In today’s world, where there is cut throat competition, it has become very important to market your product and eventually brand it in the eyes of the consumer. In order to increase your sales and realize profits, it is more and more important to use tools such as advertisement and promotion. There are two very important aspects of promotion, namely Marketing and Branding.

Both have their importance and lead to increase in sales by one way or the other. In gist, Marketing is the set of processes and tools promoting your business. This includes SEO, social media, PPC, local search, mobile and traditional promotional methods and tools.

Branding, on the other hand, is the culture itself, the message that permeates and rules all the process of your business.

Following are the differences between marketing and branding which would help you understand how both these processes are an ongoing activity and are crucial for the success of any business.

• Branding creates, strengthens and augments experiences with an association or product. It helps in communication of a message to the target audience, and develops a discrete and notable image in the mind of your consumer, where else marketing is one step ahead of a branding where it concentrates on promoting a particular brand. Therefore branding is a pull tactics and marketing is a push tactics.
• Branding consists of bringing together and making use of strategy. It is a very important activity which consists of formulating activities which revolve around vision. And mission of the company. Thus, executing activities which eventually lead to branding of the product. Where else marketing consists of activities such as involvement of social media, generation of content, PPC which makes the brand stand out, etc.
• Branding helps in establishing the loyalty of the customer by fulfilling what exactly the customer is looking for where else the main purpose of marketing is to attract more and more customer. The retention of the customer is taken care of by the branding. On the other hand, Marketing keeps bringing in more.
• Branding is a long term process and may reap results in the long run where else marketing may show immediate results and may result in short term gains if not followed continuously. Branding depicts the image of the product or the company whereas marketing can change the perception of the consumer with the help of several tools such as advertisements, print media etc.

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