What is Marketing and what is branding?

Marketing is a very broad field that involves various steps like targeting the right customers, segmenting them based on their geographies, analyzing their buying behavior, engaging in a lot of marketing strategies and a lot of other steps in between, which ultimately leads the customers to buy their product or the services. Marketing one’s product is a comprehensive process. And, many people use both the terms; Marketing and Branding interchangeably.  

Branding on the other hand is everything that create unique beliefs systems in a customer’s mind. Branding is what gives your brand your unique identity. Branding is a sign of authenticity. It is through branding that customers are able to recognize, recall and differentiate one product or services from others.

Why branding is essential for your products and services.

Branding gives value to your products. In short it creates trust. Branding is nothing but how your customers associate with your brand. Like every person has a name, personality, identity and unique characteristics, similarly every brand has its own brand identity that will help it differentiate it from the other brands.

Brand Strategy

A good branding strategy can help with great brand recognition and brand recall. Branding includes logo, tagline, branding colors, jingles, values and beliefs. Unique branding helps in great recognition and recall.

Brand Guideline: Brand Color, Brand Logo, Brand Jingles and Brand Personality

Brand Colors: Brand colors play a huge role of the way customers associate with your brands. Every brand has their own set of color palate. For example: How many times have you associated red and yellow with that of Mc Donalds. It isn’t just the colors it is something that every customer who loves Mc Donalds associate with. It shows how much important of such minor things like colors can do to your brand.

Brand Logo: A unique logo plays a huge role. A brand logo is something that makes a brand unique and authentic. Nike: Nike has a very simple yet unique logo, any customers who even doesn’t buy Nike products knows its logo. That what a good brand does to the customers. It creates a unique brand value. The moment you see its logo in any merchandize, shoes or any banner you just know that it’s the logo of Nike. A good brand has an amazing brand recall and recognition.

Brand Personality: A personality is something that makes one brand different from other brands for example: Apple and Xiaomi, both are smartphones, but they stand for different personalities. Apple as a brand is globally known for its brand logo. Apple has a brand personality that is usually associated with chic, rich and sophisticated demography’s. Similarly, for Louis Vuitton, a brand that stands for luxury, and sophistication. LV as a brand has personality which is everything but not affordable, the moment you see LV logo in any merchandize you just know the person is rich.

Hence, good branding will involve similar traits across the brand colors, logo, personality and identity. Abiding by brand guidelines will not only help in more recall among the customers but will also help with less confusion.

We all know the importance of marketing; without marketing we won’t be able to know about half of the brands that are existing, but branding is what creates trust in customers. A good branding strategy is very much essential for customers to associate with what you are selling. Marketing is what helps to create awareness, but branding is what helps create loyalists.