Are you new to the corporate environment? Is it possible that you still feel confused when producing copy for your ad material? In my short marketing career, I still find myself confused when writing ads and requesting my seniors in my department for advice. They have always guided me with great patience and I sincerely appreciate them for that, but I seek to improve to become an asset rather than a liability.
Now many of you reading are young marketing professionals or students, you understand that advertising and marketing aren’t mutually exclusive and work together to amplify their effects in collaboration.
This issue is that since I entered the corporate environment coincidentally (as many people do), I was initially unsure about how the two industries interact. Since both marketing and advertising share many things in common such as their goals, there are significant differences between the two that enable you to maximize your efforts and allows you to optimize and calibrate your strategy for the best results possible.
Through my unique journey into corporate marketing, I would like to help you explore the differences and similarities between marketing advertising.
What is marketing?
Marketing is a method used to identify the needs of your targeted market. By defining a solution/product best suited to assist with the customers’ needs and deciding an appropriate cost that is competitive in the market that would turn a profit. All of these factors must be taken into account before the act of promoting the product/solution so that the target audience you identified are aware of your company.
What is advertising?
Advertising is the process of utilizing paid media channels to introduce an audience to a product, what it does, and how it can help them solve an identified issue. In summation, advertising is ultimately one component of the large disciple that is marketing.
Both, marketing and advertising have the same end goal. It is understood that marketing has a larger scope and responsibility to a business than advertising. Advertising has a niche goal which is specifically to get a certain product or service to get more recognition in the market. In layman’s terms, to get the word out about what a company is selling.
Marketing, on the other side of the spectrum, creates a culture in a brand or a company that gives it a tone and personality. This new voice of the company will be a method to attract the target audience to generate interest, conversions, and/or sales.
As a means to gain public interest and awareness of your company, marketing is the umbrella term for that. Advertising is a tactic that can be used to get the end goal done of marketing. This allows us to understand how advertising is a step of the marketing process.
Almost all marketing strategies use advertising at least in 1 level of a campaign, in various types of media. Advertising channels being used can encompass many avenues such as social media, search engines, television, print, podcasts, radio, billboards, flyers, and many more. By having an appropriate analysis of your target audience, you’ll need to use a combination of various channels as a means to get the most effective and efficient results.
Advertising is the component of marketing that solely focuses on the paid media aspect where money will be exchange for exposure. Advertising will communicate that a product exists and the best way to achieve a goal involving that product’s usage.
Marketing can be paid, owned, or even earned media. Marketing will convince potential customers that your brand is the one that they wish to use or that your products will help them solve any issues that can be resolved through the usage of your product/service.
By thinking of marketing as a strategy-making process that enables companies to align products with an identified target audience. They will allow companies to understand how to sell and position their products in the market. Then, advertising principles can be applied to make the product known to the target audience through paid means such as commercials, digital ads, and many more alternatives.
Advertising and marketing are not antagonizing concepts that are at odds with each other. They are meant to mutually complement each other. Advertising almost always is used in a manner to benefit a marketing plan as well as to communicate the message to be portrayed in the marketing message. Although, the way success is measured and calculated for the 2 similar, yet different industries are not the same.
With advertising, you need to emphasize return on ad spend as well as actual sales. Success in marketing has much to do with brand awareness and impressions. Brand awareness and impressions are used by companies to measure the success of a marketing campaign along with the return on investment for grading and evaluation of a marketing campaign for a company.
Which one should a company focus more on?
Multifaceted promotional campaigns are used by many successful companies as part of their overall marketing strategy. This is especially true for international corporations, whose marketing plan and ad placement must consider consumers from all over the world. It also applies to small and medium businesses, particularly now that digital advertising through search engines and social media is more affordable.
Having said that, there are times when marketing is more valuable than advertising. The development of a marketing strategy should be the top priority for startup companies and other new businesses. It can be disastrous if these organizations invest too much money on ads at the start, without having a well-established and long-term marketing strategy.
It is critical to establish and implement a marketing strategy by defining consumer desires and needs at the inception of a company’s life. Any future marketing or promotional campaigns would then have a clear strategy and a higher chance of succeeding.
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