Marketing and advertising are two important concepts in the world of business and commerce. While they are often used interchangeably, there are significant differences between marketing and advertising. The difference is important, particularly to small businesses and startups. There’s a time for marketing and a time for advertising. So what’s the difference?
Marketing
Marketing is a broader concept that encompasses all the activities involved in promoting a good or service. It involves research, product development, distribution, pricing, and communication. Marketing is a strategic approach to creating and delivering value to customers. It is a process of understanding customer needs and developing products and services that meet those needs. In simpler terms, marketing is the process of matching products to customers. It’s the process through which we let people who need our product know that the product is for them. Marketing is concerned with answering initial questions such as who and why?
Advertising
Advertising, on the other hand, is one aspect of the marketing mix. It is a paid form of communication that aims to inform and persuade an audience about a good or service. Advertising is used to generate demand for a product or service and to increase brand awareness. It can take many forms, including print, TV, radio, online, and outdoor advertising. Advertising involves moving customers towards a buy decision. It is more concerned with answering buy related questions such as where, how and how much?
Marketing and advertising work hand-in-hand to achieve a common goal; the sale. Marketing and it’s elements such as market research helps companies to understand their target market, which then informs the advertising campaign. This tells us more about our customer. Where do we find them? How do we reach them? What matters to them? The advertising campaign then promotes the good or service to the target market. Marketing is absolutely vital because it gets us speaking to the right people in the right way.
Advertising is equally crucial because it finishes the sale process. Advertising shows the customer how to get the product, where to get the product and what payment methods are available among other things. Advertising is also great for letting the prospects know about the options available to them. So where marketing gets us speaking to the right people in the right way, advertising is what we say to them to get them to buy.
Why the difference matters
So why does the difference matter if these two things are so closely related? I’d like to look at this through the lens of social media though the same applies all across the board. In social media marketing there’s a rule a thumb that says we should target a 80/20 approach to our posts. Where 80% of our posts should be the customer while 20% should be about the products we are selling. In other words we should
Be marketing 80% of the time and advertising 20% of the time.
So 80% of your posts should be about either you getting to know the customer or the customer getting to know you? What does this mean practically? It’s things like storytelling and posting content that drives engagement and reaction. Content that shows who you are as a business, what matters to your business or enquiring about audience opinions.
And the 20% advertising should be about product features, benefits and advantages. How to get the product. You can use this space for product education as well for those who have more complicated products. The number of times I have bought a product only to discover things about it after I’d bought it astounds me. Pleasant surprises yes but the purchase decision would’ve been a lot easier had I known this upfront.
While advertising is an important component of marketing, it is only one aspect of the overall marketing mix. Marketing is a broader, more strategic approach to promoting and selling products, while advertising is a specific tactic used to generate demand and increase brand awareness. So the next time you are about to post or do some other public communication as a business, ask yourself do you want to market or advertise?
