In the current digital era, there is a lot of discussion about two streams of marketing, performance marketing and brand marketing, to achieve business success. Especially in the growing e-commerce and digital service sectors of Bangladesh, maintaining a balance between these two issues is the need of the hour.
1. Performance Marketing: The Key to Immediate Sales
Performance marketing is a method that mainly focuses on immediate results or sales. The main goal here is to optimize metrics like ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), CTR (Click-Through Rate), and CPC (Cost Per Click).
Limitations or ‘traps’ of performance marketing: Many people think that generating sales by running ads every day is the end of digital marketing. But this is a big misconception. According to the source, as long as you spend money and advertise, the platforms will give you sales or leads; as soon as you stop advertising, the sales will stop. This is called the ‘performance marketing trap.’ In addition, as competition increases on platforms like Facebook or Google, the customer acquisition cost (CAC) continues to increase, which can be risky for businesses in the long run.
2. Brand Marketing: Long-term Sustainability and Customer Retention
More important than just finding new customers is retaining existing customers or Customer Retainership. The main purpose of brand marketing is to create a position in people’s minds so that they find your brand on their own without seeing an ad. Branding helps you retain or retain your new customers.
3. 5 Powerful Strategies for Branding and Retention
According to information obtained from Video Source, an entrepreneur can increase his brand value at very low cost:
• Email Automation: About 30% of people in Bangladesh check email regularly. This is a very effective and cost-effective channel. For example, the brand ‘Head Gear’ delivers their corporate offers through email automation, which often brings in large orders for free.
• Post-Purchasing Experience: The responsibility doesn’t end after the product is sold. After-sales service and good behavior turn an ordinary buyer into a brand ‘advocate’ or promoter.
• Educational Remarketing: Educate the buyer about the product instead of just repeatedly advertising offers or discounts. For example, if you are a pen business, give the buyer tips on beautiful handwriting; or if you are a clothing business, teach the buyer how to care for clothes. This builds trust and loyalty in the buyer’s mind.
• Humanizing the brand: People trust people more than robots. Your brand communication should be such that the buyer feels that he is talking to a flesh-and-blood person, not a logo.
• User Generated Content (UGC): People trust reviews from other users more than videos made by the brand itself. Encourage customers to share content or reviews about your products. This is one of the most powerful steps in brand building.
4. Bangladesh and International Market Context
In the international market, large companies allocate a large portion of their budget for branding because they know that it is not possible to survive for a long time without brand value. In the Bangladeshi context, brands like ‘Lariif’ are building a deep bond with customers by maintaining personal relationships (such as birthday wishes or providing special coupons).
Conclusion
Performance marketing will get you today’s sales, but brand marketing will ensure your business tomorrow. To build a sustainable business model, it is essential to maintain the right balance between bringing in new customers through performance marketing and retaining them through branding.
