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Advertising your business is an ongoing, long-term process that builds customer loyalty, informs consumers about new products or services, and builds your company’s brand. Advertising is an ideal form of one-way communication to emotionally engage consumers and persuade them to buy your product. On the other hand, Promotion is usually a short-term marketing strategy aimed at increasing sales through immediate customer incentives.
Advertising and promotion are two types of marketing that can complement each other to improve results. Let’s look at how they are different from each other!
What is Advertising?
Advertising is a kind of promotional activity for the purpose of selling goods or services to a target audience. In fact, advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing or promotion, trying to influence the target audience to buy or do something specific. It is also the way that sellers communicate with their potential buyers about a product or service. Ads can target a small (niche) audience or a large audience.
We can divide modern advertising into two categories: traditional advertising and digital advertising. Traditional advertising includes print advertisements (magazines, newspapers, periodicals, booklets, etc.), TV advertisements, radio advertisements, and billboards. On the other hand, digital advertising deals with advertising through digital media. In addition, the main categories of digital advertising are social media advertising, search and display advertising, and mobile advertising.
What is Promotion?
Promotion refers to various communication activities aimed at sharing knowledge or raising awareness of a brand, product or service to as many people as possible. These events have many different audiences, such as raising awareness, encouraging people to buy a specific product, increasing demand, differentiating the product (versus competitors), building brand loyalty, etc.
In short, it is a form of communication between a seller and a potential buyer. In addition, salespeople use promotions to convince people to buy their products and services.
Promotion is one of the core elements of the marketing mix or 4P of marketing, which includes price, product, promotion, and place. There are many different ways to promote products and services. Some of these include strategies such as advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, and public relations.
Personal selling involves people who personally interact with customers or customers. For example, a salesperson. In addition, direct marketing is selling directly to customers, without intermediaries. On the other hand, public relations create a certain image in the minds of clients and other stakeholders through various methods such as sponsored events and articles.
Advertising vs. Promotion
| Differences | Advertising | Promotion |
| Meaning | The one-way transmission of a compelling message by an identified sponsor whose purpose is to promote non-personal products / services to potential customers. or the final consumer). | Usually involves immediate incentive for the potential customer. It can also include the dissemination of information about a product, product line, brand, or company. |
| Time | Long Term | Short Term |
| Cost | Expensive | Less expensive |
| Suitability | Medium to Large companies | Small to large companies |
| Sales | Assumption leads to sales | Directly leads to sales |
| Example | Ads in newspaper, TV, Radio | Giveaways, free samples, coupons |
| Objective | Brand building, continuity, brand switch | Loyal consumer base, increase in repurchase rate, attracting new consumers |
| ROI | Slow pace | Very quickly |
| Nature | Advertising is emotional in nature and aims to create a sustainable brand image. To create perfume, makeup and jewellery, you need a creative advertisement for the appeal needed to sell those products. | On the other hand, promotions don’t work by their approach. A one-cent cereal coupon grabs the attention of consumers and is an incentive to sell. Consumers compare the price of one brand of cereal to the price of others. |
| Communication | One-way | Two-way |
| Strategy | Promotional | Marketing |
Key Differences
1# Communication Type
Advertising tends to be one-sided. You send a message to your target audience and they see or hear it. Promotion can be two-way. You can ask people to like you on Facebook or suggest coupons they can use on your store. When promoting, your audience usually needs to take some action that also allows you to see the success of your ad campaign. Ads have their own set of KPIs to track, including sales revenue, cost per lead, and total customer value.
2# Cost
Advertising is often more expensive and often, but not always, involves hiring an agency to design and run a campaign. Advertising can be made simpler and on a smaller scale. It can be difficult for a small business to fund an ad campaign, but you can promote the business. For example, setting up a Facebook page takes less time and experience than running a TV ad campaign.
3# Time Commitment
In terms of duration, advertisements are generally long-term and will result in slower sales, as opposed to promotions, which are generally short-term with the sole purpose of increasing sales time interval.
Despite the differences, advertising and promotion can go together and benefit your business in many ways. Think about the goals you want to achieve and if they depend on time, and then think about how much you are willing to spend, which will influence your decision to choose an advertising campaign, proactive promotion, or perhaps even both.
4# Objective
Advertising directs the consumer’s attention to a product or service, while promotion involves a set of activities that generate interest, awareness and interest in a brand, product or service.
5# Results
The long-term and short-term differences between the two are also reflected in the typical time frame for results. When running an ad campaign, you often have to wait to see your efforts pay off in new customers and repeat orders. On the other hand, promotional activities often lead to the immediate development of new businesses.
The Final Words
It doesn’t matter which marketing strategy you choose. It is important that you know who the target audience is and how deep the penetration should be in terms of reach. It is very important to have an idea of all the costs and expenses associated with the choice of any of them.
Therefore, it is important for the organization’s marketing team to set the necessary goals and be SMART in choosing the right marketing strategy. But in general, both advertising and promotion help an organization effectively achieve its goals!
