Marketing
is everywhere you go. It’s the billboards you see on highways, the flyers hanging on street poles, posters hung up in shops, even when having a casual conversation with a friend where you introduce them to a new product or service in the market.
Let’s begin with understanding more about what branding is. Most people do not understand what branding is and can get it confused with the term Marketing. Many people think branding is just having a nice logo, but that’s just a really small part of it.
Branding
is developing and applying a distinctive set of features to your business so that consumers can begin to associate your brand with the products or services you offer such as; the language used on your social media, the colour palette, the fonts and typography used, the materials used in your packaging, what your values are, how you communicate the product or service, and how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand. Companies or businesses that have a strong brand identity will have a brand that lives everywhere. Their brand will extend far beyond the logo and can influence consumers’ purchase behaviour to choose this specific product or service out of a line-up of options.
Difference
How is it different from marketing? Marketing is the frontline of your branding. It’s how you get people to see and hear you. The goal of marketing activities carried out by brands is to generate a level of interest that would allow consumers to try and test your product, as well as eventually stick to it. The loyalty that consumers can have towards a brand starts first by marketing yourself and your identity and catching their attention. When they start purchasing and resonating with your brand character and feel, eventually loyalty sticks. Marketing is the tip of the iceberg, the finish line, while branding all the hidden efforts to create an identity, it’s the effort you do to reach the finish line.