Businesses want attention. They want to be easy to find. Elaborate branding strategies generate marketplace awareness. Logos on skyscrapers, searchlights reflecting off clouds, key words to increase SEO, promotions featuring A-List celebrities are recognizable tactics that attract customers. When promotional activity performs well, either the business itself or a credible source, is responsible for communicating superior attributes that drive the desired attention. Whether, the attention starts internally or externally, raising awareness is promotion’s purpose.

My Story (What I Say About Me)
Self-promotion’s foundation features tactics where businesses draw attention to themselves. Storytelling is the heart of this approach. The enterprise creates a favorable narrative by controlling the story. Fundamentally, the business or product communicates why a particular selection is the superior choice. In this case, the business gets to pick its favorite attribute, then impose its benefits on the marketplace. While the facts may be biased, the posture is that the products superiority dominates counterarguments. Starbucks positions itself as the best coffee place because the masses flock to it, and the group must be smarter than the individual.

On the other hand, problems with controlling the narrative features balancing benefits with truth. Self-promotion’s challenge is that both advocates and adversaries have individual truths wrestling for credibility. Sellers consistently delivering on promises seize a huge advantage. Quickly acknowledging mistakes and correcting them helps, too. Ultimately, self-promotion requires integrity, credibility and consistency. If the story is false, then customers will not patiently wait for the improvement or correction before selecting a competitor.

My Brand (What You Say About Me)
Branding aligns with referral promotion. Even when a business obsessively controls its brand, the marketplace still has a loud voice regarding acceptance. In N’ Out Burger can claim its California roots and fresh ingredients loudly and clearly. But, not until its customers choose to wait in long lines at all hours of the day or night does the claim drive value. Nothing says great marketing like most drive-thru customers ordering Monster-Style fries, despite they are nowhere on the menu. Furthermore, every customer in that eternal line leaves tremendously satisfied because their meal is only available to insiders.

When great branding works, customers are satisfied in their superior selection. Referral promotion suggests that a brand loyalist has invited the next customer into the inner circle for a superior experience. Essentially, the seller has cultivated defenders of the product’s superiority, who explicitly encourage more fans to embrace the brand and shun competitors. These raving fans now assume responsibility for recruiting like-minded purchasers to join established agents who willingly reinforce the brand’s embedded supporters. Referral promotion induces others to tell the stories of the brand’s superiority so that the enterprise does not have to do it. Such agents willingly embrace this role to proclaim their adopted brand’s superiority to the public.

Takeaway
Driving business growth demands superior storytelling and branding. Understanding the difference in their similar, yet distinct, functions is key to effective and successful marketing. The marketplace’s voice assumes tremendous power because of its implied, unbiased perspective. To build on that foundation, embrace others to broadcast the sellers’ brand superiority. Then, consistently deliver on customers’ expectations. Storytelling works because self-promotion clearly communicates the brand’s story, and typically tells it better. Referral promotion benefits by building a movement that will own the brand’s success because they have determined that the brand reflects the greater good. Ultimately, voices, telling a story, elevate a brand that delivers on its promises. Marketing success results from such voices generating attention, then maximizing credibility.

By Glenn W Hunter
Managing Director of Hunter And Beyond, LLC