Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing
Most early-stage startups don’t do what I would call brand marketing simply because they don’t yet have an established brand in the marketplace. The natural place for them to start is with product marketing. As a company becomes more well-known in the marketplace and starts to expand to multiple offerings, generally there is a person or a group that concerns themselves with branding.
Brand Marketing focus areas:
- brand messaging and image – developing the “brand story” and the messaging around that. This generally consists of articulating the “brand promise” and the image of what the brand means to customers.
- brand consistency – making sure the logo, trademarks, branding elements (fonts, colors, etc.) were used consistently across product lines and across multiple marketing and communications tactics and channels.
- brand awareness and tracking – brand marketers engage in tactics the make the market aware of the brand and track changes in how the brand is perceived by the market.
Product Marketing focus areas:
- Segments and prospect definition – this is my high level bucket for everything related to understanding the market that the product is a fit for and how you can identify the people in that market.
- Product messaging, positioning and value proposition – this the is the language you use to describe the unique value that the product delivers to the segments that you are targeting. This includes positioning against alternatives and addressing objections.
- Customer acquisition, marketing and sales funnels – product marketing needs to be an expert on how prospects move through the process from not knowing about a product, to awareness, consideration, evaluation, purchase and retention. Making sure that the flow of customers through this pipeline is optimized is also the domain of product marketing.
- Product introduction and managing the adoption curve – This is sort of included in the above point but important enough to call out, particularly where we are talking about new products. Product marketing needs to figure out how the product will be first introduced into market and how it will move from early adopters to more mainstream users.
I see growing companies naturally transition to doing more brand marketing over time. Interestingly, I’ve also seen larger companies which have traditionally been deep on the branding side suddenly see the need for product marketing. This would apply to service or retail companies looking at introducing something that looks more like a product. For example a service or retail company that wants to sell its data or content as a product or a retail company that is introducing smart phone application would benefit from some product marketing working alongside their brand folks.
What do you folks think? Does that line up with what you’ve seen?
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RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
Very well articulated. In fact Product marketing role is little understood today but I hope that going forward more and more organizations awaken to the need for product marketing.
In fact I have been working for months on defining the role of product marketing and putting down a process that is repeatable and successful. I have been focussing a lot on what are the marketing strategies along the product life cycle- Introductions, growth, Maturity and thereafter. May be you too can share your views some day on goals and strategies for each stage
Hi Bikash,
Thanks for the comment! I’ve talked a bit about the stages of marketing for a startup in a talk I did last week called startup marketing 101. In that talk however, I didn’t go past the stage where a startup is just beginning to scale. There’s a lot that happens after that, including figuring out how you are going to manage the brand. I’ll see if I can dedicate an upcoming post to that.
Thanks,
April
Hi April,
Your post on the subject above would be phenomenal.Will keep waiting for it
-Bikash
blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg (via @aprildunford)
blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg <- nice definitions here
Yowza!! Was just having this conversation yesterday! Thank-you Rocket Girl!!
You are welcome!
April
Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
Good, quick read for marketing students or those new to the field. RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
ótimo conteúdo … #valeapena ler! RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz Although, a good marketer should learn to execute on both
So what’s the trigger point? How do you know when it’s time to work on brand?
Hi Tim,
That’s a great question. In my experience for software companies it’s more of a gradual evolution than a trigger point. In my experience the need for brand management increases as the sales force and channels expand, as the company adds offerings and as the company becomes known in the market. Ultimately brand is something that the market determines for you but there’s work to making sure that you articulate that brand in a consistent way that people know, recognize and understand.
April
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz spot the difference!
.@aprildunford Product Mktg vs. Brand Mktg http://bit.ly/9OYIhz << Good distinction. But more as a diff in emphasis rather than picking one.
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
Seems to me, Marketing Professionals should focus on both RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
Great PM blog RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Good post but I don’t think that this is a case of doing one or the other. A good marketer needs to be doing both.
Denis
Hi Denis,
Thanks for the comment. I agree that in any given company there may or may not be clear lines between the two, particularly in a smaller company. At a startup I would see the marketing head focused mainly on product marketing and then focusing more and more on branding as the company grows. When the company is big enough, there might be separate people looking after the brand stuff. When I worked at IBM I did almost no brand marketing for my products, while the past 3 startups I’ve worked at I’ve done all of it but it was less of a focus than product marketing was.
April
RT @marketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz spot the difference!
Product marketing works. RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz spot the difference!
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Great Insight! RT @aprildunford blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz spot the difference!
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz #prodmgmt #prodmktg
RT @wikimarketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
RT @wikimarketing: Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing http://ow.ly/1ylPs
blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Reading:Brand Marketing Vs Product Marketing | #marketing #brand | http://bit.ly/9e1NYA
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing
by @aprildunford Nice simple breakdown http://ping.fm/TW4Cv
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Product Marketing vs Brand Marketing for Start-ups by @aprildunford http://ow.ly/1yON0
RT @aprildunford: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz (via @aprildunford)
RT @matchupcamp: blog post: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz (via @aprildunford)
Product Marketing vs Brand Marketing for Start-ups by @aprildunford http://ow.ly/1yON0 RT @StephanieTilton #marketing #branding
My thought on brand vs product marketing at http://pragmaticmarketing.typepad.com/productmarketing/2010/04/secrets-of-the-biggest-selling-launch-ever.html
In short, you do product marketing FIRST to build the brand. Companies try to short-cut this with BRAND marketing without a product to support it.
As Kristin Zhivago puts it,
“Your brand is the promise that you keep, not the one you make.”
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the comment.
April
http://ow.ly/1yDDW #in
Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing : http://tinyurl.com/y3gayxg #in
RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
RT @michaelgcohen: RT @aprildunford: Product Marketing vs. Brand Marketing http://bit.ly/9OYIhz
Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing | Rocket Watcher by April Dunford http://ow.ly/1Bsfz