Service Marketing and Product Marketing - Essay Example

Example, if a car manufacturer sells extended warranty services against a car model the marketing aspects of such services are related with the performance of the product in the market segment and hence if the product is already selling successfully, the associated service packages can be sold without many problems. However, if services are sold independent of products then their marketing strategies need to be different. Coviello and Brodie et al. (2002. pp42) presented an empirical generalization that the companies selling products engage with their customers in more transactional manner whereas the companies selling services engage with their customers in more relational manner.

In fact if the work done by these researchers is analyzed closely, it reveals that the fundamental difference lies in the way the methodology of marketing is chosen - whether for products or for services. The researchers presented four methodologies of marketing - Transaction Marketing, Database Marketing, Interaction Marketing and Network Marketing. The choice of markets depends upon the way cash flow is expected from the consumers to the firm - one time or recurring. Any marketing strategy targeting regular cash flow from consumers will prefer relationship marketing.

Some marketing strategists prefer to adopt pluralistic approach of accompanying both relationship & transactional marketing depending upon the demands of the market segments. Example, low cost products & services may be promoted more through transactional marketing while premium products & services may be promoted more through relationship marketing. Database & network marketing are relatively complex and hence are of lesser preference among marketing professionals.Is Product or Services marketing fundamentally relatedCoviello and Brodie et al. (2002. pp42) argued that empirically the services & product marketing areas have been treated differently.

The engagement channels are more in services marketing than products marketing. Moreover, usage of IT enabled tools result in more impact on customers in the services marketing than product marketing. This is because the expectations of customers from services are more complex than from products. Krishnan and Ramaswamy et al. (1999. pp 1197-1200) presented a detailed research on customer satisfaction in banking & financial services industry. They presented that unlike manufacturing industries that produce fully tangible products, the financial services industry offers productized services that are delivered through multiple channels to the customers and hence the span of customer expectations widens given that their frequency of interactions with the companies are much more.

In case of products, a consumer may call the service lines only if a fault or defect is detected or else some usability features are not clear. These transactions are one time in nature that may occur few times in a year. However, in services industries the customers interact with the companies too often whereby their experience in every interaction counts in building the perceptions. Hence, in case of service