A look into Google’s August 2023 Core Update
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Brand Marketing vs. Performance Marketing
Should you prioritise building a strong brand image or focus mainly on driving immediate sales? This is a question many marketers have asked themselves and one I hope to give some answers to today.
To clarify, brand marketing revolves around crafting a unique identity, establishing an emotional connection with consumers, and building long-term brand equity. It aims to shape perceptions, foster trust, and ultimately create loyal customers who become brand advocates.
On the other hand, performance marketing emphasises measurable outcomes, concentrating on immediate results such as conversions, leads, and sales.
While both strategies have their place in a comprehensive marketing plan, understanding their nuances and strengths is crucial for businesses seeking sustainable growth and profitability. In this article, we explore the key differences between the two.
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What is Performance Marketing?
As mentioned, performance marketing focuses on generating immediate results, such as driving website traffic, generating leads, and increasing sales. One of the key advantages of this approach is that it’s highly measurable; by tracking KPIs such as cost per click and conversion rates, you can quickly determine the ROI of your campaigns.
However, one of the downsides of solely focusing on performance marketing is neglecting the importance of building a strong brand identity and establishing a relationship with your target audience.
Performance Marketing Activities
Now, let’s look at some activities that have an important role to play in performance marketing.
Testing and Optimisation
Performance marketing is highly scientific, with action being taken based on data. That’s why constant testing, optimisation, and daily monitoring play a pivotal role in the realm of performance marketing, ensuring that campaigns are fine-tuned for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Here’s a closer look at why testing is so important:
- Maximising results: Constant testing allows marketers to experiment with different variables, including ad copy, visuals, targeting criteria, and landing page design, to identify the most effective combinations.
- Adapting to audience preferences: Consumer behaviour and preferences are constantly evolving. Conducting regular tests and monitoring campaign performance on a daily basis allows marketers to gather valuable data on how audiences are engaging with their ads and adjust their strategies accordingly. This flexibility is perhaps another advantage of performance marketing.
- Cost efficiency: Continuous optimisation allow marketers to identify high-performing ads, placements, and targeting options while eliminating underperforming elements. This allows for more effective budget allocation.
- Keeping up with algorithmic changes: Digital advertising platforms frequently update their algorithms and ad formats. These changes can impact campaign performance and thus, marketers need to adapt their strategies accordingly. Daily monitoring ensures that marketers stay informed about platform updates and make necessary adjustments to maintain campaign effectiveness.
Multi-Channel Attribution
Multi-channel attribution refers to the process of assigning value or credit to various marketing touchpoints across different channels that contribute to a conversion or other desired action. It involves understanding the customer journey and determining which channels and interactions played a role in influencing the final outcome.
Multi-channel attribution is vital for performance marketing because it provides insights into the ROI of different channels and tactics, and helps marketers allocate resources optimally.
Content
In performance marketing, where the primary objective is to drive specific actions such as conversions, clicks, or sign-ups, the content should be short and direct, focusing on the benefits in order to motivate the target audience to take action.
Short content allows marketers to communicate their message more directly and with greater clarity, distilling the value proposition into a concise yet persuasive message.
With the extensive use of mobile devices, content is often consumed on the go, in quick glances, or during brief moments of downtime, and users tend to skim through it, seeking instant gratification and quick solutions.
By delivering the message in a format that is easily digestible on these devices, marketers can effectively target the vast number of consumers relying on such devices, making it more convenient for them to take immediate action.
Finally, short-form content facilitates the testing process by allowing marketers to easily create variations and test different messaging strategies. There are also fewer variables to test compared to long-form content, making it easier and cheaper to determine which elements are driving conversions.
What is Brand Marketing?
Again, brand marketing is a long-term strategy that aims to create a strong brand identity and build trust with the target audience. It also seeks to create an emotional connection between brand and audience, as this can lead to increased brand loyalty, repeat business, and word-of-mouth referrals.
One of the key advantages of brand marketing is that it can help businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors and capture the attention of potential customers. It can also help you establish your business as an industry leader/authority, which can lead to increased credibility and trust.
Unlike performance marketing which focuses on measurable results like conversions and ROI, brand marketing is more focused on intangible metrics like brand awareness and customer loyalty. As a result, it can be challenging to determine its effectiveness.
The Halo Effect in Brand Marketing
The halo effect is a cognitive bias that can work to your advantage if you succeed at brand marketing. Essentially, the halo effect is when someone has a positive perception or evaluation of one aspect of a brand or product, which then influences the overall perception of the brand as a whole.
In other words, it occurs when consumers transfer their positive feelings or associations from one attribute to other unrelated attributes of the brand. For example, if a brand is known for its high-quality products, consumers may assume that it also excels in customer service or innovation, even if there is no direct evidence to support those assumptions.
The halo effect can significantly impact purchase decisions and overall brand equity. As a result, marketers often strive to create it by focusing on key brand attributes and consistently delivering excellence in those areas to enhance overall brand perception.
Brand Marketing Activities
Building Authority Through Content and PR
High-quality, long-form content plays a significant role in brand marketing as it allows businesses to showcase their expertise, further building a sense of authority. It also allows for storytelling, and more opportunities to delve deeper into the brand story, values, and unique selling points.
PR also holds immense value in brand marketing as it helps businesses build credibility, increase brand visibility, and shape public perception. This can be achieved through strategic PR efforts such as media coverage, press releases, and influencer collaborations.
Brand Identity
Presenting consistent visual elements such as logos, colours, typography, and imagery allows brands to create a recognisable and memorable visual language that sets them apart from competitors and fosters brand recall.
Consistent tone and messaging across all communications is also vital in cultivating a distinctive brand personality and voice. This includes advertising, social media, web content, and customer interactions, and any other means by which customers may be exposed to your brand.
Having a brand guidelines document makes it easier to remain consistent.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis enables you to gain valuable insights into the perception and sentiment your audience has towards their products, services, and overall brand. Sentiment analysis techniques let you monitor and analyse online conversations, social media mentions, customer reviews, and other feedback to understand how your audience feels towards you, which helps you to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing strategies, measure customer satisfaction, identify potential issues or concerns, and seize opportunities for improvement.
Display Advertising
In performance marketing, display advertising is carried out with the intent of driving sales – therefore, sales metrics are the measure of success in this scenario. With brand marketing, display advertising is just as important but the goal is different; it aims to expose the target audience to the brand and drive them towards activities in which they engage with the brand.
Click through rates and engagement metrics (e.g., time spent on the website, interactions with the ad) are still valuable in determining the success of display advertising for brand marketing purposes.
Measuring Success in Brand Marketing
In brand marketing, success is often measured based on long-term awareness and consideration metrics, such as:
- Brand awareness: This metric assesses the level of brand recognition and familiarity among the target audience and can be measured through brand awareness surveys, and brand recall and brand recognition tests.
- Brand perception: This gauges how the target audience perceives the brand in terms of attributes such as quality, trustworthiness, innovation, or value. It can be measured through brand perception surveys or again, by tracking sentiment analysis.
- Brand associations: This focuses on the specific associations or characteristics that consumers attribute to the brand, and may include attributes like reliability, prestige, affordability, or sustainability.
- Brand consideration: This metric measures the likelihood of consumers considering the brand when making a purchase decision. It can be evaluated through surveys or by monitoring metrics such as website traffic, search volume, or social media engagement related to the brand.
- Purchase intent: This KPI assesses the likelihood of consumers intending to purchase from the brand in the future. You can measure it through surveys or by tracking conversion rates, shopping cart abandonment rates, or customer inquiries.
- Customer loyalty: This measures the level of loyalty and repeat purchase behavior among existing customers. It can be measured through customer retention rates, customer satisfaction surveys, or the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
- Share of Voice: This metric compares the brand’s advertising or marketing presence against its competitors within a specific market or industry, and be measured by tracking media mentions, ad impressions, or social media mentions.
- Brand equity: Finally, brand equity represents the overall value of the brand and its impact on customer choice and willingness to pay a premium. It can be measured through brand equity surveys that assess factors such as brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, and brand associations.
When Should You Use Each Approach?
Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and the right strategy for your business will depend on your individual goals and challenges. Below are just a few factors to consider.
Your Target Audience
Different audiences respond differently to different marketing approaches. If your target audience is highly engaged and values certain traits such as authenticity (as do Gen Z), then a brand marketing approach may be more effective. On the other hand, if they are more focused on immediate tangible value propositions, then a performance marketing approach may be the worth prioritising.
Your Budget
Brand marketing can be more expensive and require a longer-term investment, while performance marketing campaigns can be more cost-effective, with the added benefit of potentially bringing immediate results. So, depending on your marketing budget, performance marketing may be more feasible.
Your Competition
If your competition is highly established and has a strong brand identity, then a brand marketing approach may be necessary to differentiate yourself and capture market share. If your competition is less established and more focused on short-term gains, then a performance marketing approach may be more effective.
It’s important to note that – while factors such as budget may influence your strategy – you always need to work on both. After all, no matter how much you invest in performance marketing, if nobody has heard of your brand and you have no social proof, who is going to hand over their money to you?
Wrapping Up
Throughout this article, we have dissected the intricacies of brand and performance marketing, highlighting the types of activities involved with each, as well as how to measure success.
It is essential to recognise that brand marketing and performance marketing are not mutually exclusive; instead, they are two sides of the same coin, each playing a vital role in achieving business objectives.
Building a strong brand identity forms the foundation for long-term success, fostering trust, loyalty, and emotional connections with consumers, while performance marketing drives immediate results, providing measurable outcomes and fuelling revenue growth.
If you need assistance with any aspect of your marketing strategy, feel free to get in touch – my team and I will be happy to help.
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