The basic difference between brand and product marketing is represented by their connotations. A product is a material or service that a company sells via conveying its marketing message and campaigns. On the other hand, a brand is a persona or image that sells a company. Brand marketing is a long-term investment because it ensures perpetuity and long-lasting customer relationships.
Branding increases customer recognition and builds credibility. Both hold respective significance at all the stages of the product life cycle. For start-ups, product marketing is more relevant because, at this stage, it is substantial for bringing the product to the market and managing commercial success.
Product Marketing: The Building Block
Product marketing works towards product positioning and teams up with the sales department for increasing sales, revenue, and replacement sales. It is about product reach and scalability. Product marketers work towards establishing product superiority and bank heavily on massive marketing campaigns to convey the uniqueness of the products. A product marketing campaign highlights awesome features and benefits of a product. Product marketing is about:
- A better understanding of customer problems
- Product positioning and messaging
- Product roadmap planning
- A tangible understanding of product and business
- Better assessment of competitors
- Product value prepositions
Product marketing sets a firm base for a business to sustain itself in a competitive business environment. Marketers play on the product’s strengths and unique qualities.
Brand Marketing: The Story of Recognition
Brand marketing deals with intangibles. Marketers run campaigns to build an image or persona of the product to ensure a company’s long-term success. Brand marketing narrates the story of a product or service to provide the reference points to the customers and values to which they can relate.
For example, a business that sells bold products will have to choose its logo, illustrations, typography, and business color to convey a message that connotes the purpose pertinently. The latest make-up brands offer a virtual try-on option to create an experience for potential customers and lure them to purchase their products. The practice contributes to brand building and boosts sales as well. Brand marketing is about:
- Customer recognition and unique selling points
- Customer loyalty
- Improved company values
- Consistency
- Sustainability
- Competitive edge
- Brand equity
- Creative powerhouse
Brand marketing provides an umbrella under which different products can simultaneously nurture due to one unanimous message or image.
Branding vs Product Marketing: The Fascinating Paradox
Both kinds of marketing go hand in hand for the sustainable growth of a business. However, these two departments in a company are usually seen locking horns to gain dominance in terms of significance and budget. Let us see how these two specializations differ from each other.
1.Customer recognition
Product marketing helps position the product while branding creates recognition. An attractive logo, color palette, tagline, and imagery create an image in the customer’s mind and increase repeat sales.
2. Customer loyalty
Repeat purchasing means that customers have become loyalists to your brand. Excellent services and quality are focal points of product marketing, while great endorsement of such attributes is the work of brand marketing. When customers see the advertisement of their favorite products, it validates their choice and builds customer loyalty.
3. Competitive edge
If the competition is dense in the market, brand marketing can help by developing a unique identity of the product. This decreases the plausibility of getting replaced by new, cheaper, and more aggressive products in marketing.
4. Desirability
Product marketing creates the need for a product by providing quality and unique features. Brand marketing makes that same product relatable and lucrative for the customers by creating awareness, reputation, differentiation, energy, relevance, and loyalty. Product is what customers need, and brand is what they want. Companies also translation and transcription services to reach a larger customer base and create a global brand.
5. Delivered value
Product marketing aims at delivering tangible values by providing quality products and services. Customer satisfaction remains in focus. Brand marketing focuses on intangible aspects such as mission, vision, and purpose. What customers perceive about a brand is the intangible outcome of brand marketing.
6. Longevity
Brand marketing takes a company towards long-term success and ensures sustainability with a mission and vision. It helps a business survive through contingencies. A brand is forever, whereas a product may get replaced.
Brand marketers and product marketers often stay loggerheads. However, the truth is that these two hemispheres need to work in sync for business success. There is a substantial overlapping between these two domains. Business needs both to survive in the competitive business environment.
In the early stages, product marketing can successfully convey the marketing messages. It can provide a great understanding of customers’ needs and market dynamics through market research. Brand market in the initial stage of a product creates awareness and brand identity.
In later stages, there is still a need for product marketing. It can successfully redefine the messaging and positioning of the product. Brand marketing at this stage should narrate a story that can help your brand make an emotional connection with the customers.
Product marketing works as a binding force for big companies to keep all the units and streams connected and in sync. On the other hand, brand marketing keeps checking the relevance of brand identity with ever-so-changing market dynamics. It would not be wrong to say that these two are equally important for a firm and must work in collaboration to ensure success and growth.
