Branding And Performance – An Integrated Strategy

When we talk about Performance Marketing, we usually refer to Results Marketing, whose objective is to respond to the target to whom it is directed. When we speak about Branding, we talk about actions aimed at building and positioning (or enhancing) values ​​and promises of the brand in the consumer’s mind.

Today, I never tire of hearing “mantras” from both sides that sentence the importance of one strategy over the other, posts, publications, and opinions of all kinds in which things like “Here the important thing is the results, the rest does not matter.” Well, is that true? Can you get results without having to do them? I think by now, we all know the answer.

Marketing (at least in my head) is about making things easy for our customers when looking for information, buying, enjoying a satisfactory experience during their relationship with our brand, obtaining good after-sales service, etc. I always try to avoid isolated and unidirectional concepts such as that “on” and “off” are different things or that digital is the future. For me, Marketing is the Marketing of today and 50 years ago. What changes are consumer habits and the devices we use, the amount of data available, and the sophistication of the process, which increasingly brings the user closer to the transaction in an increasingly convergent process?

Fortunately for me, I have the immense luck of dedicating something similar to creating strategies that help clients sell more. My work is oriented towards the results part (Performance), which does not mean that I work a lot. Single-channel or single discipline. Quite the opposite. As I said at one point at the beginning, how can it be collected without sowing? How is it possible that a discipline whose purpose is to manage and capitalize on demand (once again, Performance Marketing) does so without other domains generating it?

That’s where I talk about integration. When I teach, I often ask if a strategy is good or bad, or what is the moment to invest in a particular brand or results in action. The answer is always and always will be the same: it depends. The investment cycle in brand stocks and earnings stocks is cyclical and, hyperbole, infinite. Periodic brand actions should be carried out, not only for launches but regularly, to continue maintaining the appropriate levels of awareness and positioning that generate that demand that the Performance actions later collect.

Just as we have to be clear that Brand and Performance are complementary actions, I would like to end by pointing out that there is no such thing as “on” and “off,” that one cannot live without the other, and that a spot TV builds a brand like an impact from an outdoor billboard or a banner in an editorial headline, the important thing is that all channels work towards the same goal.

And you, do you consider that it is invested in a balanced way in your company? Do you believe that an integrated strategy is the best way to do Marketing? Can Performance be done without investing in a brand? Please share your thoughts in the comments!