Running your own business is tough and with so many buzzwords flying around, it’s often hard to understand what everything really means, what to spend your time on and of course, that hard earned coin!

So here’s a some common question with solopreneurs and small business owners - Isn’t branding and marketing the same thing?

Before I set up as full time branding strategist/designer, I was also employed as a marketeer for a corporate business and really, the short answer is no, they’re not the same. A really simple way of explaining it: Branding is who you are and why you exist, marketing is how you promote your product and service to your audience.

What is branding?

Branding isn’t marketing, but it’s not just a logo either. Before you get to your final logo design you’ve got to work out who you are, who your customers are and why you exist.

There will always be someone in every industry that likes to explain how it’s oversaturated, but if you get your brand strategy on point, you’ll never have problems communicating to and converting your ideal audience within your marketing.

Branding is knowing who your ideal customer is, what you offer and why you offer it, what really makes you different from the competition, what problems do you solve, what’s the business mission and values? Once you’ve figured that out then it’s the visual aesthetic - what’s the feeling or vibe you want people to experience with your business, the colour palette, the logo and visual imagery.

What is marketing?

Ultimately, marketing is the ongoing activity that promotes your branding and product/service to grow awareness and reputation among your selected audience.

Creating a clear brand strategy, it will really help when devising your marketing strategy. You’ll know who your customer is, where they hang out and what social media channels they use. Because of this, you’ll be able to create a plan of what content you know they’ll want to see and where you should be posting it.

One can’t live without the other

Now we’ve established the difference between both branding and marketing, it’s important to note that one is only truly successful when working in harmony with the other. Let me explain:

• You can’t market a brand without there being a brand to market. so naturally, nailing your brand strategy is always the first step to consider.
• Whether it’s SEO (search engine optimisation), social media, blogging, email - you need marketing tactics to reach your ideal customers. But think about it, you’ve created a great instagram strategy and scheduled some posts, but without a clear, memorable brand image and message, those people that found you wont stick around. Marketing gets people to find you, branding gets them to stay - after this you can continue marketing to them to keep them engaged and so the cycle continues.
• Marketing will help with your sales, but your brand will stop you being sales-y. Take me for example - on paper I earn a living from  helping small business owners with their branding and website strategy/design and I use a variety of tools to market my business. But my brand is to have a mission that helps ethical businesses, to provide free valuable content as much as possible and to give to best client experience I can. So yes, my marketing may help with getting customers in-front of my business, but my brand strategy stops me from just ‘selling’.

Hopefully this post has helped clear up what the key differences are between the two and how with a clear strategy for both, you’ll be on the right tracks to a truly successful formula. If your interested on where you should start with your branding book me in for a complimentary 15 minute clarity call.