Brand vs Marketing: Why Brand is the Answer to Your Marketing Challenges

When I’m working with business owners, they often come to me describing the challenges they’re facing as marketing challenges.

My messaging isn’t quite right.

Nobody is buying from me.

I’m spending so much money on marketing and nothing is happening.

I can’t find my ideal customer anywhere.

The thing is, that marketing problems often stem from brand problems.

If you’re not clear on your purpose, what makes you different from your competitors or who your target market is and why they should care enough to buy from you, then you have a brand story strategy problem.

So – do you have a marketing problem? Or do you have a brand problem?

Let’s take a look at brand and marketing and why solving for brand strategy will make marketing your business easier.

Why being clear on your brand matters to your marketing.

No matter how big or small your business is, if you have a business, then you have a brand.

And if you’re not taking control of it through implementing brand story strategy, then you aren’t helping to show your customers how your business fits in with their view of the world.

If you aren’t clear on why you exist, and why that should matter to your ideal customer, then you can’t craft marketing that speaks directly to them – marketing that shows how you change things for them, make their lives better, or help them be the person they’re wanting to be.

When you have a clear vision, you can bring people on the journey with you. When you know your mission, you can use marketing to help you achieve it. When you know your values, you can create customer alignment. When you know what makes you different, you can leverage this in your marketing and service delivery. When you understand who your customer actually is, you can connect with them. And when you know your brand personality, you can confidently make your message stand out from all the other noise.

All this knowledge lives in brand story strategy.

And if you don’t know the answers to these questions – if you aren’t clear yourself on your brand purpose – then you can’t clearly communicate your value to your customer with the right messaging, in the right way through your marketing.

Brand is the long game. Marketing is the short game.

You can come back to brand every time your marketing isn’t working.

It helps to think of brand building as the long game. You’re building equity through connection that allows you to turn people from everyday customers into brand advocates who have a deep bond with your brand.

Where it’s fairly easy to pivot and change your marketing tactics, your brand doesn’t pivot as easily. Brand equity is the result of a hundred tiny actions in alignment with your brand story that show your ideal customer what you stand for and that you see them and understand them.

Brand is the heart of your business. Marketing is how you communicate that to attract your ideal client.

Brand creates connection. Marketing delivers the message.

People are connected to brands – not to marketing.

Marketing is simply the way we deliver the message of our brand so we can start building that connection with our customers.

I find it helps to think about it like this – marketing attracts the attention – but it only attracts attention if we know who we’re speaking to, what we want them to know, and why they should think it’s important.

If we aren’t clear on our brand, then our marketing won’t be clear either.

Brand is an identity. Marketing is a tool.

When our business isn’t growing and we aren’t getting the right customers into our business, we fall into the trap of thinking we have a marketing problem, because we think it’s marketing that does all the heavy lifting when it comes to customer engagement.

But marketing is simply the mechanism by which we make an offer. Marketing is just a tool in our toolkit.

And it’s a powerful tool. When it’s working how it should be, it brings in sales for our business.

Brand, though, is what keeps our customers coming back for more. It’s the identity of our business. And when we’re clear on our identity, we can create a strong brand that our ideal customer wants to hang out with.

In fact, a clear brand identity and strong brand connection make our marketing even more powerful.

When your marketing feels stuck, don’t forget to check in with your brand.

There are absolutely times when the marketing is the problem.

We’ve chosen the wrong platform, missed the mark with our headline or made a tactical error in showing up where our customers aren’t.

But when things are feeling stuck with your marketing, don’t forget to check in with your brand story strategy.

Are you clear on your vision, mission, values, differentiators, tribe and personality?

Have you laid the right foundations in your brand that lead to great marketing?

When you do this foundational work on brand story, whenever your marketing gets stuck, all you have to do is go back to it, and you'll find your way through that marketing challenge to the customers who need you.