The three parts to marketing: Part 1

· Branding and Marketing

The difference between branding, content, ads, and all the terms you find in marketing.

 

When you start a business, one of the big problems you face is looking at marketing for the first time and seeing a bunch of buzzwords that all seem essential, but none of which seem to make any sense, from keywords to ads to content to CTRs and many, many more. There are whole courses dedicated to some of these terms - which shows you how much there is to get your head around.

 

At Storytime, we look at things in a set of three-way progressive steps.

 

The first is branding.

 

The second is content (stories).

 

The third is advertising or performance marketing.

 

Each of these differs because of their duration, intent, and result.

 

Branding is about your presentation, how you look and feel, your values, and your ethos. Branding aims to establish the symbols and hallmarks by which people remember you when you're not there. Branding is a project with a start, middle, and end point, and afterwards, you maintain your branding or, in some cases, rebrand entirely.

Your stories are the ethos of your brand put into action. The stories you tell determine how people remember you and what they remember about you. The way you did things. the way you helped people. The values you put into action and, in some cases, the content gets created by the people you helped - for example, testimonials or case studies. Stories can be simple, like an Instagram Story or a blog post. But stories can also be elaborate and cost resources to produce, like a promotional video for a new movie coming out in summer.

 

A good example is Superman. I don't have to say any more than his name, and you immediately imagine his branding - blue suit, red cape, big yellow S on his chest. And you know he's a good guy because of the stories that have been told about his character and how he saved a burning bus full of school children from disaster. The stories about Superman have told us what he values and stands for and how he will react in a given situation.