How would you market 2 products — under an umbrella brand or separately?
I always struggle with how to market my two products (iOS Apps): Completely separate or under a company-like brand?
Some marketing channels like Website, Twitter, Instagram are currently separate.
But now I want to explore additional channels – for example a YouTube channel and a community (for feedback, help, FAQ, tips & tricks, ...).
A company umbrella
I could introduce a company-like brand and combine everything under that umbrella. It's company-like because I don't have a real company.
PROS
With that, I could see some benefits regarding cross-selling, lower costs of services, and maybe some reduced workload on my side, as I could create and post content for both products at once.
CONS
On the other hand, this would mean I have to create and maintain a third brand that usually none of my customers know and need to know.
Any tips, advice, or experience on how to handle this? 🤔
UPDATE
I didn't mention my products by intention, but that seemed to cause confusion instead: My first app is a (Work) Hours Tracker and with the second one you can create structured Meeting Minutes. Both are B2B apps. So there are some customers that use both. But the majority doesn't.
Must read for any entrepreneur that wants to understand branding. "building strong brands, by David A Aaker (https://www.amazon.com/Building-Strong-Brands-David-Aaker/dp/002900151X) it builds on the concept of brand portfolio strategies. However, given what you've described above, you're probably better off focusing. Only deviate from this if your customer segments are completely different. The goal should be to build equity in your brand before you start leveraging it's perceived value. If it doesn't have any all you'll be doing is diluting it.
Thank you and makes sense. Book is ordered.
Please visit my SaaS Marketing website. I have one brand and multiple products under it
https://hikeorders.com/
I have 2 iOS apps for stock market research: Company 360 and Super Investor. My approach was to create instagram, TikTok and FB page for Company 360 and place photos and videos of Super Investor there as well. Since they are related apps, it makes sense. My website unified them under one brand, but I see hardly any traffic through it - I only have it for terms of service statements and for list of links.
Most of my customers discovered my apps via direct AppStore search/ads, Reddit posts, FB forums posts.
Thanks for your answer. I can confirm that most traffic is coming within the AppStore search itself. And that's ok.
What you describe is another possibility, to use one product as the main entry and embed/integrate the other product there. That might be useful if one of the products is bigger (customer base, revenue, brand, ...) than the other.
From a legal standpoint I would run every under my personal business. From a branding standpoint I would position them as separate brands that both have my personal brand as the creator.
I like Dan Rowden‘s (@dr on Twitter) approach with his micro-SaaS brands.
I think putting them all under one umbrella makes the most sense. In addition to cross-selling which you've also covered, you can leverage the parent brand to build trust, too. If you ever decide to sell, you can sell them both as a package for more $$$.
What I do is Under one business I am Building my products/projects/tools/apps.
for example
'XXX' LLC/LTD/INC
'YYY' is a product of 'XXX' LLC/LTD/INC
'ZZZ' by 'XXX' LLC/LTD/INC
I do it to reduce paperwork.. as legal entity comes with a lot of paperwork
And do you actively promote your business or just your products?
I used to promote my business. but I have changed my approach. Instead of promoting business now, I promote my products. & that kinda promotes the business automatically
You'll need a new brand for each branch that comes out of your product. Maintaining it is hard, of course, but the loss of brand positioning for a big integrated product is much more in long term.
So you mean, it's better to handle each product independently?
Yes, although it highly depends on the value proposition of the apps. Since you've created two apps, I understand they're providing two separate values. So they need to position their unique brand values, and better not to mix them :)
I've updated my original posting to provide some more information about the apps. But in general you are right.
Of course, it's harder to maintain. But each brand must provide a unique value. The era of brands with multiple products (like General Motors, Samsung, etc.) is over and even they too are moving to less complex brands.
Interesting point. Thanks.
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Thank you. But my questions is more about the marketing, not the legal side of that problem. Or did I miss something in your answer? 🙁
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I'm sorry for any confusion and missing information.
My intention was to get experiences in a more general manner.
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