What is Marketing
Product marketing is the process of bringing a product to market and overseeing its overall success. Product marketers are focused on understanding and marketing to customers.
What
Quality is what a product can do for a customer. Product quality is also how well the product does what it's supposed to do, and how well it holds up over time. Some customers view quality as a price point while others appreciate a product because it’s “greener.”
Debate
Running a successful company is about bringing different factors together, one of them being the product. So yes, the product isn’t everything. It is 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.
Now let’s look at some Good examples
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.
Now, it is time to examine this matter from different angles and see whether it is marketing or the quality that is more important, and what really makes a product or service tick? Let's see-
WHY QUALITY IS IMPORTANT THAN MARKETING?
Brands and marketers can’t afford to overlook product quality for the following four reasons.
Builds Trust with Your Customers
Many believe that businesses won’t succeed if they can’t build customer trust. Countless potential sales are lost because a brand fails to make a deeper connection with prospective buyers. When you gain the confidence and loyalty of customers, you’re able to do more with your business, such as raise prices. The quality of your services and merchandise is one way to help you get customers to appreciate and believe in what you have to offer.
Word of Mouth
92 percent of people trust recommendations from friends and family. Word of mouth can be a persuasive factor in purchasing decisions both online and offline. Friends and family want to know if someone who’s similar to them had a good experience with a product. Good quality helps at having positive reviews, recommendations, and shares between customers.
Produces Less Customer Complaints & Returns
Spending more time and money upfront perfecting a product before it hits the market will minimize customer complaints and returns. It’s common for sellers of high-quality brands to spend more to persuade customers to try their goods, since the present value of a trial purchase is larger. If the companies are successful at pleasing customers during their initial experience with a product, there are higher chances to see repeat purchases from those same people.
Produce a Higher return on investment
Studies show that a strong positive association between quality and profitability exists. In fact, high quality product produces a higher return on investment for any given market share. Fewer defects or field failures result in lower manufacturing and service costs. Improvements in performance, features, or other dimensions of quality leads to increased sales.
IMPORTANCE OF MAREKTING
Being the first to market
Being first to market is the new news – the kind that people like to share and comment on. You are doing something different that people notice. Those who come next are your followers, doing something that has already been done but just with a variation. Being first makes you the leader, not just in the respective market but in people’s perceptions too. Once you are the leader, it’s very hard for competitors to dislodge you, even if they hit back with a better product. You can always improve your product informed by the knowledge and expertise gained from the customer base you’ve already captured.
Marketing introduces the product
Rather than quality, the calling card of any product has become its marketing tagline. Any product is only as good as, the strength and appeal of its marketing campaign. Also, the celebrity endorsements are on the rise. Studies have shown that buyers will be more readily persuaded by well-known figures and those they have a positive perception of.
You can sell flawed products with flawless ads
Marketing has become part of a customer’s life and you see so many marketing schemes across various forms of media. They not only catch the customer’s attention, but sustain it as well. This ensures that products are only as important as the marketing campaign unleashed to promote them.
Without marketing, even the best products would remain unknown
Regardless of the quality of a product, if the marketing campaign is not in place, even the best products of the top most quality would remain unknown to customers. To make the customers try a new product and feel its quality, it is important to make him buy it one time. Promotions play an important role here!
CONCLUSION
Digital era
While your product is critical to sustain the success of your business, poor branding in a digital era of social credibility and brand recognition can make your product irrelevant. Selling a vision is as important as selling the product itself. customers want to be part of a community that is recognized on social media and within popular culture.
Without quality, marketing is hollow
Customers can take companies to consumer courts for making false promises in marketing campaigns. This can create a situation where marketing alone will not counter the needs or demands of the customer. In the absence of quality, marketing is just a hollow promise with no real meaning. Marketing plays an important role during the launch. But when sales start coming in and your customer service or the product quality depreciates during that cycle, no amount of marketing will help. Good products and excellent humble customer service generate word-of-mouth publicity which is the strongest for marketing.
The customers point of view
Integrity purchases are those made for their perceived importance to society rather than solely for personal status. Buying a small, energy-efficient automobile, for example, can be a sign of personal integrity. Investment buying is geared toward long-lasting products, even if that means paying a little more. The emphasis is on such values as durability, reliability and craftsmanship. These changes in buying behavior reflect the pessimistic outlook of customers and their growing emphasis on quality rather than quantity: “If we’re going to buy less, let it be better.”
Scope for improvement
Conducting, regular customer satisfaction surveys and sample group interviews, to track customer and non-customer perceptions of the quality of its own as well as its competitors’ products and services is important. Marketers must also be active in contributing to perceptions of quality. Marketers have been too passive in managing quality. Successful businesses of today will use marketing techniques to plan, design, and implement quality strategies that stretch beyond the factory floor.
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. As times are changing, you will have to keep up. Company 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 marketing, but once found, the overall business of the company will definitely improve.