Brand Marketing Vs Direct Marketing - Why You Need to Know the Difference

What is considered direct marketing?

Direct marketing again relies on you understanding your audience just like brand marketing does. However, how you deliver your message will be different. 

Whichever method you choose:

• Brochures
• Catalogues
• Fliers
• Newsletters
• Postcards
• Coupons
• Emails
• Targeted online display ads
• Phone calls
• Text messages

You’re targeting a very specific audience and trying to get them to take direct action as a result of your marketing. 

How much marketing should be brand marketing vs direct marketing?

The simple answer is it depends. It depends on many factors:

• Your company’s size
• How new/old is your company
• What your budget is
• How much time you have
• What you’re trying to market
• The goals for your company

In most cases, the vast majority of companies focus almost entirely on direct marketing. Is it the right thing to do though? No. Never put your eggs in one basket. Don’t become over-reliant on one way of marketing.

You should start with brand marketing as early as possible as well as direct marketing. Brand marketing is a long-term strategy and in the long run, it will pay off. 

Direct Marketing vs Branding. Are they even meant to be separated?

In an ideal situation, brand marketing and direct marketing should work in tandem. Brand marketing gets you noticed; it’s got you on your target audience’s radar. This then makes direct marketing easier if people are already familiar with your brand. 

Furthermore, if people know, like and trust you through your brand marketing efforts it’s highly likely that your direct marketing campaigns will convert higher. 

By understanding the difference, you can deliver the right content that works together. For example, you could create informational content surrounding one of your products. The information you’re giving them will answer any queries they have, address any doubts and help solidify that this is the solution they need. This person is then highly likely to make a purchase when presented with your direct marketing campaign. 

Unfortunately, people often don’t know the difference between brand marketing and direct marketing, so therefore they either just do one or they do not think about how the two can work together. 

Why is direct marketing more effective than indirect?

It’s not. People believe it to be because direct marketing is easier to measure and prove what kind of return on investment they’re getting from it. 

In my opinion, you can’t say which is more effective than the other. You just need to know what is more suited to your business at the time. 

As mentioned before direct marketing is easier to measure. You should be able to work out how much you need to spend to get x number of sales or leads. Brand marketing (indirect marketing) isn’t so simple. 

Take SEO for example. We can see how many searches a keyword gets per month, that keyword can then be targeted. We can then work out the average percentage of people that are likely to click through to your website once you’re on page 1, and then the average conversion rate. These are all just estimates though. 

We can also look at the amount of traffic your site gets, what pages people land on, forms filled out etc through tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These tools give us valuable data and much of this will show us that our brand marketing efforts are working, however, we won’t be able to pinpoint the exact number of sales and leads it generates like you can with direct marketing. 

What is the role of branding in marketing?

Branding is about giving your business identity. It’s about conveying to your audience who you are and what you’re about. This should also transfer across into any other type of marketing you do. Marketing gets your branding seen by the right people who will remember it. 

Your brand strategy will play a big part in your marketing.

• Establish your business goals long and short term
• Establish your values, why you’re doing what you’re doing
• Identify your audience
• How will you position yourself in the marketplace?
• What message do you want to get across?
• What’s your brand name, logo and tag line?

The difference between your brand strategy and your marketing strategy is your branding is what your audience is seeing and consuming. Whereas your marketing strategy is how you deliver your branding and message to your audience. 

Are TV ads direct marketing?

TV ads can be either direct marketing or brand marketing, as it depends on the delivery of the ad and the message of the ad. However, generally, they are more direct marketing. 

Television ads allow you to target a specific audience, for instance, if you know what programmes people are watching you can start to build up an idea of the demographics of that audience, and then advertise products and services that would fit the current audience. Again, as with all direct marketing, you can track the response you get. 

Is social media direct marketing? 

Social media again can be either direct marketing or brand marketing depending on how and what message you’re trying to deliver. Social media allows you to run ads to very specific groups of people and place ads right in front of them. 

Alternatively, social media allows you to create regular content and share content that over time people come to enjoy and recognise as yours or represents your brand. 

You can simultaneously run ads promoting your products or service as well as create useful content.