In an article for Entrepreneur, Mayur Sethi has admitted that, in the early days of his own entrepreneurial journey, he made the “grave” mistake of using the terms ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’ interchangeably.
However, aren’t the two terms truly identical in meaning? Dictionary.com concedes that “in a way, they are. After all, the basic premise behind both is pretty simple: promote and sell products.”
It could therefore surprise you that, according to Sethi, failing to comprehend how marketing and advertising differ “is not a good look. At best, you’ll be laughed out of a meeting, at worst, you’ll cause some catastrophic error that’ll drain resources and add up to some irreversible mistakes.”
Reading this article can assist you in ascertaining how to distinguish marketing from advertising.
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How marketing terminology has evolved over time
The word ‘marketing’ was originally coined as long ago as the 1560s, when it referred to simply the act of conducting business in a physical market — what Dictionary.com defines as “an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods”.
However, this is only one definition of the word — and, indeed, ‘marketing’ is now often taken to have a much broader meaning than this. Today, the marketing process includes all of the activities involved in transferring goods; think the likes of shipping, storing and selling.
Nonetheless, another word we could add to that list is ‘advertising’. Yes, advertising is a subcategory of marketing — and, as a result, is more specific in its focus.
How can differences between marketing and advertising be summarised?
Sethi explains: “In basic terms, marketing identifies the needs of customers, and advertising presents these products to the public in an appealing and persuasive manner.” He adds: “Advertising aims to persuade, whereas marketing is done to procure data stats.”
So, your marketing drive could include carrying out research, surveys and interviews as well as mining data about how your existing products or services have fared in the market. What you do learn at this stage can subsequently be fed into your advertising efforts.
Worthy advertising portals for brands to exploit include social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well as such traditional advertising mediums as radio, TV and print ads.
Still, before you post an advert anywhere, you need to think carefully about what to say in it. Your ad essentially needs to communicate practical benefits of a product in a way that the ad’s audience finds genuinely engrossing.
If you are short of ideas for how to get your messages across in a sufficiently compelling way, you could look for inspiration elsewhere — such as on the Muse by Clio website, which regularly shines a spotlight on new marketing campaigns.
Sethi says: “I believe, and even experts agree, that marketers and advertisers do share the same end goal, which is to create awareness about a product/service and alert the customers.” However, when you understand how marketing and advertising differ, you can more easily develop separate effective strategies for each.
