Running a successful company is about bringing different factors together, one of them being the product. So yes, the product isn’t everything. It’s not the only thing that can and will keep the company afloat. But if you look around, you’ll find that some businesses claim that having a great product is enough to succeed, while there are others say that nothing works without proper marketing.
The fact is that there are many huge companies that support both sides of the argument. There’s Google which became one of the biggest brands online with almost zero marketing. And then on the other hand there are companies like Pepsi and Coke that spend a good amount of their corporate budget on feeding their marketing campaigns in order to win the “brands war” and become the leader in their market.
However, there is no denying the fact that having a healthy balance between your product development and marketing efforts can boost your chances of success.But finding the right balance is the difficult part, not impossible though. Companies like Apple have figured out because they not only have a great product but also know how to market it well. They have cracked the holy grail of business success on a large scale, without ignoring the fundamentals.
Now, the question is – can one survive without another in the real world? It’s not difficult to answer this question since it’s clear that both are interdependent on each other. If you build a great product but nobody knows about it, you won’t get sales. The basic marketing rules are the same. The more people know about your product, the more sales potential you have.
The only difference today is that you may just get away with bad marketing if your product is worthy. Why? Because before people would look at ads and buy products not knowing there are better options out there. However, with the advent of Internet customers have gone more vocal. They are expressing their views by writing product reviews and doing their research before buying anything. So even if the product is poorly advertised, it may have an upper hand because of the positive word of mouth.
At the same time, things have changed on the advertising front too. You can no longer get leverage for a bad product by simply throwing money into advertising. Your product will fizzle out in no time because people want quality, and if they don’t get it, your ads won’t do much. The focus of your business should not only be about spreading the word about your product, but spreading it in a good way. And you do that by creating a “customer experience” that is complete in itself.
The conclusion is that as times are changing, you will have to keep up. Company accolades and promotions are great, but they need to be supported by a great product and even greater marketing for the company to really move forward. It may not easy to find a balance between product quality and justified cost of marketing, but once found, the overall business of the company will definitely improve.
Article contributed by Jenna Smith