What do these terms mean?
They are often used interchangeably. Sometimes brand is used as an umbrella term to represent the result of everything an organization does; all communications to answer what, why, who, how, and when. Brand can also simply be thought of as the degree customers know, like, and trust you. Or even more simply: your reputation.
There’s lots of nuance but let’s give it a go:
Brand (Operational)
Purpose, promise, mission, vision, values, story, differentiators, products
What a business stands for, its reputation, and the emotions people associate with it.
Branding (Visual)
Logo, colors, fonts, imagery, graphics, tagline, packaging, website, social, advertising campaigns, marketing, communications.
Brand Marketing (Approach)
The strategic approach to promote products/services to highlight and elevate the brand as a whole. Likely a slow-drip strategy that is focused on telling the organization’s story to a target audience, clearly and consistently over time. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to fulfill brand promise.
One thing is for sure: brand is a long-term, sustainable, competitive advantage that’s very difficult to unseat. Products and features can be copied, but a brand can’t be.
A great driver of brand is being a trusted resource on a certain topic. Your channel outreach can be focused on the content that drives your expertise. Much more on this in the next post which frames content, content strategy, and content marketing, leading to a post about copywriting/copy to follow.
Want to learn more about Marketing? See my Marketing Framed publication for these key topics:
marketing, market, TAM-SAM-SOM, market research, go-to-market, product-market fit, positioning, marketing funnel, marketing flywheel, marketing mix, marketing goals, marketing strategy, marketing execution, marketing budget, brand marketing, content marketing, copywriting, storytelling, marketing projects & initiatives, marketing project management, marketing agency, marketing technology, marketing automation, marketing & AI, marketing analytics, marketing metrics
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