Why Your Product Is Your Most Important Branding Tool

The first time I heard about the 4 P’s in Marketing was in 2009. I was studying marketing in university.

At the time, they felt like textbook ideas that might or might not apply in the real world.

However, I’ve since learned that the 4 P’s are real, and the success of your brand depends on how well you handle them.

If you don’t know, the 4 P’s stand for:

• Product – what you’re selling

• Price – how much it costs

• Promotion – how you market it

• Place – where and how it’s sold

The Essence Of A Great Brand Strategy

Cue the obvious. Without a great product your brand is doomed to fail. However, you would be surprised how many businesses make this exact mistake.

They fall in love with their product, but not their customer.

They are talking excitedly about their upcoming features, but their customers don’t care.

If you are a value led founder, you start with your mission and values, but if you want to be successful, you have to connect this to what your customers want.

A Great Product Drives Every Other P

As an advertiser, I’d love to tell you it’s all strategy, keywords, creatives.

Picking the right strategy is important. But it will all fail if the product doesn't align with what the customer wants.

Only when your product is great, can you think about the other P’s.

• Price is only justified if the product delivers unique value.

• Promotion becomes easier and more authentic with a great product.

• Place (distribution) decisions depend on product fit and customer behavior.

Pivot When The Market Tells You To

A past client of mine created a software product for the gym industry. We kept adding more features and I was helping him promote them through our advertising strategy.

However, we never hit the success/scale we wanted. After a lot of reflection and talking to our customers, we made a complete pivot. Instead of catering to lots of small gym studios, we offered a very niche and specific solution to high-end gyms.

Although this audience was harder to reach, we immediately felt the effects in a positive way of this hyper-specific offer.

A change in product / offer was all it took. Since we knew exactly what we were offering and to who, creating our messaging and advertising strategy was also a lot easier.

Role of Feedback Loops

In our earlier blog post, we mentioned the importance of using feedback from marketing (ads, landing pages, etc.) to improve both your product and your messaging

Ads aren’t just for selling, they are a tool for listening.

This is especially powerful in the early stages of brand positioning. You can use ads to test different value propositions, pain points, or feature sets before investing heavily in a single direction.

For example:

Run split tests on messaging variations to see which resonates more deeply with your target segment.

Use high-intent landing pages to validate assumptions about product features or pricing.

Track ad comments and engagement, especially on platforms like Meta or LinkedIn, to gather feedback.

You can use this feedback, to improve your product, or even to find out if people want your product in the first place, if you are pre-launch.

Let Your Product Talk

Look at your last three marketing campaigns—were they struggling because of messaging… or because of misaligned product expectations?

Before you invest in more ads, a new logo, or a big rebrand, ask yourself:

“Is your product so good that all your brand needs to do is be honest?”

If you’re not sure, start there.

Because once your product hits home, every other part of your brand starts working harder for you.

Want to test your product’s positioning before your next campaign?

Grab our Free Brand Strategy & Identity Blueprint to build your brand the right way.

JESSE HESLINGA

Performance Marketer

Co-founder of Groove Media