Where do Brand Marketing and Performance Marketing Work Together?

One of the questions we’re frequently asked by our clients is whether advertising on television or billboards is going to drive conversions like Facebook ads. They might rather spend their marketing dollars on lower-funnel conversions instead of top-funnel awareness. That’s where we begin the conversation. We want to understand you and your business.

Start-up brands in particular struggle with understanding the difference between brand marketing and performance marketing. The result is missed opportunities to attract long-term clients by not also implementing brand marketing techniques like the creation of video and written content.

In this article, we discuss the benefits and differences between the slow-burn brand marketing to attract brand ambassadors and fast-burn performance marketing to generate leads and sales.

How do brand marketing and performance marketing work together?

When I first started in the marketing arena in 2010, I was focused on creating content for my clients’ websites and for my own website. What I didn’t realize was there are other marketing strategies that can be effective, and it may depend on business goals.

If you’re seeking recognition in the marketplace and an emotional connection to your business, then slower burn brand marketing may be the direction. If you’re seeking to promote a specific product or service, then performance marketing may be the better option.

There’s a third option. It is to combine the top and bottom of the marketing funnels into one campaign. Utilizing brand marketing and performance marketing, your business generates leads and sales while at the same time creating an emotional and longer lasting relationship with consumers.

Think about marketing from a consumer perspective.

Each of us has standards by which we make our purchases. For me, finding an essential oil company that provided single oils as well as blends for anxiety, energy boosts, and relaxation was important. I love oils but also understood you can’t just buy them at the convenience store; they must be high quality.

I was searching the internet when an Instagram ad appeared for a calming essential oil. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this ad was performance marketing targeted to their ideal customer – ME!

To my husband’s chagrin, these ads are very effective for getting me to make a purchase and try a product, which, of course, I did.

Not only are the oils safe to use with pets in the home (we have a dog), but the company is also woman-owned and pledges to make natural and effective products. They also educate their audience about their products. What I realized later was that this is brand marketing. They’re creating content on their website to keep their ideal customers engaged with their products by making us love their brand.

And I do love my essential oils from this company because I understand the products.

They’ve done a great job of creating brand marketing and performance marketing targeted to their ideal clients.

So what does this mean for your business? It means you have options.

Performance Marketing

One of the options is to pay for ads via an online marketing campaign. You pay a marketing firm, search engine like Google, or advertising platform like Facebook or Instagram Ads, for results that are defined in the agreement. Also known as Pay Per Click (PPC), performance marketers are paid after the campaign is completed.

The results may include leads, website clicks, or conversions. The campaigns are specific in the action they’re driving, and the results are tracked and quantitatively measured.

In the case of the essential oils mentioned earlier, they likely hired a marketing firm to create and run the ad campaign for the calming oil, the product they wanted highlighted. They paid the marketing firm for the number of clicks on the ad and/or the number of sales tracked back to the ad.

This is different from traditional advertising when the marketing company is paid up front and it is not based on performance. Your business pays for the billboard and then the billboard is created. Your business pays for website copywriting or article writing, then it is written and posted to the website. There isn’t a goal of conversion, only that these efforts are intended to increase brand awareness and should be done with a content strategy in mind.

Brand Marketing

Brand marketing is a slow burn type of marketing. It is more emotional. The purpose is to establish and grow a relationship between a company and its consumers. It’s a macro approach to marketing that may include television ads, billboards, and blogging. In these campaigns, the marketing firm is telling consumers about their client’s product or service, as well as the brand promise.

In the case of the essential oils, I clicked on the ad and bought more than just the calming oil that was advertised. I read blog posts and opted into the newsletter. I got pulled in by their brand marketing as much as I was pulled in by their performance marketing.

Where brand marketing is focused on increasing the number of people aware of and educated by your brand, performance marketing is tied to visitors or consumers taking specific action based on the ad campaign.

Utilizing brand marketing and performance marketing is a balancing act. It begins with a plan and purpose. There are different strategies and goals behind why we’d recommend one over the other to a client.

At PH Consulting & Media, we create brand or performance campaigns for our clients. We may also recommend combining the strengths of both to deliver one strong campaign for the top and bottom funnels of the marketing strategy.

If you're interested in learning more about our brand and performance marketing solutions, give us a call or drop us an email. We would be happy to chat with you.