Service vs. Product Marketing

Nickle Electrical is a service-based company, as are many others in the construction industry — general contractors, architects, engineers, etc. Some may think that marketing is just marketing. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a large difference between marketing techniques for companies who are service-based, like Nickle, and others that are product-based, such as a hardware store.

In the simplest terms, products are physical objects — clothing, dog food, home decorations, office supplies. Services are intangible — electrical work, lawn care, dry cleaning, legal advice. These services are actions related to your home or business.

Key Differences Between Services and Products

• Services are intangible, with no physical look, shape, or weight. Products are physical beings that can be seen, touched, and felt.
• Services are all about creating relationships and trust with the customer, while a product may simply satisfy a want or need in a specific moment.
• Services are performed instead of created. Products are produced and typically done so in mass quantities.
• It’s more difficult to determine the quality of a service until the company has finished providing it. You can tell right away whether a product is high-quality before you make the purchase.
• Services are typically customized for each specific customer. The exact same product can be sold to hundreds of people at once.
• Since services are not physically produced, they cannot be stocked and pre-packaged.
• It’s incredibly difficult to undo a service, and it cannot be returned. If you don’t like a product, you can simply return it.

Product Marketing Approach

Product marketing promotes and sells a specific product to a specific audience. The common approach includes the 4 P’s:

• Product — the tangible object you will be marketing
• Place — where will your customers be so that you can reach them?
• Price — this impacts supply, demand, and promotion budget
• Promotion — how are you going to publicize your product? Consider social media, advertising, email, and search engines

Service Marketing Approach

Service marketing promotes intangible benefits and solutions. A service description is important — because a service is intangible, you must lay out exactly what the service is, why it’s important, and what the result will be. The 4 P’s apply, but there are 3 additional P’s for services:

• People — focus on both the employees performing the service and the customer receiving it. Training, skills, and communication are characteristics your employees need to provide a good customer experience.
• Process — no matter how you’ve customized the service, it should always be done with the same quality as every other project. Processes streamline each experience and result in higher efficiency.
• Physical Evidence — the physical characteristics of provided services matter. This includes both the high-quality result and the high-quality features of your business and its people.

As our world develops and technology advances, there is some overlay between products, services, and the marketing approach to each. However, it’s still important to understand the differences between both in order to make your service or product successful.