Most businesses utilize both marketing and advertising to increase sales. While they serve similar purposes, they are not the same. Advertising is the paid placement of messages, for instance, on TV or a banner at a sports arena. Marketing is a broader strategy that includes market research and finding the right advertising and other promotional activities opportunities.
Marketing and advertising serve different goals. To promote your brand effectively and efficiently, reach your audience, and improve sales and profits, you need to understand the differences and how to use them.
Knowing your audience
Marketing includes advertising. It is a broad, overarching strategy for promoting a business and brand. Marketing begins with research. Successful marketing starts with knowing our audience. An ad placed without knowing who you’re targeting means a wasted opportunity.
You need to know basic demographics, like age, gender, and geography. The best marketing plans go deeper and include things like values, personality, interests, and income. The latter is especially important in researching pricing, another aspect of marketing. If you know your audience but not what they’ll pay for a product, you don’t understand the market, and your ads will fall flat.
Use a variety of tools and strategies for marketing research: U.S. census data, competitor information, social media comments, reviews and comments, and surveys. You can create a profile for your ideal or typical customer with all the information. This type will help shape and guide your campaigns to make them more specific and targeted.
Promoting your brand
The second component of marketing is brand promotion. Once you know your audience, you can take steps to build brand awareness, promote products, and generally increase customer reach and sales. This is where advertising comes into play.
Advertising is most successful when rooted in a marketing plan. Through best marketing practices, you have defined your customer profile. Every advertising effort should be filtered through this research. Here are some other important factors to consider when using advertising to promote your business:
Create a logo
Brand promotion is centered on the simplest definition of your company, in other words, a recognizable logo. Keep it simple and let it clearly define your brand and business. The same goes for a short slogan. Both should be easy ways for consumers to recognize your brand in any advertisement.
Make it emotional
The most effective ads are those that evoke emotions. As much as people like to think they make decisions logically, the truth is that a lot of purchasing is based on emotion.
Advertisements that dig feelings out of consumers are effective. They make a striking first impression and inspire people to act. A great example of this is the Always Like a Girl campaign. It harnessed the anger of that sexist insult to get people to react emotionally to the brand and product.
Track campaigns
Don’t just let an ad loose in the world and forget about it. Track it, test it, and find out if it worked. Look at metrics like click rates, subscriptions, or sales. Also consider more subjective measures.
Survey your audience. Engage consumers on social media and find out if they like your ads. If you get a bad response, it’s a lesson learned. Take what consumers didn’t like about an advertisement and change it for the next effort.
Vary strategies
Advertising is often best when varied—target different channels for greater reach. Varying ad placement is also an excellent way to find the best way to reach your particular audience. Maybe local TV ads have failed to get the hoped-for new customers, but your social media paid ads have grown your base.
Advertise within budget
The cost of a television ad placement is hefty, let alone a Super Bowl ad. This doesn’t mean you can’t advertise. It’s all about scaling to your budget.
Low-cost advertising, like logoed stress balls and other small but useful promotional items, helps spread the word about your business and increase brand awareness. Even if you have the budget for more expensive advertising, a mix of high-cost and low-cost placements will only improve your reach.
Marketing and advertising go hand-in-hand
Advertising without marketing is like shooting an arrow at a target while blindfolded. You might hit the center, but it will be down to pure luck if you do.
Always remember that advertising is a subset of your overarching marketing campaign. It should fit in as one piece of the puzzle, guided by marketing information for the best practical results for your business.
Story by Rebecca Stuart
Share
Contributors
