The world of product marketing is much more of a two-way street than a lot of people seem to realize. Marketing is nothing if not a communications medium – in this case, you’re opening a direct line of contact between your brand and the people you’re trying to serve. Whether you’re talking about letterheads, business cards, announcements, coupons, product labels or product packaging doesn’t matter – all of these and more give you an opportunity to directly connect with a member of your target audience in a way that you can’t afford to ignore (or take for granted).
But the key thing to understand is that you’re talking about more than just individual services. You’re talking about something that should, in theory, add up to a much more meaningful whole: a larger brand experience. In terms of product marketing success, one of the most powerful ideas to focus on can be summed up in a single word: continuity.
What Does “Continuity” Mean, Anyway?
In this context, continuity simply means consistency across the board. Everything that you do – from the products and services that you offer to the packaging that you design to the print marketing collateral that you push out into the world – should all feel like it’s coming from the same basic place. Not only does this go a long way towards decreasing the possibility of brand confusion, but it also helps separate you from your competition at the exact same time.
In a larger sense, it’s the idea that regardless of how someone interacts with your brand – be it in the form of a product that they just picked up off a store shelf or a visit to your website – it should feel like both of those things are rooted in the same organization.
Take pressure sensitive labels, for example – the perfect packaging option for everything from foods and beverages to traditional products to shipping and mailing labels and so much more. If someone sees a label on one of your products and then visits your website, these two experiences should compliment one another. Oftentimes, this can be as simple as making sure that you’re using the same version of your company’s logo on both your website and on your product labels. Other times it runs deeper, relating to things like language choices to color schemes and more.
To that end, you need to stop thinking about letterheads, product labels, business cards and print collateral like flyers (to use just a few examples) as four distinct elements. When executed properly, they should all be four PARTS of the same WHOLE that is your larger product marketing effort.
It’s All About the Experience
In the end, continuity matters in the world of product materials because it plays directly into the promise that you’re making to your audience in the first place. Your brand promise is one of the most important tools that you have in terms of making a connection with the widest possible audience, in part because it runs far deeper than any one product or service in the first place. Product launches come and go and services change all the time – but if you play your cards right, the brand experience (which translates directly into your reputation) is the thing that can transcend ALL of this.
Continuity therefore becomes the thread that runs through all of these elements, bringing them together to form a cohesive whole. It also helps sell the idea that everything – from your digital and print collateral down to your product packaging to the products themselves – are all A) coming from the same place, and B) coming from a place that is worth paying attention to. If you’re able to do this right, you’re talking about something so valuable that you just can’t put a price on it.
Let us help and learn how we can be your one source for all your commercial printing!