Are marketing and advertising the same thing?

The short answer is no. marketing and advertising are two very distinct concepts that are often confused. Though they both aim to promote a product or service, they do so in very different ways.

Advertising is a form of marketing that focuses on creating a paid placement for a product or service. This can be done through traditional mediums such as radio, billboards, or even tv commercials.

Marketing on the other hand is the overall strategy in which you are implementing to grow a brand or promote a product.

Advertising is not alone under the umbrella term of marketing — here, you’ll also find branding, market research, and public relations.

What are the key differences between marketing and advertising?

We know that marketing is the umbrella term that encompasses all activities aimed at promoting a product or service. We also know that advertising, on the other hand, is just one component of marketing.

To understand these differences it is best to look at the strengths and limitations of advertising. 

Advertising is generally accepted as the paid placement of promotion for a brand or product. However, it doesn’t have to be paid to be considered advertising. The easiest way to understand advertising is that it is the act of getting your message out to the world. Take a look at the GrowthBound Marketing logo in the top left of your screen, now imagine grabbing that microphone and shouting your message— that is advertising. You just have to figure out what you are shouting and who you are shouting to.

Let’s look at all the typical parts of a marketing campaign that involves advertising.

advertising

The Creative

The creative in a marketing campaign is the tangible materials that are created during the campaign creation process. This could be the words on a blog post, the images, illustrations for a billboard, background music that is playing on a YouTube ad, or even the font choice on a poster that you plan to hang up in a local coffee shop for free.

Positioning

Positioning is the angle your campaign is going to take. It often involves your competitors, your audience's current understanding of their problem or your product, the overall market, and personal attributes that your target audience shares.

Media Channels

Your Media Channels are where you are going to advertise. In today's world, this might be a billboard, radio ad, YouTube, Tik Tok, Spotify, or even a sign at a local T-ball field.

Are there other parts of an advertising campaign?

Yes. 100% but for the most part, those are the three things that you will need to consider for every advertising campaign that you create. A couple of the other things involved in an advertising campaign are a degree removed such as your brand.

Often times the general consensus of a brand is a logo, color scheme, and some font choices that a talented designer paired together. However, that is very far from the truth. A brand is a collection of thoughts and experiences that a large group of people shares in relation to a business, thought, person, or place.

When you run advertising campaigns, you will be creating your brand and alternating it every time you hit the launch button and send your message out into the world.

Additionally, your target audience and other variables are parts of your advertising campaign but are not restricted to only the advertising arm of marketing.

How Should Advertising Be Used in Pest Control Marketing?

If you are wondering how to grow your pest control business or any service-based business then advertising might be the right choice for you but before you make that call you need to understand your customer journey.

For pest control, your customer’s journey is very short, and often times it happens exactly like this. The homeowner sees a bug, the homeowner Googles “Pest control”, and the homeowner calls one or two pest control businesses, and schedules an appointment. A pest control technician shows up and treats the home.

Customer Journey

The customer journey is a physical, emotional, and sometimes spiritual process your target audience experiences while solving a problem that your product or brand interacts with.

And that is it.

In our opinion and I am sure you also share this opinion, it doesn’t make sense for a local business such as a pest control company to run Superbowl campaigns because their target audience doesn’t think about pest control until they have a pest problem. Instead, it makes sense to spend those advertising dollars on Google ads and other bottom-of-the-funnel strategies to snag the deal before your competitors can.

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