A friend who works for a West Coast organic beverage company recently lost her senior marketing position because the organization felt she was doing too much branding and not enough marketing. When she shared her story with me, it made me wonder how often these activities are confused.
Branding is the image you portray about your product or service. How your brand talks, dresses and acts in the world. It is the font used to tell your story, the voice you speak with when talking to consumers and the attitude you have as you define your distinctive personality and style. Branding, like advertising, is a subset of marketing.
Marketing is telling your story to a specific audience. In my experience, most non-marketing professionals think of marketing as the activities you engage in to bring customers to your front door. How do you generate leads, how do you explain the benefits you offer and how do you communicate your differentiation? Most business people think marketing equals advertising. Sorry, they aren’t the same animal.
The confusion between marketing and advertising is a common misperception.
Simply put, branding is who you are while marketing is how you build awareness.
Advice to Marketing Pros
When you start your new senior marketing job, make sure you are clear what percentage of your time focuses on brand’s image versus how much time you should spend communicating to your targeted audience to generate leads that will turn into revenue.
My friend from the beverage company told me that in hindsight when she started her job, her colleagues did understand her role and she didn’t help herself by making her vision and responsibilities clear. She jumped right into the work. She should have sat down with the other seven leaders and explained how she planned to do her job and to see if anyone saw a misalignment with strategy.
If you are starting a new senior marketing job, it makes sense to make it clear what you plan on doing and where your emphasis will be. Both branding and marketing are vitally important, but with limited time and resources, you have to make some choices. Both are critical, but alignment with a company’s strategic goals can be a clue to how to stay employed and be successful at your job.
If you are starting a new marketing position, make sure your view of your job aligns with expectations of peers and your boss. Sounds simple, but explaining your approach to other senior colleagues is the right way to start a new senior marketing position. Marketing is often misunderstood by senior business leaders.
Talk. Share. Listen. Then act.
Photo by Alexis Chloe on Unsplash
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