Marketing vs. Advertising – two very fundamentally different tools.
The terms Advertising and Marketing are often confused. While both share some similarities, there are many differences. Knowing what those differences are can be vital to a business to help them sell more products or services and to help them meet both their immediate and long-term goals. Here is some clarification, just so we’re all on the same page…
Advertising:
Advertising is a single component of the marketing process. It is the paid, public announcements of a persuasive message to a targeted demographic (existing or potential customers) in a certain time frame to promote a product, service or event.
Advertising involves processes for developing and implementing creative materials such as:
- Television Commercials
- Radio Commercials
- Newspaper ads
- Magazine ads
- Flyers
- Brochures
- Digital and Web advertisements
- Social Media
Marketing:
Marketing involves understanding who the potential customer is for the particular product or service and what they are looking for. It takes into consideration strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of an organization and their product and services. Marketing also considers competitors and their product or service offerings and looks at what differentiates the product or service from other offerings.
Marketing involves a wider range of activities, such as:
- Systematic planning of budgets for marketing and promotion
- Identification of primary and secondary audiences
- Market research
- Campaign strategy that develops the points to made in the advertisement
- Messaging strategy for the various demographics
- Copy, layout and storyboarding of a campaign
- Decision on media channels to use (print, broadcast, mail, electronic, direct response, etc.)
- Media planning (promotion)
- Pricing
- Distribution
- Customer support
- Sales strategy
- Public relations
- Community involvement
In a nutshell, marketing provides the “big picture”, while advertising is the component of marketing that focuses on implementation of the promotion.
