What Is The Difference Between Marketing, Advertising, And Content Creation?

This could probably be 3 more blog posts about each one of these topics, but to keep things short and sweet, this will be a general answer.

Marketing is “creating want.”

Advertising is “driving action.”

Content creation is “the creation of the assets used for marketing and advertising” (for this context).

How do those things differ and how can you use them to better promote your business, brand, project, or yourself?

• Marketing

This is a VERY wide umbrella which includes many, many, many things. It can include advertising, social media, networking events, going to trade shows, print ads, fliers, post card mailings, stickers, give-away items, and items with your name or logo on them to name a few.

Anything you do to create want for whatever it is you’re trying to gain interest in (a movie, a product, a service, a business, a brand, a person), that is all “marketing.”

Many marketing firms work with (or hire) content creators (and always have throughout the history of marketing as most famously depicted in the hit TV series Mad Men) to create the content which will be used for marketing. See below for more on that.

Now, you can have a social media account just to share things with friends or you can take photos or make videos just for fun and you’re not trying to create want in anything. That’s awesome, and that’s just creating things or sharing things.

If the end goal is to create want - it is marketing.

• Advertising

This is targeted marketing focused on driving action. This makes people want to do something, from eat at a restaurant to buy something to travel somewhere to use a credit card to watch a movie to learn something to vote for a person to join a cause - if the end result is to get people to do something, then it is advertising.

The line between these can become blurry especially because many ad agencies get mixed with marketing agencies. They aren’t exactly the same thing.

For example, Space Dream Productions provides marketing services and content creation. However, we are not advertising specialists and we partner with other companies who are. The same way you don’t go to your eye doctor for a stomach ache, or a foot doctor when you need braces - all of those people are doctors but they are specialist trained in specific areas of health.

Advertising is a specific area of marketing, and it usually involves staying on top of things nowadays like Google Ad Words and Social Media trends and Meta Ads and other highly specific things which are really a full-time job to develop and manage. The best use of digital ads is when it is heavily monitored and managed to ensure every penny is properly spent and resulting in the intended goals for the ad with someone constantly checking on and reviewing and adjusting to ensure they are working properly.

Then there are advertisers who know things like magazine markets and online ads and postcard mailings and things like that. “Every door direct mailing” is a form of postcard mailings which have specific print size and paper type and graphic design requirements, even requirements as to how the postcards are bundled and which post office they are dropped off to for delivery. Some advertisers are specialists in that.

When you’re looking to market, there is a lot you can do for free. When it comes time to advertise, you’re usually going to have to pay something for it. To get the best “bang for your buck” it is best to work with a trained professional who is a specialist in that field so you’re not wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars on ad spend that doesn’t convert to sales or whatever you’re looking to drive action towards. Some advertising specialists know multiple types of advertising, but it is important to work with an ad specialist when running an ad.

• Content Creation

Things which you as a person, business, or brand, put out into the world which help you be seen by, become known to, and connect with whomever it is you’re wanting to connect to. Very, very technically, Grandma’s cell phone photo of the cookies she baked which is shared on Facebook to her 23 friends is “content.”

In a more marketing-centric view, “content creation” is the things that go out on the marketing and advertising channels. This is the copy on a website, blog posts, the images on a flier, graphics, logos, packaging and branding items, social media content, videos, commercials, podcasts - anything that was created.

Now, Public Relations (PR) is another wide umbrella which is just making something known widely, and directing the public view of that thing (in a good or bad way depending on the PR, which is why PR can be used for good or used for bad). There are PR actions which technically are also marketing, and ones which are also advertising, and many which require content to be created for them.

When you’re looking to partner with someone to help you with your content creation or your marketing or your advertising, or you’re just looking for leads or you want to go viral or you want more people to know who you are, the best results can be gotten by collaborating with a team of specialists who can support every aspect you need and who knows the different parts of what you need.

No matter what, it is important to know the difference between these things, and ensure all aspects are taken into account when creating a marketing plan or a content creation plan, so you’re able to create the public impression you’re looking to create, and drive the action in the direction you want it to go!

Looking for some direction for your marketing or social media? Reach out for a marketing consultation which reviews all the current marketing and advertising you’re doing and puts together a plan you start with on a DIY or to hire a professional to assist with.