Marketing vs Advertising

There is a great misconception in Zimbabwe that placing an advert or printing some flyers or having a logo updated is marketing.

While all of those do fall under marketing, alone they do not amount to marketing.

Marketing is the head of a group of functions which include:

• Advertising

• Branding

• Corporate Identity

• Promotions

These together make up marketing, and a strong marketing campaign includes each one.

When you just print up some flyers or pay for an advert to be placed in a newsletter, that will fall under a category of marketing, but marketing would include the other functions as well.

When you send out an advert, distribute flyers, organize an event or other similar tasks they should fit into a plan, have an objective and be part of something greater.

 

 Effective marketing includes the 4 P's of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

While sending out an email offering a discount will boost immediate sales, it does not do much for the long term profitability of your company, after a week it is dead and buried in the recipients inbox's, never to be seen again. The only customers you got where the people who needed the product or service you offered at that precise time.

Using marketing in this scenario would be a little different, you would identify your target market, evaluate the best way, time and location to make contact with them, define what would interest them, find out what calls to action they are likely to follow, design a targeted advert, fill it with statistical information gathering tools, and then implement your campaign.

From the information gathered you improve on your next one.

In conclusion, you would  use advertising for a boost in sales or awareness and you would use marketing to build your company.

Most marketing consultants and companies will meet with you and give you an idea of what you can expect from them, and some will even put forward a proposal for your consideration, this way you can get a good idea of what you could accomplish through effective marketing implementation and not simply advertising.