Branding vs. marketing in the “digital” era, where everything is online, can be a source of confusion and anxiety when developing a strategy for your company’s growth.
Should you focus more on branding or marketing? What's the difference?
Does just having a company website count as digital branding and marketing?
Should your company be measuring progress? Are you leveraging user data to develop a winning digital strategy?
By the end of this article, you'll understand the difference between branding vs. marketing, so you can:
- Create a digital brand identity that stands out from website competitors.
- Build a customer acquisition pipeline that engages and converts site leads.
- Leverage a data-driven system to scale and manage company growth.
When done right, a complete online branding and marketing strategy will eliminate costly guesswork and fuel scalable customer acquisition that out-positions competitors and drives profitable growth.
What is Digital Branding?
The best digital branding is built around the problem your business solves – not around its products or services.
Contrary to popular belief, digital branding is not about boasting how much better your product or service is than your competitors'. It's about rising above the competitive landscape and convincing buyers they can only achieve their desired outcome with your unique solution.
When your company can present a solution no one else in the industry is providing, you're no longer competing on price. You're providing a unique value beyond what the market currently offers. And your customers' buying decisions will be based on that value – not on the lowest price.
Less competition and higher revenue? Yes, please.
These are the true payoffs of powerful digital branding, which adheres to the same core principles as traditional branding. The main difference: you are now creating a strategy via the internet instead of television, business cards, billboards, and other physical advertising spaces.
Digital Brand Management vs. Branding
If digital branding represents the way your company solves buyers’ problems, then digital brand management is the way your company wants to present this unique solution to an online audience.
Digital brand management focuses on how you are presenting your company’s message through key areas such as the:
- Logo
- Slogan, tagline or positioning statement
- Website & social media experience
A company with excellent brand management skills establishes a true competitive advantage.
Not only will it develop a reputation of its own, it will eliminate side-by-side comparisons with other companies and, ultimately, enjoy an uncontested market space.
Over time, this translates into unlimited potential, as buyers become more interested in the value your brand delivers, and less focused on price. At this point, a company can grow a loyal audience that views the brand as a unique and innovative solution, instead of a replaceable commodity.
When done right, the benefits of digital brand management include:
- Positive brand recognition
- Increased customer trust
- Reduced competition
- Revenue growth
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is all of the preparation that goes into introducing your brand to a customer for the first time and how subsequent engagements are planned, executed and measured for effectiveness.
It’s all of the steps taken to attract an audience, track their activity, and then refine this information into a comprehensive digital marketing strategy meant to attract an even greater wave of like-minded buyers for repeat success.
How Digital Marketing Works
When most brand companies think about “going digital”, their marketing strategy is limited to a website telling the world about their products or services. That same messaging may find its way into email blasts, social media sites, and more.
But it's a product-driven approach. And it's a one-way conversation with buyers.
On the other hand, a company website that attracts visitors with content that addresses the problems they are trying to solve – and measures their engagement in a meaningful way – is using digital marketing to create a healthy sales pipeline.
Digital marketing success comes from engaging your audience with relevant messaging and compelling them to take action.
Maybe it’s providing their email address for a newsletter, or maybe it’s their street address for a sweepstakes entry. Whatever it is, the goal is to encourage visitors to perform specific actions that move them through a series of small steps on the path to becoming a customer.
By analyzing and responding to data, brands can continuously improve how efficiently (and profitably) they move buyers through each step.
A company with a good digital marketing campaign strategy will have a plan to maximize “conversion” rates – the successful movement of buyers through each step. From new website visitors and leads, to resells, upsells, and lead referrals from existing customers, the more efficient the process, the better the results.
Three examples of digital marketing are:
- Agile Marketing – Continuously publishing online content, measuring results, and refining with a new strategy.
- Demand Generation Marketing – Generating a demand for your product or service, usually through SEO blogging, paid advertising, lead generation, or other means.
- Growth Marketing – Measuring and responding to digital growth metrics across the customer acquisition pipeline, such as organic website traffic, leads, sales opportunities and revenue – to drive profitable growth.
Digital Branding Vs. Marketing: Which Benefits Companies the Most?
Many companies feel the need to choose between branding or marketing. In reality, digital branding and digital marketing are both necessary for developing a successful growth strategy.
However, it’s equally important to understand how they work together.
Successful branding will articulate the unique solution your company offers.
while marketing is the methods your company uses to make people aware of your solution.
Marketing is also how you collect the information left behind to contact previous visitors again, and how you attract completely new ones.
To be clear, branding comes before marketing every time. Rushing to market with the wrong message is, in fact, why most marketing fails.
Marketing attracts visitors to your website for the first time, branding ensures your company will have the substance needed to make a meaningful connection, and marketing comes back into play to follow up after the initial contact is made.
It can be tempting to jump right into the latest marketing tactic or online channel and tell the world about your amazing company. But if profitable, scalable, long-term growth is your goal – you're going to need a real plan.
If you're unsure how to develop a balanced brand marketing strategy on your own, consider working with a brand management agency who can help you scale for success.
.png)
.png)
.png)
