AMA: Square Product Lead, Carrie Zhang on Product Management vs Product Marketing

Good question. I view product management and product marketing as close partners since we co-own the strategy and business outcome. Cannot say I have best practices, rather some guiding principles of how I would like to see us work together. 1. Involve each other early. I hate the model where the product team does a hard handoff to product marketing only when the product/ feature is ready to launch. PM, PMM, as well as other disciplines like Design, Engineering, and Data Science all bring unique perspectives to problem solving. You are much better off involving each other early so that the PMM understands the “what”, “why”, and “when” of what is being built; and the PM knows how it is going to be marketed to target customers. 2. A healthy debate is a good thing! We all bring our unique experiences to the table and it’s natural to have different opinions. Cherish that and don’t be territorial. It’s OK if the PMM questions why you are prioritizing feature A over B in the roadmap. It’s also OK if you ask whether the marketing plan is going to achieve the awareness or acquisition goal for the product. For the teams I’ve been on, I’ve always felt open, respectable discussions and sometimes debates have led to better decisions. 3. Respect the other side’s expertise. At some point, you cannot continue to discuss/ debate and the team needs to move forward. That’s when you have to respect your partner’s expertise and “disagree and commit”. This is especially important to remember for people with strong opinions - myself included! :)

* It’s a good idea to try internal transfer if you want to transition from PMM to PM, or vice versa. Learning the craft of a new discipline is not easy. You are more likely to set yourself up for success if you minimize other variables like new company, new product, new team. * Anchor on your strength. There are many transferable skills between the two disciplines, e.g., customer discovery, data analytics, communication and influencing skills. Leverage your strength in the new role and you will find it easier to get early wins and build confidence in yourself. * But definitely work on filling those gaps in your skills. If you are transitioning from PMM to PM, the most important thing to learn is to work well with your engineers. You don’t have to have a technical background, nor do you need to know how to code, but you do need to have the curiosity to learn how your product’s technical infrastructure works, and how that may impact Eng scope and speed when you make product decisions. Learn best practices of product development. For that I cannot recommend enough reading Marty Cagan’s book Inspired.

The product manager (PM) decides “what” to build and “when”, and is accountable for delivering the product or feature that delights customers. The product marketer (PMM) informs “what” to build, and is accountable for driving the demand for what has been built. Both require deep customer and market insights. Both need to think strategically about how to differentiate your product in your space. The difference lies in execution. On a day-to-day basis, the PM works very closely with designers and engineers to discover, design, scope, and implement what needs to be built. You are much more focused on your product’s functionalities as well as its UI/ UX. The PMM, on the other hand, works very closely with go-to-market teams. You are focused on positioning the product, translating features into compelling customer messages, and enabling your marketing and sales colleagues. Metric wise, I tend to think the PMM is more responsible for acquisition, i.e., getting customers into the product; and the PM is more responsible for retention, i.e., getting customers to stay with the product.

From the very beginning and throughout the development process. This is very much related to the previous question. I will try to bring to life how the process works on the Square teams. * For any new feature development, we hold a kickoff/ problem alignment with PM, PMM, Design, Eng and Data Science. The goal is to align on the customer problem, generate hypotheses, identify open questions that need further investigation. From there, PM, PMM, and Design may divide and conquer customer research tasks. * Once the team is aligned on this is the right problem to solve and the right time, Design and Eng will lead the solution generation. We do weekly design check-ins where PMMs are invited to follow how the team is progressing. * Solution design is finalized and now the Eng team is heads-down executing. At this point, the PMM is well aware of the customer problem and the solution space, and they start the go-to-market planning with creative and channel partners. * You are ready to launch! For bigger features, we will have a pre-launch meeting where we go through beta or testing party results, and the PMM shares the go-to-market plan. For smaller ones, the PMM populates the GTM section in the PRD.

Ha, organizational design questions are always the fun ones. :) These types of questions don’t have a right or wrong answer. Each design will have its pros and cons and it’s all about what you are trying to optimize. When I started in product marketing at Square, we reported into marketing. About 8 months later, we got spun off marketing and reported into product GMs. While I didn’t think that changed how I did my job - reflecting on the experience - I did feel some differences. While I was in marketing, I felt a lot closer and in sync with my channel and creative partners. On the other hand, when I became part of the product team, I got more involved in product strategy and roadmap discussions. I think the choice comes down to where your company expects product marketing to lean more into - product work or marketing communications work. To be clear, Square’s model is not product marketing reporting to product management. We have more of a General Manager model and view product management, product marketing, design, engineering, and data science as the 5 disciplines that make up a full-stack product team. I personally really enjoy this setup. It fosters that mindset of owning your product and its outcome.

It’s a joint decision between product management and product marketing at Square. In general our PMMs tend to have more ownership here. They will lead competitive analysis and commission qual/ quant research to inform pricing decisions. That said, from what I observed, when you zoom into the specific PM/ PMM pair, it really comes down to whoever has the expertise and the respect from the team to make the right call.

* Revenue, P&L ownership. * Customer discovery. Our PMs and designers tend to lead more qualitative research while our PMMs tend to lead more quantitative surveys. * Product strategy. At Square, PM is the ultimate DRI (Directly Responsible Individual). * Pricing and packaging. At Square, PMM is the ultimate DRI.