Written by: Vickie Sullivan | February 10, 2015
Branding Products vs Services
Many businesses sell both products and services. A key strategic brand question: is the positioning process the same or different?
Short answer to this question: same tools, different uses. Products are a tangible thing. People can see what they are getting. So the branding is a story about what this “thing” is and can do.
Services are intangible. The buyer can’t “see” what they are getting, so many businesses have to wrap tangibles around the story in order to make the services “real”.
Example: a website is a tool that gets your best brand “out there”. You wrap stories around the impact of creating a great site. Market strategy is intangible; you use stories to define what you get from analysis and recommendations.
Knowing the branding tools of the trade — such as stories — is a great first step. Knowing how to use the tools of the trade separates the masters from the apprentices.
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