Many people wonder if branding and marketing are the same and use the terms interchangeably sometimes. 

Branding and marketing are not the same, but do play on the same team so to speak. They both work to appeal to the relevant audience in order to grow your business. 

It’s true that branding and marketing support each other, but they are very different in their approach. 

Let’s break the difference down into layman’s terms.

Marketing is about strategically placing the right message at the right place and the right time to ultimately convert prospects into customers. Branding, on the other hand, is about making connections to nurture a relationship and build trust with new or existing customers to grow a loyal customer base. 

Branding is particularly important to healthcare businesses, especially if your customers are actual patients coming to you for you to solve a problem. Branding builds trust that even the best marketing campaign can’t. 

Marketing and branding can be broken down into a simple analogy of a relationship. Marketing is how you attract your ideal mate – fancy clothes, nice cologne, and a slick pick-up line. Branding is the nurturing of that relationship – taking that person out on dates, late night talks getting to know each other and building trust over time. 

Simply put marketing attracts and branding nurtures. 

Most businesses get the dichotomy between marketing and branding wrong and spend way too much time, money, and resources on marketing when the issue is really branding. 

You have to work on the nurturing aspect of your business, not the pick-up line that marketing campaigns produce. 

Healthcare businesses know that they need a logo, website, and marketing, but lack the strategy behind the branding that will build a very specific relationship with a very specific group of people (your customers), through a very specific message. 

A marketing agency can attempt to fill-in-the-blanks for your business, but it won’t work as well as having a complete brand strategy for your business in place. 

As a business you must know who your audience is, how to reach them and what kind of message to approach them with. A professional brand strategist can help you identify and understand the importance of a complete brand strategy so your core message can be received by your ideal customers.

This is not a job typical marketing agencies can handle since they don’t have intimate knowledge of your audience, what they need and how to resonate with them. 

You wouldn’t ask your landscaper to build you a wall, so why ask a marketer to try to build a fundamental part of your business?

With a complete brand strategy the focuses on the core values of your business

and those marketing tactics will eventually fall short.

Studio 8 Twenty-Two focuses on branding for businesses in the Home Care Provider industry because we know how important your reputation is as a home care provider. 

If you’re interested in learning how Studio 8 Twenty-Two can help your brand, please don’t hesitate to reach out.