Marketing vs. Branding

 

Here's a question that comes up.

What's the difference between marketing and branding?

Which one should you work on?

Both. 

Marketing is teaching people to appreciate the unique benefits of a product. It's education. It's a classroom where the students are prospects.

Branding is part of marketing because it's one of the things you can do to get people to want what you are selling. But...

Branding is different from marketing because you skip the education- they don't have to remember anything. There's no punch list. There's no executive summary. It bypasses that kind of thinking.

Branding is total emotional impact. You have to be a real wizard to do it right and you also have to realize one prominent bozo in the company could do something stupid publicly and screw it up. 

Branding creates what people feel about the company. It skips the thinking part. 

Get it right and you have greased the slippery slides of prospects turning into customers.

One day I'll write about why thought leadership marketing is now the key to branding. If you've read this one this far, you'll definitely want to read that one. Subscribe.