Should you market your brand or your product?
Do you have a brand that you are fiercely loyal to in purchasing their goods or services? Or do you make your purchases solely based on price and function?
Brand marketing is the promotion of your brand as a whole, while product marketing typically focuses on the selling of products.
Product marketing might bring you short-term sales, but brand marketing is important because it establishes an emotional connection with your audiences from the value you contribute to them through your products and services, even if there are similar offerings in the market. It is through building this long-term reputation that yields a competitive advantage and makes it harder to be overtaken by competitors in your market.
In this article, we would be looking at both approaches of marketing brands vs marketing products.
What's the difference?
What
Marketing your brand
It is the act of promoting the existence of your organization to your audiences and telling them why should they care.
Marketing your product
It is the act of promoting the awareness of your product to your audiences and telling them why should they care.
Goal
Marketing your brand
Build trust with audiences whose values are aligned.
Marketing your product
Sell the product that you believe can impact lives.
Impact
Marketing your brand
Long-term brand equity means eventually translating to lower customer acquisition costs and customer churn. Instead, brand loyalty and word-of-mouth makes the sales, along with other perks such as talent acquisition and retention.
Marketing your product
Short-term sales, revenue to fuel the company to achieve its vision.
Which is more important?
As you may have guessed, both! If you only market your product, competition will kick in and your business will have a hard time securing or growing your market share. If you only market your brand, your audiences don’t experience the 'result' of your existence. Also, you might not have enough sales to achieve your vision and impact.
Which is easier?
Marketing product is the easier of the two, if only you have a great product. This is because the product also speaks for itself, delivering the experience or solving the needs of your customers. In our opinion, many businesses are great at marketing their products but do not have clarity over their brand, which is not just about your logo or visual identity. The process of building a brand varies by brand consultants or strategists.
5 easy ways to express your brand personality
Which comes first?
Tough question! We can honestly declare that we do not have an answer, but it is important to prove that the product or service you are offering and the impact you are trying to make has a product-market fit before crafting a brand. At this phase, where your brand is mostly represented by yourself as a passionate brand owner, it is good enough. So, market your product first, and once there is a clear demand or product-market fit, this is where you can start to invest in crafting a brand strategy together with your core team.
Reputation cannot be achieved overnight
Apple's brand value is estimated at 612 billion USD in 2021. While their MacBook costs over 1500 USD, Apple fans will choose it over a cheaper laptop with superior specifications. This is because Apple has invested a huge amount of resources in building a reputable brand that promises great experience and quality. This achievement is almost impossible to overtake by a new market entrant producing similar products.
Buying a promise, not just a product
Leica is well-known for its quality cameras with superior build and great attention to detail, and has gained reputation as a brand whose cameras capture iconic and timeless moments throughout history. In recent years, Leica announced the release of watches to their lineup. As the brand already has an existing reputation of producing classic cameras, they have the freedom to expand to other product offerings. In this case, a watch that is created with the same guiding principles of being “timeless and precise”, of which speaks to the same loyal customers.
Great culture attracts great talent
If you are at a point where your business is scaling, you'll need to attract talent. The problem many businesses face is that great talents are scarce and they often have competing offers from other businesses. Why would they choose to work with, and moreover, stay with your company? Nurturing the right culture would be your competitive advantage, and it starts from having great clarity and alignment of what your brand stands for and the core values your team upholds. They will become the guiding principles for how your team makes decisions to evolve your business.
Conclusion
Brand marketing not only builds a community of loyal audiences who align with what your brand stands for, but also creates several competitive advantages for your business. On the other hand, solely depending on product marketing often leads to price competition. A well-rounded marketing plan that encompasses both will bring about both short-term and long-term advantages to your business if you play the cards well.
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