Tips & Talk 72 – The Difference Between Marketing and Promotion and Why You Should Care

Hi there.

It's Sue.

And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.

These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and

things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.

If you'd like to submit a topic,

DME over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped,

before we get into the show today,

I want to make sure that you know about the newest

thing happening over here.

It's called the gift biz bash a zoom party that turns

into a podcast episode.

Several weeks later,

the party consists of a short training with Q and a

from yours truly.

And then an opportunity for you to give a shout out

about your business.

You can tell us about a promotion you currently have going

on or share a collaboration that you're considering so that you

can find a perfect partner for the event.

A little bit of learning and visibility for your business.

What could be better?

There is a catch though spots are limited to keep the

party to about 45 minutes or so.

That means you should grab your spot right away.

It's totally free to make sure you're included.

Why not do that right now?

Pause this episode,

go to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash bash to sign up and then come back

and listen to the show.

I'll see you at the bash Marketing promotion.

Many think they're the same thing and use them interchangeably.

Here's where you can get lost in it all.

Lots of time and money spent marketing and promoting you,

choose your word,

knowing it's important for your business,

but specifically seeing the results that's blurry at best,

which activities are bringing in the sales.

How do you know if you should keep going with one

thing or put more emphasis on another?

Let's clear this up.

So you can be more focused and purposeful in the time

that you do spend on these two tasks and understand the

intent behind each one that starts off with definitions promotion.

This is when you're specifically selling something.

It can be for a specific period of time.

Like when you're announcing that you're exhibiting at a show and

you want to let people know of the hours and the

location, it can also be product and price specific.

You're doing a Memorial day sale where all your red,

white, and blue jewelry is discounted or pointing people to a

sale section on your website where you're clearing out past inventory.

It can also be an introduction of your new line of

scarves, including the newest trend in color and texture.

Promotion is any messaging or event that directly links to the

selling of your handmade creations.

Promotion is what the majority of small businesses do.

And it leads to mostly one-off sales and makes growing a

business really hard.

Now as a product based business,

you need to promote,

of course,

it's not a dirty word,

but only promoting and not marketing limits you and leaves you

at a disadvantage.

If you don't add in marketing,

I Googled to see what definitions are out there for marketing.

And it's clear why the confusion comes in promoting and marketing

are often used interchangeably they're to several position promoting as a

subset of marketing others tap into the intent of marketing.

But none that I found describe it with the power that

marketing can really provide for you as a handmade creator.

Since I really didn't find one that lands it for me,

I'm creating my own.

Here it is.

Marketing is when you share information about you as the maker

and the nuances of your creation specifically,

that set you apart from all the others.

Again, marketing is when you share information about you as the

maker and the nuances of your creation specifically,

that set you apart from all the others.

So with marketing,

you're placing information in your prospects and customers minds that endear

them to you that makes them want to support you by

buying your products and also telling others about you referrals.

And you've made it easy for them to do so because

you're giving them talking points by telling stories,

things like how and why you started the business glimpses into

creation of your products or any behind the scenes activities.

These are also valuable because you give your audience something more

personal to grab onto and love about your brand.

It heightens the connection and changes the dynamic between them just

being a customer and them rallying behind what you do because

they relate support and enjoy the softer more personal aspects of

your business.

I call this your unique,

special power,

and I'm going to dive deeper into this in next week's

episode of tips and talk.

But for now suffice it to say that marketing is more

indirectly related to a specific sale,

but it has everything to do with increasing your overall sales.

So what do you do now with these revised definitions and

what actions should you take?

The first thing is easy.

Just recognize that there's a difference,

marketing, something you should be doing on a consistent basis.

New people will find you all the time directly and indirectly.

They run into you at an in-person event.

They land on one of your social accounts because they did

a hashtag search.

They find products in a local boutique,

and now want to know more.

So they take a look at your website.

If all they see when entering your world is promotional content,

meaning product,

price, product price,

how do they decide that your,

the one they want to buy from versus any other brand

small or large?

Sure. Your ingredients may be eco-friendly or healthier,

but so are others.

And that's easy to copy.

What's not easy to copy is your personal brand,

your story and messaging.

This is communicated through marketing,

get it.

And you want it to come through no matter where when

or how someone finds you for the first time,

given that you want to continually tell your story and create

marketing content that brings the human side of your business out.

And you don't just do it once you do it regularly.

You're not in their face selling,

but if people like what they're seeing,

they know how to find and buy your products.

When you've set it up correctly,

the link on your Instagram bio goes to your website or

a specific product that you just did.

A reel on your website has an easy navigation flow when

someone wants to buy,

but also includes an about me page with friendly,

personal, get acquainted verbiage.

You don't lose the sale this way,

and if they're not ready to buy yet,

that's okay.

It's more likely they'll stay around and follow you.

If they see you're not just selling all of the time,

you've provided them with information.

And now they feel connected to you,

your friends in a way,

lots of ready-made examples of marketing posts that you can tweak

for your product can be found in my content for makers

program. I'll put a link to that in the show notes

here, moving onto promotion.

Of course,

there's a time for this too.

I'll say 25 to 50% of your content should be direct

promotional activity,

true selling,

showing your product,

explaining why it's so amazing and then giving the price and

link to where someone can go and get it right now.

Think of marketing and promoting like a quilt marketing is the

umbrella over everything like the single piece of fabric that spans

the entire back of the quilt promotions are the triangles,

squares, and shapes that make up the pattern on the front.

They exist in certain spaces only and come in different.

There's also white space calming space between the pattern shapes equating

to when you're marketing only and not promoting.

Hmm, maybe this creative example works for you.

And maybe not.

Let me try again in a very concise way.

You're marketing all the time.

You intersperse promotions regularly,

but as appropriate by recognizing that marketing and promoting are two

different activities,

you can now go back to your plan and adjusted accordingly.

So you use them both to their highest powers,

happy marketing and promoting.

That's a wrap.

I'm a get to the point kind of girl.

And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream

of yours.

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