This is one of the most confusing topics -at least for me. It took me a long time to understand and put everything in it's place.
Try asking different people what they understand by the term branding! You will get answers like, ‘it’s a logo, the colors and fonts or taglines.’
To be more precise though, the above of course constitutes a brand.
But if you are to consider most of the big brands like Apple or even Jumia, you will realize that branding is much more than just a logo, color, font, or even a tagline.
Branding also involves the quality and pricing of the products, presence on social media, your business website, and marketing. The promise of quality goods and innovations plus the customer care provided.
All clients would highly appreciate the customer care. But then branding is more of a combination of all these factors. Without quality goods, customer care becomes useless.
Though above all, it’s the trust that customers have in your products and services.
So as you can see, branding is one of the major tools of marketing.
Branding claims the trust of customers. It makes it easy for them to recognize and purchase the company’s products and services.
A client will always choose to purchase products or get services from a brand they are sure provides quality goods and services.
With branding, you are promoting customer recognition of your products.
Meanwhile, marketing is a business tool used to reach out to more and more customers about the services and products offered. As well as special offers and promotions.
One would be very correct to say that a business needs both branding and marketing. But the specs of branding honestly do outweigh that of marketing.
For beginners or business startups, branding should be considered seriously. Instead of hurriedly jumping to marketing, a business owner should take time to establish their business brand.
What some entrepreneurs fail to understand is that in the long run, it becomes more expensive to run your business if you don’t establish your business brand from the start.
Customers tend to associate more with strong brands compared to any other service provider or company out there. You’ll find that lack of a brand is actually costing you business however much you market it.
So at one time in the future, as an entrepreneur, you will have to pause and go back to the basics of branding. That is if you are looking forward to achieving a higher market for your business.
In a world where there is stiff competition when it comes to providing services, you most probably want to be recognized.
While marketing maintains a good relationship with customers, branding maintains the loyalty of customers.
Loyalty to a brand is a huge tool that helps to curb and keep business competition in check.
Despite the several brands out there, I know people whose only option for shopping is Amazon. Even if the product is out of stock, they are willing to wait until it is restocked. That is if they don’t need it urgently.
These customers are sure of the product and service being provided by their favorite brand that they are willing to stick by it.
Much as marketing mainly reaches out to people and creates awareness, it doesn’t beat referrals.
Has a close friend or family ever referred a service provider or product to you?
Well, even if it’s your first time to hear about it you will most definitely head over there. You will most definitely not be skeptical when purchasing that product or service.
As you promote trust amongst your customers, you as well gain the trust of their trusted ones. If that is not marketing through branding, please remind me again what that is!
Then, of course, there is that first impression that branding provides which is not the case with marketing.
If you market a product people don’t know about or have never seen, you will probably have people scrolling over your adverts. Or, those interested in your products first doing thorough research about it.
People quite have trust issues everywhere (these days).
But establish and develop your brand first and then market it, you’ll have pulled out the big guns for the bug shots. Huh!
Customers love knowing that your brand is highly reliable and can be depended upon.
If they know they can always depend on you and your services, then they become more consistent in purchasing your products.
And of course, every business person out there knows that you need consistency for your business to thrive.
Your brand is your voice, mission, or who you are. Whereas marketing is simply the message you put out there to find, motivate clients, and create awareness about your products.
Conclusion
To sum it all up, branding is much more important than marketing.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to read what you think about branding and marketing in the comments below.
