The continued evolution of technology and the growing influence of digital online marketing sometimes blur the line between marketing and advertising. While advertising and marketing have many similarities, there are key differences between the two.
Marketing helps you identify what customers want now, what they will want, and how to meet those needs. The best marketing strategies pinpoint ways of serving different customer bases while maximizing profits. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing focuses on other businesses, while business-to-consumer (B2C) puts emphasis on consumers.
The marketing process includes designing different campaigns and coming up with creative tactics to appeal to a potential customer. There’s also a lot of research and parsing of data to align products or services to a target audience. It defines the product and how it solves a specific problem.
Effective marketing involves doing intense research into how audiences respond to distinct elements of a campaign. That includes everything from the colors used in a logo to the images used in a digital ad. You must come up with a language and design that exerts the most influence over an audience.
The following marketing components often called the marketing mix, help companies identify key factors about their business.
Advertising involves promoting a business’s services and products through different paid channels to a target audience. Companies rely on advertising to establish their brand and increase sales. The most effective advertising campaigns are timely and positioned to meet specific business goals using the following methods:
The best advertising educates the audience about the benefits of a product or service and why they are superior to a competitor. Good advertising leaves customers feeling they must have the product to solve a problem or handle a specific need. Great advertising campaigns mix different media to generate a lot of excitement around products.
One example of a company that consistently delivers timely, exciting advertising is Twix. Some of their most innovative campaign ideas include pitting various forms of the candy bar against each other, sometimes within the same package (left Twix vs. right Twix, anyone). They also have active social media channels. Twix recently launched a campaign tying their new Cookies & Crème bars to a pair of stylish sneakers, a way of appealing to a younger demographic.
Advertising is a sub-element of the Promotion part of the marketing mix we highlighted earlier. Marketing focuses on getting products ready for the marketplace. Advertising is the step where companies communicate what the brand stands for based on the research done during the marketing phase.
While advertising and marketing are similar, we hope you can be able to highlight the differences more easily after reading through this blog. Both are an integral part of a successful business.
Let fuze32 help you with marketing and advertising strategy by scheduling a consultation of our services today - the first ones on us!