Marketing and advertising are often used interchangeably, however, they don’t mean the same thing. If you are looking to promote your business, knowing the differences between these two terms is important, so let’s dive into it:
What is marketing?
According to Wikipedia, marketing is the business process of creating relationships with customers and satisfying them. The focus is on the customer and marketing is one of the primary components of business management.
Marketing is not possible without marketing research, which consists of learning and gathering the information that will help you sell your product to potential customers. It consists of a variety of methods of recording, gathering, and analysis of reliable and valid data related to marketing products or services. Its goal is to help companies make better decisions when it comes to business so they can get the most out of opportunities and sell as many products as possible.
What do marketers do?
Since W3-Lab is a digital agency, in this post we will focus on the digital aspects of marketing and advertising.
Digital marketers manage and do a number of things, some of which include:
- Advertising campaigns
- Monitoring campaign budgets
- Social media management
- Branding
- Building audiences on social media
- SEO and lead improvement
- and many more
Different types of marketing
There are different kinds of marketing: social media marketing, content marketing, website marketing, each type has its own importance.
Your website is where people come to learn more about your business and purchase your products or services, which is why website marketing is important. Make sure your website layout is easy to navigate and has a nice design. Also, your website needs to be optimized and responsive, since mobile browsing has overtaken desktop browsing.
Content marketing is all about sharing videos, blogs, and social media posts online. It increases sales while being very low cost: great for both small and big businesses. Social media marketing is perhaps the most crucial and most popular kind nowadays. It consists of connecting to your customers through social media, posting great content and interacting with them. Since it gives you the opportunity to talk to them and get feedback, this type of marketing is both effective and useful. Most used social media platforms for social media marketing are Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Now, onto advertising.
What is advertising?
Firstly, advertising is part of the marketing process. It is the activity of selling a product to a target audience. Its goal is to attract new customers through effective marketing campaigns.
Just like with every other type of promotion, it is crucial to establish the target audience first. You need to know what websites they use, what their interests are, age, education level, gender, income and so on. If you want to sell your product or service to young people, the best option for advertising would probably be Instagram. However, if your target audience are seniors, traditional advertising might be a better choice for you.
Types of advertising
Just like with marketing, there are multiple types of advertising. You can advertise online, via newspaper, TV, billboards, electronic newsletters, sides of buildings, store windows, and so on. Some of these are traditional and, for the lack of a better word, less modern, but each type is effective in its own way and good for some target audiences. As already mentioned, young people are more likely to see your ads online while seniors have a better chance of seeing them in the streets.
Digital advertising
Today, when the majority of us are online shopping, digital advertising is almost crucial for a business to succeed. Fewer and fewer people are reading the newspaper, paying for cable and watching TV. Everyone is slowly migrating to the internet, hence why digital marketing has become so important.
Using digital advertising, businesses can promote their products on different websites using ad campaigns. The most popular websites for digital advertising are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google Search and so on.
Digital marketing uses different tools to launch ad campaigns and measure and analyze data in order to improve future campaigns and results. Types of digital advertising include PPC or pay-per-click advertising, social media advertising, video advertising, search engine advertising, display ads and many more.
It is also more popular than traditional advertising because it is more affordable and easier to use. Also, you have more control over it and can see the results yourself. Another advantage is that you pay only for the visits that you get (PPC), so you are not losing money. When it comes to Google search, it is not only pay-per-click but it also puts your ad on the first page of Google, which is very useful since 75% of people never scroll past the first page.
Finishing up
Marketing and advertising are related, but not synonymous, since advertising is a component of marketing. Marketing is more focused on understanding the market and identifying the needs of customers, while advertising aims to get the attention of your potential customers and point it to your products or services.
Now that you know the difference between these two terms, promoting your business will be much easier.
