Are you confusing Marketing with Advertising?

I often find that when I first meet or talk to potential members of the best of that they confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa.

While both are important they are extremely different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth.

Let’s look at what the definition of each is:-

Advertising: The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers.

Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.

So it is easy to understand how the difference can be confusing and why I sometimes come across clients who flatly refuse to understand marketing and why it might work for them.

Advertising is a single component of any marketing plan. It's the part that involves getting the word out about your business, product, or the services you are offering.

To be clear, at the best of we don’t offer “Advertising”. Each business I work with is different and what I am interested in is working with progressive businesses who have a similar ethos to myself i.e. they want to be the best at what they do and realise that this is a process not a destination. I want to work with businesses who are interested in exploring new ideas to reach out to more people and this is what marketing is all about.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a cake recipe, inside that cake you have ingredients such as advertising, media planning, public relations, market research, social media, customer support, sales, community involvement.

Advertising is only one ingredient in the mix.

In order for the cake to rise you need all the ingredients to work well together and if you can understand that you will understand that marketing has to be central to growing any business.

If you would like a no obligation free marketing MOT please give me a call.