Branding and brand marketing, defined

By Robert Nissenbaum
Trends and insights

Your brand story should be a major differentiator, something that sets you apart from your competition and compels your prospects to partner with you. But what's the difference between branding and brand marketing? Robert Nissenbaum from @tsomedia shares his insight.

I have been working for myself in some capacity since the mid-80s. Marketing and branding are not new to me. Then I get to college and the whole concept of marketing got technical and messy. Even the definition of marketing itself is confusing. Does any small business owner understand it well enough to know what marketing really is? No. It’s why few understand that advertising is a form of marketing and not ‘marketing’

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” — American Marketing Association, @AMA_Marketing

What kind of definition is that?

While ‘brand’ has been clearly defined and we intuitively know what a brand is, most of us have no clue what ‘branding’ is. The best definition I could ever find is something along the lines of ‘Branding is the act of creating your brand.” Rule number one in my 8th grade English class – never define a word or phrase with the same word or phrase!

How do you explain to your clients, in a way they understand, how you will help brand them if you cannot define the term?

Then there is the whole concept of brand marketing. Good luck finding a definition for that one. I tried. For years! I need one. I speak and consult on using content marketing and social media marketing (hint… I’m going there next) to market brands. Who is going to understand me and hand me the keys to make it happen if they (I) don’t understand the concept?

So, with no definitions for either concept, not at marketing-dictionary.org or anywhere else I could find, I decided to write my own based on several decades of experience:

Branding is the practice of creating the look and 'feel' of your brand. Brand marketing is the practice of establishing your image, voice, and persona which identifies and differentiates you from your competitors.

Adding some clarification

I shared these definitions to a couple of Facebook groups. They earned the obligatory feedback:

“I’ve heard it is also what your customers say about you.” — Tamara Swinney Hanks, Hanks Designs

“…branding equals consistency as to how people see your business…” — Mike Willett, Unique Moments Photography

  • Branding is not consistency. Branding is creating an identity.
  • Consistency drives awareness reinforcing the identity.
  • Brand marketing is how you create awareness through consistency.
  • Brand perception is how others see your identity. If perception is at odds with how you want to be known, your marketing and branding face planted.

So why does this matter to a social media marketer?

Content and social media, when used effectively, are your most powerful tools for brand marketing. All three concepts are intimately entangled. For me, anyone really, to create results for you, to teach you how to obtain results on your own, a deep understanding of branding, brand marketing (website development, SEO… ) is needed. And it needs to be something which can be explained to clients in a way they understand.

This is why you must work with professionals, not wing it, not hire interns.

Additional reading:

This article was written by Robert Nissenbaum from Tactical Social Media and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

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