May 1, 2022
Many people treat the words “marketing” and “advertising as synonymous. However, this is a big mistake that many times becomes a source of misunderstanding. But that’s not all. Lack of common awareness of these different meanings of these terms causes that thinking about marketing activities is mistakenly reduced, for example, to running advertising campaigns on Facebook or a search engine. Meanwhile, the difference between these two concepts is significant. And it is crucial for business.
In this post we will try to describe what the difference between marketing and advertising is and show you how knowing this distinction can help you make better business decisions.
What is marketing?
Let’s start with a definition. Marketing is the list of actions a business takes to attract and retain customers. Marketing can include activities such as market research, public relations, social media, advertising, web design and many, many more. The purpose of marketing is not always to gain customers or generate additional profit. Sometimes, good marketing can be aimed at building the right brand image or helping to create long-term business relationships with customers.
What are the types of marketing?
There are two basic types of marketing, one is outbound marketing and the other is inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing is when a business sends a message to its customers or prospective customers. The brand is the initiator of the contact and seeks to interact with potential customers. This category of marketing includes paid online advertising or coldcalling, among others.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is when a company uses organic means of acquiring customers. It can be said that in this model, a business “lets itself be found” by a customer through diligent website maintenance, regular social media posts, or preparing a Google business card.
Of course, these types of marketing can (and should!) be used together to enable a business to achieve overall strategic and sales goals.
What is advertising?
What about the definition of advertising? Advertising is one component of an overall marketing strategy. It involves paid promotions to achieve specific business results. The most important goal of advertising is to increase business profits, while marketing as a whole can be used to achieve different types of strategic business results.
What are the types of advertising?
Advertising comes in many forms. The best way to divide it is to determine whether it is physical/traditional or digital advertising.
We come into contact with traditional advertising in the realm of the real. These include billboards, magazines, newspapers, posters, flyers, banners, and other physical forms of encouraging purchase. Digital advertising, on the other hand, refers to any advertisement that can be placed online, the virtual realm. Digital advertising includes Facebook ads, Google Ads, apps, website pop-ups, influencer marketing, and more.
As with inbound and outbound marketing, a combination of traditional and digital advertising helps you achieve the best results.
Summary: The differences between marketing and advertising
Marketing and advertising almost always go hand in hand when it comes to growing your business. In order to continuously increase interest in your products or services and generate profit, you cannot neglect either of these areas. It is worth remembering that advertising is only one element of marketing. Used alone, it will not bring as good results as a well-thought-out marketing strategy including both paid and organic contact channels.
If you are wondering how to lead marketing in your company to build a good brand image and sell, contact us. We can help you prepare a marketing strategy that covers most of your business needs.
