The main objective of any business or brand is to drive more revenue and sales. It takes this for brands and companies to survive in a highly competitive environment. A lot of things play a part in this regard. Among them, product marketing is undeniable.
This article aims to throw light on what is product marketing, its types, strategy, importance, real-life examples, and much more. Sounds great? Let’s dive in to uncover the facts!
What is Product Marketing?
Product marketing refers to directly communicating product core values to consumers or customers. The communications essentials include:
- Issues that customers are facing
- How a service or product can eliminate these issues
- What differentiates the product from the rest
In other words, Product marketing also refers to the product position alignment as per customer requirements.
What are the Key Types of Product Marketing?
Product marketing is of multiple types. Each type has its features and benefits. Get familiar with the key ones in the following section:
1. Online Product Marketing
As the name reflects, this marketing type occurs on the Internet. You cannot question the effectiveness of this marketing. The main reason is it drives the attention of a broad and diverse audience at a fraction of the cost. The difficulty associated with this marketing is a little more for specific businesses.
2. Traditional Product Marketing
One of the most common product marketing types is traditional marketing. This type makes use of conventional channels for product promotion. The key tracks include print ads, brochures, radio, TV, billboards, and newspaper. The cost associated with traditional marketing is very high, but at the same time, it can be very effective.
3. Referral Product Marketing
Referral product marketing refers to the type in which customers directly market the products to family, friends or neighbours. Referral product marketing is highly effective because it involves a higher trust level. A limitation of referral product marketing is that you cannot track its performance.
4. Guerilla Product Marketing
This marketing method is non-conventional, but the effectiveness associated with this method is remarkable. The only limitation is that you don’t have full control over this type of marketing. Key examples include publicity stunts, reverse graffiti, flash mobs, treasure hunts, etc.
5. Inside Stores Product Marketing
This marketing type utilizes retail stores. The effectiveness of this type of advertising is also notable. This allows customers to see and touch the product before purchasing. Inside-store product marketing is costly and does not produce target results usually.
What Do You Mean By Product Marketing Strategy?
Product marketing strategy involves a series of steps. Keep reading to know what it takes for a highly effective product launch:
1. Know Your Audience/Customer
The step before defining the product is determining your audience/customer. A buyer persona will help you do so effectively. This way, you can point out the issues your customer faces, their requirements and their specific interest. This will enable you to create product messaging that aligns with customer interests.
2. Messaging and Positioning
Once you have defined your audience, it comes to drafting the message. The message must present your product as a complete solution to the customer's issues. You must focus on the key differentiation contributing to the product value to do so. Find answers to these questions to draft a better message:
- Who will be the end user of the product
- Define the role and function of the product
- Why should customers use your product
- What makes your product different from your competitors
- What contributes to the need for your product
Knowing the answers to these questions can help you in crafting incredible messaging.
3. Sharing
Sharing of the messaging matters a lot. Doing so will contribute to higher accuracy and consistency. You can also bring the other company members on the same page by sharing. They can provide feedback that can raise the message effectivity.
Suppose different team members send over additional messages on the same product. In the long term, this has a greater influence on the overall brand reputation. It opens up the opportunity to send a GTM (Go-To-Market) messaging.
4. Prepare The Launch Plan
Preparing the launch plan is the only way to ensure a successful launch. Different teams are involved in a single launch within an organization. These teams include sales, customer support, and marketing. To contribute to a successful launch, you need to keep in mind the following:
- The Main Objective Behind Launch
- Launching Date Keep these two things in mind and then set goals. This will help you ensure a timely launch and objective accomplishment.
5. Product Ad Content Creation
The content is the key thing that communicates the key notables about your product. Content creation involves all your assets which will aid the launch process. These assets include product demos, screenshots, landing pages, blog posts/articles, one pager, training materials, pitch decks, and email copy.
6. Team Preparation
Don’t forget to keep the entire team on board while launching your product. Internal as well as external communication is a paradigm. Suppose you have launched the product and the website was not good to be live. Or the support team is unable to offer support through chats or calls about the product. Keeping everyone on board will ensure that development is completely ready for launch.
7. Launching Product
When you have determined that everything is entirely ready and in position. Go for the product launch. Beware that things can go wrong beyond expectation. To ensure the provision of instant edits/adjustments.
8. After-Launch Considerations
Track the performance of the launch and monitor the stats. This will allow you o estimate success or failure. Prepare yourself for both. If the customer is not converting, tweak the messaging, look backwards and point out the lacking. Take the customer's feedback on the product and ensure they align them with product positioning and messaging. Again measure and monitor the metrics to ensure a successful launch.
Why is Product Marketing Important?
Suppose you are a company or a business selling a service or a product. You cannot deny the value that product marketing possesses.
A lot of time, effort and money goes into the formation/development of the product. Marketing is what decides its success or failure.
It communicates the product's value to the customers or audience through a captivating message. Several steps employed in product marketing like
- Product design
- Product Formation
- Copywriting
- Multiple platform utilization like online or offline
- Multiple means like billboards, TV, radio, social media etc
It allows you to use a variety of means to ensure success. If you don’t utilize product marketing, you can face low ROI, sales, and product failure.
What Are Some Notable Product Marketing Examples?
To build a successful product marketing. It is worth focusing on some famous product marketing done so far. Here is the highlight of key product marketing examples for your consideration:
1. Tesla
Tesla is not only a car manufacturer but a brand. They have built their name solely based on eco-friendliness, which comes under their brand statement. Tesla features a huge share of the high-quality electric vehicles market. These cars are so expensive that competitors cannot compete with Tesla. All this is only because of the brand statement, which reflects clean energy generation free from fossil fuels. This is how Tesla delivers value to the vehicle market and markets their products.
2. Coca-Cola
Coca-cola, once a pharmaceutical manufacturer, later become a soda manufacturer. This was part of their product marketing strategy. The product that they are selling is the same from year to year. So remarkable product strategy lead Coke to become an international brand. This is the reason why when ordering a soda, people demand Coke. The remarkable customer association lead to the unbelievable recognition of Coca-cola. Over 95% of the population of the world is familiar with Coke.
3. Apple
Apple is another practical example of a successful product marketing strategy. Every single launch of Apple goes viral because of its highly effective product marketing strategy. This is also because Apple spends hours and effort researching and developing new devices.
The launch of apple vision Pro recently received 2 million plus searches just 24 hours after its launch. Their Uber targetted messaging communicates exactly how people want to read.
How Product Marketing Contributes to Product Improvement?
There are several ways product marketing greatly contributes to product improvement, such as:
Metrics Monitoring
The metrics monitoring involves tracking key parameters and their analysis. These parameters include sales data assessment, customer satisfaction score, and retention rates. By keenly observing, you can tweak improvements where needed.
Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is crucial. This helps you identify where lies issues with your product. What customers like and what not. It also allows you to point out areas where you can process improvements.
Market Analysis and Research
Market analysis involves examining what your competitors are doing better than you. You assess their customer retention rates. The option exists to analyze the trends in the market. This will allow you to incorporate the essential improvements.
What Does a Product Marketer Do?
The key role of the product marketer is to drive the product to market and ensure a successful launch. Apart from this, the other roles of the product marketer include:
1. Develop and Execute Market Strategy
Product marketers and the marketing team develop and execute an effective strategy. A product marketer ensures that the strategy aligns with product growth and positioning.
2. Campaign Creation and Management
Product marketers automate the process of product marketing campaigns and development. The role involves assurance of conveying product features and values to the customer.
3. Product Management
The product marketer ensures the fulfilment of effective product management. Product marketer also ensures that the product meets or exceeds the audience or customer's requirement. The role also involves feedback gathering to improve the product over time.
A product market remains in the loop with the brand, sales team, competition, market trends, and the right audience. This is mainly to ensure success.
Difference Between Product Marketing Vs Other Marketing
Find key differences between product and other marketing in the table below. It gives you a fresh perspective and a better understanding of product marketing.
| No. | Key Parameters | Product (marketing) | Growth (marketing) | Content (marketing) | Performance (marketing) | Brand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Market analysis and research | Yes | Yes | No | No | Limited |
| 2 | Go-to-market (GMT) strategy | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| 3 | Messaging and Positioning | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| 4 | Product Internal and External Communication | Yes | Yes | External | External | No |
| 5 | Marketing | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| 6 | Feedback Collection | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| 7 | Product analysis | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| 8 | New feature Introduction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| 9 | Keep Up Reputation | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Product Marketing vs Marketing
Marketing is a broader term which involves performance marketing, content marketing, and brand strategy. The main role of marketing is to convey value to potential prospects.
On the other hand, product marketing revolves around the product and mainly focuses on the customer. It involves product alignment, packaging, and advertising.
Product Marketing vs Product Management
Product management involves organizing the teams on a large scale responsible for product design and development. The role of the product management team is to cater for alignment between product marketing strategy and product. This team also handles customer desires and market demands.
FAQ’s
What is product marketing in tech?
Product marketing in tech means it solely details the technology products. For instance, it can include software as well as hardware products.
What is the Product marketing mix?
The term product marketing mix, as the name suggests, focuses more on marketing. It involves the utilization of marketing channels and product features to drive conversions. Key aspects include cost, benefits, distribution and distribution channel/media etc. The key objective is to achieve set sales and results.
What are Product Marketing Objectives?
The product marketing objectives vary from brand to brand, but general objectives include the following:
- Strengthen market presence
- Generate revenue
- Boost brand reputation
- Boost traffic/ sales
- Increase customer retention
- Product improvement
