What’s the difference between marketing and branding?
First off… does it matter!? Yes, 100%. But also, no not at all. The terms “branding” and “marketing” are often interchangeable. It depends on your role in the company and what you want to achieve.
If you have only one person in your company who handles marketing, then don’t worry about the difference. They’re handling both, marketing and branding. (Unless you are that person, or that person reports to you, then your life might be easier to understand the difference).
If your company has a marketing department or multiple people that handle marketing, they might be tossing around those terms interchangeably. They likely know what they’re talking about, but it’ll be good to get on the same wavelength.
If you’re the President, Executive Director, or otherwise chief-of-all-the-things, understanding the difference will help you understand how to grow.
Quick definitions…
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A brand is the character of your organization. A brand is the ooey-gooey emotional center that is strong yet difficult to define. It is everything and nothing.
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Branding attempts to understand and manage the characteristics of your organization (ie., brand). The trickiest to define, the term is used interchangeably for many other things too, such as brand identity design and brand strategy.
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Marketing is a business segment that promotes the organization's goods, services, and mission.
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If your company has a "Brand" team, and a "marketing" team, then "marketing" likely refers to anyone driving advertising and promotions for future business. They work closely with the sales departments. "Branding" refers to the people attempting to understand the positive characteristics of the company, and keep it in the right direction. They may work within the marketing department, but must work closely with HR, operations, and the top executive leadership.
But that’s not all…
Brand
A brand is personality of your business.
A brand explains how you do business.
A brand shows what you stand for.
A brand contains your organization’s secret sauce that makes your organization profitable.
A brand represents the sum of the actions, interactions, and statements made by your company.
A brand hold the power to encourage your customer to buy with you instead of your competitor. (Consider: do you use Crest or Colgate? Have you ever used the other one?)
And, a brand can also go off track, and hold a negative connotations with your customers. (Think of what happens to Exxon or BP right after an oil spill).
In short, a brand is your company. There is no distinction between what your company stands for, and your brand.
…Now that you understand a brand, you can start “branding.”
Branding
Branding manages the essence of your brand.
Branding tries to maintain your company’s positive influence.
Branding designs your logo, color scheme, and anything that displays how your company is recognizable as you.
Branding articulates your values and how you treat customers.
Branding is the slow, long term, seemingly impossible effort to manage all of the things about your company that leads you to enduring success.
Branding is the method of managing your company culture and showing it to the world.
Extra credit:
The word “branding” refers to so many different things, let’s replace a few of them with how we refer to them in the biz.
Brand identity: the system of logos, fonts, colors that are used for business,
Ahem, “branding” still refers to the graphic design work to come up with that identity. Confusing, am I right?
Brand Strategy: the disciplined process to understand, manage, and improve the ooey-gooey psychological center of your company which demands higher returns and unshakeable customer loyalty. Psst… hire us! This is what Wimbly Stoke loves to do!
Marketing
Hopefully by this point, it’s a little easier to understand what “Marketing” is.
Traditionally, marketing is the promotion of goods and services. But that definition is rather limiting. For example, it doesn’t include nonprofits, politics, or the dark side of marketing like propaganda (or politics.)
For us at Wimbly Stoke:
Marketing is the method of inspiring change.
Marketing is about communication.
To bring a new product “to market,” it means that we must communicate the best things about that product to its audience.
Marketing is about finding the right customers.
Before you can launch a business, kickstart a new product, or accept donations for your nonprofit, you need to identify who actually wants it in the first place.
Marketing gets it done.
Marketing shows initiative. When you’re marketing something, we’re researching customers, launching something made
Marketing is about action, and branding is about “being.”
So, what’s it matter to you?
By understanding the differences, you are able to leverage the opportunities associated with each.
As for branding,
Who is in charge of your brand?
Do they know that they’re in charge of your brand?
Hint: it’s your leadership and then everyone in the organization. If they don’t, then be careful, how will they recognize that you’re going off track?
For example, please ask yourselves these sample questions about your marketing team:
Are your marketers delivering new leads?
Are your marketers researching and finding new opportunities for potential customers? (e.g., for new donor opportunities? for new customers?)
Are your marketers paying attention to what people say about your brand? Are they coming up with suggestions on what do to about it?
Finally, don’t worry so much. Keep doing good work, treat people well, and you’ll be just fine.
- Katie, a Brand Strategist.
