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Online Advertising and Marketing are totally different things!

There – I said it. It had to be said. Someone had to say it.

SOOO many people have been getting this wrong, thinking that marketing and advertising are the same thing. Well – they are not.

While it might seem like they mean the same thing – advertising is merely an avenue, or part of a marketing plan and its sole purpose ultimately is to drive more sales. There are many forms of advertising (search engine, banners, placements, video, content, installs, social media influencers, etc) which you can choose to employ when you are trying to reach an audience (large or specific – depending on your marketing analysis) and get them to perform some sort of action the corresponds to a conversion point in your marketing funnel.

Marketing Funnel – whats that?

A marketing funnel is the path you take your customer through on the way to making a sale.

Let’s examine a real life situation: A large clothing brand wants to sell a new product – a T-Shirt that they have made. They have an inventory of 500 units in a specific shop that fits 12 year old boys. How on earth are they supposed to get ‘rid’ of the inventory and make a sale?

Come in marketing with its analysis and plan:

Step 1 – identify your target audience (12 year old boys might be the consumers but they are NOT the actual shoppers or decision makers – i.e. the person with the wallet AKA mom/dad)

Step 2: identify your strategy – will you be targeting the boys with your messaging – betting that they will activate the parents or will you be targeting the parents betting they will shop for their boys?

Step 3: come up with tactical plan – how will you get the attention of your audience? what kind of messaging will you be using? where will you be advertising the T-Shirts? how will you advertise them?

Step 4: build your funnel – imagine you had to personally sell the T-Shirt to your customer – how would that funnel look like?
How would you get them to come to your store? Would you send them a brochure? hand them a flyer? [ADVERTISING] What would that marketing collateral say?
Would you invite them to a store to try on the T-Shirt?
What will the store have in its display?
Will it only have 1 T-shirt or many?
Does the t-shirt come in different colors, fabrics and variations?
Will the customer have a chance to try it on?
Will there be anyone there to help them?
What will that sales rep say/do?
What would be your approach towards closing?
Will the cashier push for an upsale or store membership card?
What info will you collect at checkout?
Will you add the shopper to an email list?
Will you send them newsletter with updates and promotions?
What if the shopper isn’t ready to buy right now?
Will you offer them a discount?
Will you try to get their contact info so you can follow up with them later on to see if they would be interested then?

Step 5: Execution – every question from step 4 must be answered and resolved in order for you to launch.
In order to successfully build sales you and your clients must have a clear understanding of how the marketing funnel looks like. Once you know what you are selling, who you are selling to and how you are selling – advertising (assuming you have a budget for it) becomes an avenue for traffic generation and aggregation. Advertising can come in many ways shapes and forms but by no means does it replace the proper marketing work of identifying the offering, value proposition and building out a plan of how you intend to acquire customers and make sales.

Once you have the sales funnel figured out the marketing funnel helps you increase sales by leveraging the power of advertising which increase exposure and builds awareness around your product.

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