales. And there’s plenty of marketing methods out there from traditional mediums to digital marketing done online.

Like any digital marketing agency, we often combine different methodologies to develop a marketing plan that will best work for our clients. Typically, you’ll hear us talk a lot about:

  • SEO
  • Inbound marketing
  • Video Production
  • Social Media and Social Ads
  • Content Marketing

Again, these are all tactics to getting your brand in front of the right eyes and, if done right, help you convert leads and make sales. A great way to think about this is that marketing is the vehicle you’re using to travel to your audience and your branding is who or what’s inside.

Of course, the marketing campaigns that you design will be heavily impacted by the brand that you’ve created. Everything from written copy to visuals used in a campaign has to remain on brand or on message in order to be successful for your company.

Another hallmark difference between marketing and branding is that your branding should stay consistent while your marketing can, and should, change. Typically, your marketing efforts will have a start date and an end date which means that you can change your marketing strategies by analyzing a campaign’s performance stats and finding ways to improve.

In general, it’s much easier and more realistic to change a marketing strategy than it is to rebrand. Your marketing team needs to know how to adapt its methods to an ever-changing digital landscape. In other words, your brand and your message should—usually—stay the same, you may just need to represent them differently.

Videos work on both the branding and marketing spectrum

Another area where branding and marketing overlap is with video. As the versatile medium that it is, video presents the perfect opportunity to establish and communicate your brand as well as kickstart your digital marketing efforts.

We recommend that every company has a brand story video that lives on its website. This is how you can showcase what you’re all about to visitors while grabbing and holding their attention. We also recommend creating People and Culture videos to highlight what your company is like behind the scenes. This does two things:

  1. It helps your audience see the faces, the real-life people, behind the brand.
  2. It reinforces your brand’s core values and company culture.

Video, as we’ve said time and time again, is also a great option for your marketing efforts. Using video in your social media advertisements, for example, is proven to get more views and more engagement than any other type of social ad. Using video on your landing pages or in your email marketing campaigns are also great options to boost conversions and start making sales. 

Ready to deeper explore how video can help both your branding and digital marketing efforts? Contact us today.

Jenna Kopec
Written by Jenna Kopec

Jenna, Trifactor's expert in clear and engaging written content, combines journalism and social media marketing skills to help clients communicate their messages effectively.

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