There are many different forms of marketing. Some of these are results-based, such as performance marketing. Others focus on specific marketing channels, as is the case with digital marketing.
One common point of confusion comes from comparing product marketing and growth marketing. Let’s consider each of these unique forms of marketing and then compare and contrast them to see which one is best for your business’s needs.
Product marketing is a straightforward term used to describe the process of bringing a new product into the marketplace. This form of brand marketing focuses on product-led growth, and Ahrefs adds that it includes communicating a product’s value to multiple groups.
First and foremost, a product manager must align a product’s features with customer benefits. Second, a marketing team must communicate this value to a brand’s internal product management staff.
This product marketing strategy ensures that everyone from sales to customer service is aware of the messaging. They all understand how they are to consistently position a new product in the eyes of consumers. This is true no matter what marketing channel they’re using or what stage of the customer lifecycle someone is in.
Growth marketing is a marketing philosophy that prioritizes the customer. This doesn’t just apply to potential customers and customer acquisition. Growth marketers prioritize customer needs, experience, and communication at every point of the customer journey.
They couple this emphasis on the customer with the prioritization of data. Growth marketing ditches the “gut instinct” of traditional marketing. Instead, growth marketers establish clear KPIs (key performance indicators). They use data and analytics tools to measure the results of each marketing activity. They then use that data to tweak or, at times, even pivot as they execute each growth marketing strategy.
An effective growth marketer prioritizes three primary areas throughout each brand’s growth marketing campaign: credibility, visibility, and authority. Digital PR cultivates greater credibility and trust with consumers. SEO techniques increase brand visibility across the web. High-quality content establishes brand authority in the eyes of consumers.
None of these things occur overnight. That’s why growth marketing isn’t a way to hack marketing growth. It’s a strategic, long-term investment that aims at building a customer base and sparking sustainable growth over time.
When you compare growth marketing vs marketing in other forms, like product marketing, one aspect often comes up: growth marketing is comprehensive. The holistic nature of simultaneously prioritizing visibility, credibility, and authority has a synergistic effect across all of a brand’s promotional efforts.
This is hard to reproduce in a more focused area like product marketing. Similar to traditional marketing philosophies, product marketing emphasizes a brand (and specifically product development) rather than its target audience. It’s true that the audience is a valuable piece of the puzzle. But it isn’t the central focal point.
Okay, so growth marketing focuses on data and the customer. Product marketing prioritizes new products. Both are valid forms of promotion that countless brands use across every industry.
The question is: which one is right for your brand?
To find the answer, let’s consider a couple of additional inquiries. For starters, what is your current marketing objective? If you have a new product in the pipeline, product marketing may be in order. You need a product marketing team that helps your staff and your customers understand the new product’s value.
The issue with product marketing is that, apart from this specific marketing need, it doesn’t have much effect. Focusing on the product in any other situation is a recipe for disaster. When businesses focus on product positioning, product features and benefits and then try to shoehorn them into their target audience’s needs, it can come across as uninformed and shallow.
In contrast, growth marketing starts with customer needs and then considers how company offerings can address them. This presents a brand’s products and services as genuine solutions to real-world problems. The result is satisfied customers who feel supported and have answers to their questions throughout the customer experience.
Both growth and product marketing have value as promotional tools. In most cases, though, the holistic, long-term focus of growth marketing makes it the more applicable and effective option.
Growth marketing is a synergistic way to increase your brand’s credibility, authority, and visibility. It paves the way for organic growth, no matter how big your company gets or what new product or service it sells.
If you want to cultivate sustainable growth, find an experienced growth team that can help you build a visionary growth marketing framework for your brand. Unlike product marketing, which has an expiration date, a thoughtful, comprehensive growth marketing plan can help you adapt and maintain that upward momentum both now and for the foreseeable future.
