How Marketing Differs from Advertising and Why You Need Both - Social Media Explorer
How Marketing Differs from Advertising and Why You Need Both
How Marketing Differs from Advertising and Why You Need Both
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There is often a lot of confusion between marketing and advertising, and what each one really means. While they are very different, they are both required in order to create a successful business.

There are numerous definitions of both terms, and if you ask several people what they mean you will receive completely different responses each time. The only thing everyone will agree on is that both are necessary and need to be a major focus.

Even though both are required, it’s important to know what separates ‘advertising’ from ‘marketing’ and what each one does, while working together to help your business.

Marketing is designed to bring attention (or drive awareness) to your product or service.

Marketing is a bunch of actions that are done in order to attract attention to your brand and drive awareness, putting you in front of people that could potentially be interested in what it is that you offer. You can think of this as the first introduction.

Social media is a great example of marketing, as you are putting your brand in front of a large audience and giving them something to engage with in the event that your offer or brand message is attractive to them.

A common example of marketing is a brand creating a specific hashtag that is designed to raise awareness and draw attention to the company. Little things like this are done to introduce a brand and let everyone know the product or service exists, rather than directly selling. If you market correctly, it sets up your advertising campaigns to be much more effective.

Advertising is a segment of marketing that reminds potential customers of your product or service.

Advertising is what drives sales. Once you have branded your business through creative marketing, your advertising is what triggers that “reminder” and is responsible for pushing the audience to convert into a purchase.

Your advertising needs to explain why your product or service is the right solution for the problem you solve. Not all advertising is designed to convert the recipient right away, as a lot of conversions require multiple “touches” before the consumer is ready to buy. Conversely companies like MyVoucherCodes are definitely near the end of the buying funnel.

In order for it to be effective, your advertising needs to accomplish two things:

  1. Convince: advertisements need to convince the audience to take action, whether it’s click on an ad for more information or complete a call-to-action opt-in form to download a free e-book. You have to convince people to take the first step.
  2. Remind: this needs to match up with your marketing and help to deliver your brand message. You have to constantly remind the consumer why they need your product or service. The more creative you can get, the better your results will be.

Advertising needs to live on multiple platforms, including social media, pay-per-click, organic search, etc. If you have an aggressive marketing campaign that delivers a lot of brand impressions you will want to supplement that with advertising in as many different places as possible in order to take advantage of the foundation already poured.

Conclusion

Both marketing and advertising are required and both are very similar, which is why there is always going to be a debate and some confusion regarding them. Your marketing needs to make your potential audience know you exist, and your advertising needs to tell them why they need what it is that you are selling.

When your audience knows who you are and you explain to them how your product or service solves a problem they have, then the conversion-goal becomes much easier to obtain.

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About the Author

Adam
Adam is an owner at Nanohydr8. He really loves comedy and satire, and the written word in general.

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