12 Reasons Why Products Outweigh Promotion.

Needs

Products address what customers wants - if they don't, they die.
Promotion tries, too often, to dictate what customers need.

Discovery

Products are discovered by customers and that builds "ownership".
Promotion, in targetting customers, too often removes that potential.

Experience

Products are as much the experience of using them as what they do.
Promotion can only suggest or hype what that experience is like.

Passion

Products engender passion via tangible results and intangible satisfaction.
Promotion simply cannot do that.

Sales

Products generate repeat sales because of all of the above.
Promotion can, at best, amplify feedback.

Rationale

Products are what customers want.
Promotion is what retailers want.


None of this is to suggest that promotion is futile or indeed that you can't successfully promote a bad product in the short-run. Far from it. But promotion works best when it has something worthwhile to promote, because that very fact imbues the efforts with credence and enables the marketer to believe what they're saying.

To achieve that, you have to start by focussing on the creation of the product/service. Do so and you will find that the marketing themes will emerge almost naturally and will be more authentic and effective because of that. Fail to do so and you will find that nobody's paying attention.