3 Myths of Marketing vs Branding

There’s been some conversations about organizations or individuals who are developing strategies to kick off a branding campaign.

Some of these campaigns or strategies involves massively increasing their social media following.

There are many common myths about marketing vs branding and how it influences business performance.

Thought I should share some insights and observations that can help debunk these myths.

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Myth #1 Marketing & Branding is the SAME

Quick Answer. No. Marketing reinforces your Brand. But it is not Branding.

Long Answer. Every single thing that you or organization does represents your Branding.

Imagine opening a fine dining restaurant.

Everything that you do in running the restaurant constitutes your brand – your menu, your choice of location, the room setting, the waiters’ food knowledge, service standards, quality of food, the chef, hygiene and so many more.

To go even deeper, branding is about your values and beliefs about how someone should perceive you or your business.

Everything that you do online and offline is a reflection of your brand.

Your brand is your narrative.

Marketing is about how you wish to communicate the narrative to your audience.

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Myth #2 Marketing is more important than Branding

You can’t start marketing if you don’t know why, how or what you are marketing.

Your marketing is a reflection of your brand.

It comes before your brand. It’s a tool for an operation.

Branding is your identity.

A strong brand is much more powerful than any elaborate marketing campaign.

Most of my high- ticket purchases was from companies or individuals which I knew have dedicated an immense amount of time, effort and resources into building their name. They are credible authorities in their industries, they are practicing experts and are advocates & strong believers in their cause.

They usually don’t have any fancy sales copy or elaborate funnels.

I once bought a Platform Speaking course from Reshveen Rajendran just through an Instagram DM!!!

He did not send me through any landing page or sales funnel. He had such a strong brand, all he needed to was did an open call for signups through his instastory feed. P.S. His class filled up almost instantly after he posted on his Instagram.

Why was it so easy?

I trusted him since he’s been on stage with Success Resources which is a strong affiliation for his personal brand.

Success Resources are known to produce and promote exceptional world-class speakers. Likewise, he too have been building his profile for many years as an international speaker and is the President of Buffet Online School!

Your marketing campaign is developed to reinforce your brand and to communicate your brand. It is PART of your brand. If you can’t define or understand your brand (audience, pricing, quality, value proposition, etc.), how would you know what kind of marketing strategy to adopt?

Nevertheless, you still need Marketing.

Marketing communicates the value behind your product/service and branding confirms this belief.

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Myth #3 Branding can be build overnight

It’s neither a one time effort nor a long term endeavour.

It’s your narrative.

What do you want to be known for?

Quality? Speed? Efficiency? Credibility? Durability?

The list goes on and on.

A simple example:

When someone says let’s have lunch at MacDonald, what kind of image forms in your mind?

What kind of food are you imagining?

What kind of colours or lighting are you imagining?

What kind of music are you hearing?

If you can easily visualize a list, that means Ronald has a strong brand.

It didn’t happen overnight. It’s part of their DNA.

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I understand that after reading this, you might still be fuzzy about Branding vs Marketing. That’s perfectly fine as they are overlapping efforts.

Hopefully this article can give a wee bit more clarity about the differences! 😁