Marketing v. Advertising: Know the Difference
April 6, 2009 by
Adam
Filed under
Business, Website Traffic
One of the biggest challenges of being a small business owner is that you must become an expert on many facets of business even if you lack education and practical experience. Just because you went to school and got an accounting degree doesn’t mean you know much, if anything, about advertising. Yet, in order to succeed, you must gain at least some level of competency in all these different areas; at least enough to know if the people you’ve hired are doing a good job.
One area that I want to address in this post has to do with marketing v. advertising. The reason is that the marketing world has undergone a sort of rapid evolution in the past couple years with the insane popularity of Web 2.0/Social Networking. Web-based marketing, including affiliate marketing, is often good-old fashioned advertising (or worse, spam) dressed in sheep’s clothing. It is important to recognize the differences between marketing and advertising to make sure you’re getting the most from your marketing budget; and since your marketing efforts are you company’s “first impression” to the public, you also want to be sure you’re representing yourself in the best possible light.
The best way to describe it is using the analogy of a toolbox. Marketing is a toolbox full of stuff that you can use to represent your company; and advertising is simply one tool. What that means is that you must have an overall plan of action in place before you make a decision about any kind of advertising. An ad campaign that does not fit into your overall marketing strategy can actually do more harm than good.
Many advertising agents will try to sell you ad space/time using statistics, and get you to jump on a bandwagon with other companies similar to yours who are doing the same thing. But you have to look at the big picture. Your success depends entirely on your ability to stand out from the pack. If you’re using the same “tried and true” methods to advertise and market your business, it doesn’t matter how good you are—it’s not going to get you any attention.
The great thing about marketing is that it is actually a creative endeavor. You can devise new ways of doing it which will become part of your company’s identity. Much of the corporate marketing that is done is highly refined, created to appeal to the broadest range of people. But recent success stories show that it is the unique, niche markets that have quirky personalities that are thriving.
The bottom line is this: You’re not going to succeed at business without a solid marketing plan. And that doesn’t mean buying premium ad space or giving away stuff with your logo on it. It means looking at your overall market, comparing the strategies of other companies; being innovative with your writing, promotion, and advertising; and having a way to track the effectiveness of your campaigns. It means basing your advertising decisions on more than just cost.
In the world of online marketing, you can get lost in the shuffle. Each one of us is bombarded with emails, messages from our “friends”, and banner ads that it has become easy to tune these things out. Remember: the key to effective marketing is always going to be making a personal connection with your prospective customer. So try to look at all your marketing and advertising with a fresh eye and imagine yourself seeing it for the first time. What does it say about your company and your product? Is it compelling enough to make you want to find out more? Is it associated with other, controversial or unattractive concepts? Be prepared to hear honest feedback and to use it as you constantly refine and redefine your marketing strategy.
I agree. I think that there are a lot of Internet marketers out there who are only hurting themselves (their business) simply due to the fact that they don’t know the difference between marketing and advertising and how to use them effectively to draw traffic.
This is so true. Advertising is just a component of marketing. Making a personal connection is essential to marketing, including social media. This is a great way to gain a following, while not being spammy and, for lack of a better word, annoying.
Hello: My view is the same This is the true. Only ads are an integral part of marketing. Above all in the quality of merchandise. In my opinion, there is a lot of Internet marketing who can only hurt themselves. Simply because they do not know the difference between the marketing and advertising.
Wow, honestly didnt even know there was a difference between the two… Very informative article, thanks!
Hey Folks
I think Adam is right. Being educated dosen’t mean that you know something about blogging
One of the biggest challenges of being a small business owner is that you must become an expert on many facets of business even if you lack education and practical experience. Just because you went to school and got an accounting degree doesn’t mean you know much, if anything, about advertising. Yet, in order to succeed, you must gain at least some level of competency in all these different areas; at least enough to know if the people you’ve hired are doing a good job
Let’s say your website is doing pretty well and you’ve decided to try and make some money off it by selling some advertising space to other companies. What do you think is the best form to offer the advertising in? You mention banner ads being easy to ignore as a browser (so true), but do you think I (as the person selling advertising) should worry about that? Or should I just go by the policy “if there’s a willing buyer, sell it to them”. What’s a better way of selling advertising off your site?
hot topic for long and interesting discussion,thanks