Hello, Creating 2 products in the same industry. Each product has very different purposes but overlap part of their target demographic. For example, let's assume the industry is cooking. Product 1 is an app that times each step of a recipe and alerts when time is up. Product 2 is an app that is a recipe database. It is possible that these can communicate but not necessary for either to work. Would you recommend 1) Keep the 2 apps separate with separate brand names and separate domain names. Example: app.kitchentimer.com and app.recipedatabase.com OR 2) Incorporate them together as 2 products from the same company? Example: timer.ourcookingcompany.com and recipes.ourcookingcompany.com? Our current arguments: We would choose #1 because we have 2 strong, keyword branded domain names that are descriptive and will be easy to optimize for search. This also allows the companies to be sold independently later down the road. We choose #2 because we could create a stronger brand with more options coming from the brand thus increasing trust and cross selling possibilities. Thanks for your thoughts.
My answer is Yes, I think that you should do both, for now. Heavily promote the product-specific brands while acknowledging the overall holding company brand to a lesser extent. So, what I am saying is lead with the primary product brand (e.g. kitchentimer.com) but have a secondary brand associated with the overall company (ourcookingcompany.com.) At this early stage in your launch, your branding approach does not have to be either or. You will have time to see how effective each approach is and let the best one win. The reason that I am suggesting that you favor the specific product brand first is that it will be more cost effective and productive to do so with limited start-up funds.