Brand Marketing vs Product Marketing: What’s the Difference?
Brand Marketing vs Product Marketing – The rivalry between brand and product marketing seems like a never-ending ordeal for businesses that are unaware of the specifics of each. While both types of marketing bring their benefits to the table, the key is to either drawdown to the most suitable alternative or leverage them both as a hybrid tactic for better outcomes.
However, to take any step towards either of the above, you need to understand the difference between brand and product marketing in the first place. Only then will you be able to balance their pros and cons and develop an optimized strategy.
In this article, we have highlighted the primary differences between brand and product marketing in terms of strategy, methods, and outcomes.
Table of Contents
Understanding Brand Marketing
Brand marketing involves a strategic approach to connecting your customers with your brand. This means you center all promotional activities around your products and services around your brand’s name, image, values, and mission.
The goal of brand marketing is to enhance brand visibility and awareness, making it a resonating choice among customers. The idea is to instil a sense of trust in them which is reflected across all products and services comprehensively, uniting them into one whole that is your brand.
Strategy and Methods
At its core, brand marketing is about improving brand awareness and equity. The customer is reminded time and again about the benefits and values of your brand, and positive perception is built in their minds. This influences their purchase decisions in the short- and long terms.
Brand marketing involves brand tracking, identity, and recognition based on customer emotions instead of information. Therefore, you are trying to impact how the customer feels about your brand, rather than what they know about it. A strategy of consistent messaging and outreach is deployed, laced with values, and meaning so that it stays with the customer for long. Your brand is always on top of their mind whenever they are thinking or talking about a specific industry, domain, or product.
When to Use Brand Marketing?
The biggest value of brand marketing lies in its ability to build a comprehensive narrative around your business’ optics. Whether it is about your company’s long-term goals, the story of its founders, the key values your team believes in, or your brand’s evolving ethos, brand marketing is all about giving audiences a good story to relish in.
This makes brand marketing ideal for companies with interesting founding stories and backgrounds. If you are someone who wants to stand out for the ‘brand’, the ‘team’, or the ‘visionary’ that they are, you can use brand marketing tactics to build a loyal customer base.
Understanding Product Marketing
Product marketing, on the other hand, is about strategically positioning product promotions intending to garner more revenue. Unlike brand marketing which focuses on customer recognition, product marketing is all about customer knowledge – delivering highly informative, tangible material to let the customer know how your product is different from the competitor’s.
In principle, product marketing is very outward-looking, compared to brand marketing which is focused more within the organization. Product marketing campaigns are built out of customer demands, market dynamics, competitor activities, climate trends, etc. to talk about the product.
Strategy and Methods
Brand marketing involves brand tracking, identity, and recognition based on customer emotions instead of information. Therefore, you are trying to impact how the customer feels about your brand, rather than what they know about it. A strategy of consistent messaging and outreach is deployed, laced with values, and meaning so that it stays with the customer for long. This could include flyers, events, tv adverts, or even custom Private number Plates on your company vehicles. Whatever it is, you should be drumming the name of your brand into customers at every opportunity. Your brand is always on top of their mind whenever they are thinking or talking about a specific industry, domain, or product.
When to Use Product Marketing?
Product marketing strategies are ideal for businesses that are aiming to introduce or re-introduce themselves in a targeted audience pool. The best use case is in case you have a specific product to talk about, addressing its unique features, benefits, and value.
Product marketing is also ideal in case you want a tangible roadmap to assess the impact of your marketing campaigns. This is because product marketing is directly concerned with conversions, and you have more control over tweaking campaigns, narrowing them down, getting more technical and customer-specific to get more ROI.
The Real Benefit is in Balance
Ultimately, businesses across industries need both brand and product marketing at one stage or another for maximum benefits. The ideal way out is to balance the respective strengths of each marketing strategy and leverage them both. You can define your brand’s building blocks with product marketing while simultaneously creating a loyal community around it with brand marketing.
Similarly, while product marketing allows you to focus on boosting reach and sales, brand marketing helps you tell your story and establish win more customers over to your side. Our marketing firm allows businesses to combine brand and product marketing strategies effectively across early, expansion and growth stages to refine their message and positioning in the market while ensuring the brand’s relevance in a market-optimized manner.