Product Marketing vs Product Management

Like any good working relationship, you have to take the time to build trust. Here’s a few things I do to build trust and position myself as a strategic partner to PM. *  Meet regularly and come with a prepared agenda. It doesn’t necessarily have to be weekly but know how you want to use the time and deliver value to them as well. This might include asking them to walk through the latest roadmap rationale and asking them questions around what challenges they’re running into with testing, adoption and see if there’s an area where you can help them. Whether it's supporting so...

I've heard before that product marketing KPIs can be squishy—that it's hard to quantify the value of what we do. I don't agree! I have a few KPIs that are unique to PMM, and a few that are tackled with PM, just from a different angle. I'll focus mostly on the shared KPIs: Shared: Feature adoption. Self-serve or Sales-led/assisted - PM would be responsible for continuous feature use over the lifecycle of an account (is the thing we built actually useful and intuitively designed?) - PMM is responsible for adoption within the first ~30 days (did we get the right message in front of the r...

This is a great question! Depending on your product and the complexity of your funnel, PMM may have more or less impact on the metrics PM is responsible for. As you plan KPIs for your PMM team, ensure that they are far enough up-funnel that your team can impact them- or make sure that the PMM team has enough influence on the downfunnel experience (which is usually within the product itself) to impact that metric. For example, if you're working on a credit card sign-up journey: PMM could own the application rate while PM owns ultimate card sign-ups.

I think there’s a high degree of overlap. The two functions may cut metrics differently or over different time horizons but for the most part many metrics are shared. A few examples that are top of mind:  * Acquisition / Conversion / Activation - if you’re at a self serve or PLG company, Growth PMs might be really focused on activation and getting customers to the ‘a-ha’ value moment. Whereas PMMs, may be focused on acquisition specifically tied to campaigns or a specific buyer persona (i.e. are we converting the right leads). * Win Rates - PMs will generaly know about win/lo...

There is no one-size-fits-all response to this answer. At Snow Software, where I lead Product Marketing and Operations, pricing falls under me. Prior to my arrival, pricing fell under Product Management. I had an interest in owning pricing and the Product Management lead did not, so it was a quite simple decision. We recently hired a Pricing Manager who works closely with Sales Operations and partners with PM and PMM on pricing strategy. When Product Management owns pricing, I would see the role of the PMM as providing feedback on pricing via Win-Loss Analysis. Pricing is one of the 4Ps of...

I've always felt like this question felt a bit like, "who owns features, engineering or product?" Both teams are responsible for different points in the lifecycle.  In my ideal version of the world, pricing overhauls (a new pricing strategy like moving from seats to usage), is managed by a project management team. It's a lot of chasing folks for research, input, and decisions.  PMM should play the role of: * Understanding market comparisons (how complementary and competitive solutions price) * Feature value ranking—to inform what value customers derive from the product in ord...

At one point pricing and packaging sat in the PMM team at Intercom but as pricing and packaging became more complex for us with many, many plans, we actually now have a dedicated pricing and packaging team that PMM works closely with when it comes to new product releases to determine if they fit within existing plans or need to be an add-on, and which plans access given features.  The P&P team tends to own P&P overall and for much bigger product releases, and for smaller tier 2/3 releases, PMM will still drive for those. Product will have input into these conversations but they're not th...

IME this should sit in engineering, but it's generally not a bad idea for the copy writer to solicit PMM feedback. PMM needs to be hyper focused on strategic tasks. This is a good example of a tactical distraction. 

If your company has the resources, I would advocate for there to be an in-app copy writer that sits under design. By putting them with design, they will have the shortest path to where the product is actually being made. That being said, they should be very aligned with both product management and product marketing.  In one of my past roles, it's been a combination of product management and product marketing who were responsible for it. 

We like keeping this with the PMM or a Product Manager/Owner, as the person writing this copy needs to be super familiar with the product and user experience. They need to be power users, IMO. Occasionally, I've leveraged Support or Customer Success Managers for this as well, becausr they are so familiar with the ins and outs of the user experience.   Another solution would be to have someone is design or engineering draft the basic copy and have a copywriter make it sound better.

  It depends on how big your company is! At large companies, there’s often a Content Strategy or Product Writing person or team that sits under Design. The PMM should ensure the in-product copy aligns with overall positioning, but is not the directly responsible person for that.    Absent a product writer, a PMM should work with a PM to deliver the right in-product copy.

For my company, it's currently shared between product, product marketing and design, but that's mostly a factor of being a startup and in the process of building out each of those functions. I think about it in two ways: 1. Is the in-app copy descriptive of the product itself? Things like feature names, onboarding wizard copy, CTAs make sense to cut across the three teams I mentioned, with product and design having a heavy say in those decisions. 2. Is the in-app copy meant to drive conversion activity / sales conversations? To me, this fits more with product marketing. Ulti...

In-app copy typically falls under Product Marketing. If it is something you do not own today, my advice would be to work with the Design/PM team who is currently owning this to understand how you can contribute/collaborate. For technical products, I often find PM/Engineering actually choose to own the copy. There may be some bias that they understand the customer better than you do. There is no rule for ownership but if it is something you want to do then I would talk to your extended team and show them why PMM owning in-app copy is the best plan for your business. Ensure you understand the...

In my opinion, PMM has a better vantage of customer needs and command of customer voice to produce best in app copy, product naming nomenclature and in-product guidance. This responsibility can be shared with UX and PM to ensure everyone is on the same page. Engineering and PM usually need a lot of help in this department as it is not their forte. 

In-app copy does fit with Product Marketing - and Product! So technically, our PM team owns the in-product experience but PMM has full access to the tool. We have a slack channel for all in-app messaging and anyone who wants to do one posts in there following a format that says the purpose, how long it will run, to whom it will be shown, and a preview. Folks can ask questions, offer suggestions, and then we give the approval to set live. The results of these go into our quarterly retros.  If it is on our website itself - we use a Drift bot. That mostly lives with our Demand Gen team but ...

A few answers here, based on use case!  Naming inside the product (like features, tabs, or experiences) would be handled by PMM during the launch process. PM is likely to have ideated an internally-referenced name early on, but as we get past the beta and understand what value users actually derive from the feature, PMM adjusts to better match what the user would expect to see, for the task they want to complete. Other copy in the product UI that describes what a function is, or does, in the shortest and sharpest way, is handled by our design team (which sits inside our product org). ...

This is always a gray area :) At Gong, most UX copy is owned by the product writing team, except for naming "Tier 1" products. Together with that team, we established a list of criteria that qualifies features or products as "Tier 1;" such as, the feature/product changes core product pillar messaging, or requires customer change management, or changes how we sell or demo the product. These are really dependent on your business. For in-app cues (like announcement banners/modals, etc), we've established a RASCI model based on the objectives of the copy / in-app cue. I highly recommend s...

The copy in the product itself is owned by our Product Design team. However, we have a Customer Engagement / Customer Lifecycle Marketing team that owns copy for in-app messages like tooltips, banners, carousels etc. PMM will also schedule in-app messages (depends on the message itself) where we will own the copy. I know some orgs will have copywriters specifically for the product that will sit within the product or UX team, but I think this is more of a luxury at most organizations.

Yes depending on the type of feedback sought we have different owners, but we are trynig to move to a place where the Customer PMM owns tracking of outreach (we don't want to ping the same account 7 times across different deparments). In-product NPS is owned by customer success, but interviews off the back of low or high scores are often handled jointly by CS and PMM. Beta feedback is owned by the product team, but PMM might often tag along for interviews so we can see from a customer's perspective how they would describe the value they receive. Product UX feedback is owned by desi...

This depends on the company's norms and how different teams have been set up. I've seen user research lead this entirely, and I've also seen a dedicated "Voice of the Customer" program manager who wrangled all internal listening channels.  One area where I've seen PMM historically drive a ton of value is with market and competitive insights. Especially at Gong, given our product, Product Managers have access to customer insights but oftentimes don't have visibility into opportunities outside of the customer base. Focusing specifically on customer feedback (or user feedback), PMs gener...

I think there are actually 2 questions here. Who collects the feedback, and how a team decides to respond to it. The maturity of the product matters here, so I'll break it down into 2 stages: 1. For very early-stage products, keep a much responsibility withing the core working group as possible- This means collecting feedback, troubleshooting, analysis, and sales enablement/internal comms and education. Shortening the feedback loop helps the team move faster. In this model, both PM and PMM collect feedback through the channels they have access to. PMM is critical in th...

Many different functions gather customer feedback - we have a customer feedback hub that attempts to centralize all the different streams of customer feedback from various teams into one dashboard / engine. This includes everything from NPS surveys, feature requests logged in product, win/loss notes from Salesforce etc. We have a research team that drives a lot of this feedback, but product often is gathering customer feedback from betas, PMM from buyer persona research, BizOps from broader market research etc. I think what matters is less who is collecting the feedback, but moreso how you’...

Short answer. When you are more deep than broad. When you like things more than people.  Long answer.  There are no rules to this. Skills evolve and change over time. You may want to pursue an option longer term even if the fit is weak today. That being said, PMs tend to be more detail-oriented than PMMs. They have to be, writing a 6 page PRD that accounts for all edge cases is something that takes a lot of depth and intellectual rigor. PMMs have a different challenge, they need to look at the forest from the trees, and map out strategy. PMMs need to change their focus constantly, PMs...

It comes down to which aspects of the role excite you the most. Depending on the company you are working at, Product Marketing and Product Management can have a lot of overlap. I’ll first discuss some of the similarities and differences in the roles before summarizing how you should think about making the choice. Early in my career I found this Medium article instructive in deciding which path to pursue. Product Marketing really has two sets of functions, “outbound” activities and “inbound” activities. Put simply, “outbound” Product Marketing focuses on activities like developing marketi...

I recently had a member of my team leave Product Marketing to become a Product Manager. We spent a few months talking through and planning this transition. During this process, what I learned is that the decision to be a PM or PMM comes down to where you enjoy spending your time. PM and PMM are both focused on solving customer problems. They just go about it in different ways. The PM works to build a product that solves the problem whereas the PMM focuses on building the go-to-market strategy required for that customer to know that a product exists in market that can solve their pro...

A few questions to ask yourself: Do you want to be the mini-CEO of the product? Do you have enough experience to appreciate how engineering operates to build a product?  Are you comfortable making major tradeoffs between direct customer requests and company strategic priorities? Are you savvy enough to navigate tough decisions when requirements or quality are cut to meet deadlines? Are you excited about documenting product strategy, epics, users stories and low level requirements? If you answered yes to a majority of these, by all means seek out a role in PM. 

Starting in CPG brand management I had the good fortune to wear both of these hats (and many more!) early in my career. This ignited a love for both disciplines and started me down a path where I'd jump back and forth between them for about a decade (thanks to all my incredible managers who never forced me to choose a lane!). There are similarities in the roles - which sometimes creates confusion and tension - in the ways they focus on the end user, influence through storytelling, sweat positioning and facilitate within complex xfn environments, so it's natural for talented individuals to b...

Interests: What kind of questions do you want to answer? This is just my personal take, and probably oversimplified, but if you're driven by optimization questions like "Who is getting the most value out of this?" "How do we better articulate what this thing does?" "How do we increase close rates at the enterprise?" then you're more likely to want to stay in PMM. If you're driven by value creation questions like, "What would make this product really exciting and engaging?" "How do we stay ahead of the competition?" "How do we build world class experiences?" AND you're incredibly comfortab...

This question hits home for me. In a previous role, I explored the opportunity to move to the PM org, so I did a bunch of research. First, at a high level, I love the book "Designing Your Life." If you're into self-reflection and personal growth books, this one's for you. It'll help you zero in on the type of work that gives you energy vs drains your energy. Then, I would do some candid interviews with PMs to understand what a day in the life is like, because sometimes from the PMM perspective we're only seeing half of the story. My own personal takeaway was that a PM's process is ...

Would you rather answer the question "how" or "why"? In my opinion, product managers are more apt to answer the "how" and product marketers are more apt to answer the question "why". That being said, great PMs and PMMs are able to do both. It comes down to it being a personal choice. The fact that you're asking this question means you're curious and empathetic. Keep it up!

I’ll outline where I see PM and PMM overlap and diverge, and what signals to look out for to assess the better fit for you. I had a chance to test out a PM role in the past and was a CPG Brand Manager which is similar to a PM.  PM/PMM Overlap. They both: * Have the end goal of solving a customer/end user problem. This requires a deep understanding of who the customer is, their needs and the value they seek. * Work cross-functionally to get x-func teams bought into a vision, solutions to a customers' problem and plans for how to get customers adopting and using new products...

tl:dr: Both and then some.  It is as important for product marketers to be involve in the inception stage as it is when taking new feature/product to market. Features that are built in vacuum seldom stick or give your product a market advantage. Product marketers input is key to how roadmap is prioritized based on customer need, value delivered, competitive advantage gained or $$$ unblocked in deals, or $$$ unlocked in TAM. Being involved in the inception stage also gives the product marketer a deep understanding of the challenges the feature/product attempt to solve, what approach is th...

Bringing in information about trends in the market, what competitors are doing, and the most important thing - USER FEEDBACK! I have learned over the years that the best way to get any sort of buy-in for roadmap planning is to come armed with real evidence. This includes existing user anecdotes but it also definitely includes higher-level trends you are seeing in the market. I think PMMs should be utilized as more than just marketers, we should be experts on our users, their needs, and the climate they are working within. Of course, things like naming, positioning, targeting are very import...

I have seen it go both ways. It really depends on the relative strength of the product and product marketing teams. Product marketing, though, is probably the best positioned part of the business to be a voice for segments of the market and the future customers that don't already have a voice in your business. It's the customers who aren't prospects yet, the markets you haven't entered. In my experience there are plenty of voices speaking for bug fixes and feature enhancements for existing products at existing customers -- Customer success is usually the loudest voice for this. The sa...

This answer really depends on the partnership between PM and PMM at your organization. Are you the type of company where PM and PMM are partners? Or are you the type of organization where both groups operate in different silos? If there is a strong partnership, then the PMM should be just as valuable a team member to the PM as their Designer or Engineer. Strong PMMs bring the voice of the market – the positioning, messaging, insights from win/loss, voice of the field, and insights from winning/failed marketing plans – into the product development lifecycle. At the end of the day, “what to...

Product marketers should leave there stamp outside and inside the product. What I mean is that traditional marketing always takes place outside of the product i.e. sales enablement, blogs, technical demos, tools etc . Now with the advent of SaaS PMMs can market inside the product as well. By having a pulse on the customers end to end journey PMM can shine a light on where the experience can be improved by highlighting moments that matter. PMM should also co-own consumption targets like MAU and DAU and help PM / engineering drive product experience improvements to increase usage. There are t...

I think both, though the latter (naming, branding, messaging, etc) seems to be the default for most PMMs. If PMMs want to partake in the beginning of the cycle—what's actually being built, they need to bring new data—not just personal opinions. Product managers have a product vision that aligns with the company mission, incredibly deep market grounding, a keen understanding of what's actually possible given engineering resource, and (hopefully) a clear understanding of product usage. They have strong hypotheses about what to build.  So I think PMM's participation would look a little l...

In terms of roadmap, one area where I've seen PMM historically drive a ton of value is through market and competitive insights. By bringing insights from the market, competitive landscape, buyers, and/or analysts, PMM can ensure that product has considered all inputs when they build their roadmap.  Here is a deck we've used internally to help build collaboration between PM & PMM. If you're still struggling with being brought in too late, my advice is to focus on 1-2 deliverables that could really drive value for your product org. Pilot that with a product group or PM, and then go from th...

The answer has a lot to do with how you and your PM work together. Ultimately, much of the PM<>PMM relationship comes down to what you each agree to own- it's different for every group. It's a relationship that requires a lot of influence without control. The more trust and rapport you have built, the better your work will be.  If you and your PM don't see eye-to-eye, or they feel a lot of ownership over the roadmap and aren't open to influence -> Focusing on message strategy and GTM (sometimes called 'outbound marketing') can be an easy way to show value as you build the relationship. A...

You're basically asking how to get PM to do their job. It sounds like the PM in your example just lacks a fundamental understanding of that they need to do. That's a HUGE issue. My advice? Forget about the PM and look at his/her boss and the CEO. Is this a systemic issue with the company, or is management bought in to what PM needs to do. If management is bought in, you might want to suggest an offsite or putting the team through Pragmatic Marketing. If management is NOT bought in, get a new job because your company is going nowhere fast.     

Whether you're trying to improve the relationship with the PM or to advance the conversation with their boss/leadership per Mike's suggestion above, you can make a more effective case if you're able to bring data to the discussion. First you need to be able to clearly articulate customer problems that are unaddressed with the existing product and roadmap. If you don't know what those problems are, as a PMM you have scope to try and help define them. If you're in B2B, talk to salespeople to get an initial idea. If you're in B2C, look for on-hand feedback from sources if you have them: NPS...

I agree with Mike's answer here. In many B2B organizations, a Product Manager is synonymous to a Release Manager. And in these environments, the product teams are not communicating to sales. If that is the case, it will be difficult to change that culture.  The best way to cut through this is to quantify feature prioritization in $$. In most organizations, the only language that everyone understands is that of revenue. It can help you get the necessary support from management.  Here are some tips that I have seen work in my previous roles:  * Engage Customer Success. You need the cu...

Yes! I can relate! Feature-level messages are so limited on the marketing side. Part of your job as PMM is help recommend the best way to 1) connect features benefits, 2) roll benefits into value props, and 3) provide positioning statements for your target markets.  PMMs can take the lead on drafting this work but it's really beneficial to include your PM and other key stakeholders in the process to get their buy in. Once you settle on the place you want to go with regard to value prop, consider testing the messaging and putting it in front of customers.  As you validate the streng...

Based on the question, it sounds to me like your product management team isn't thinking very strategically. Perhaps they're not close enough to customers, or they're too close to a select few, who have taken over the roadmapping process for their own needs. I'd encourage you to try to translate the company's strategy and positioning into themes, and talk to product leadership about what the key areas of innovation are that will make the company successful over time. Product knows as well as any team in the company that sprints are one of the most precious resources in the business. Help ...

The job of Product Management should be to focus on solving customers problems not simply shipping new features no one is going to use.  If this behavior is isolated to one Product Manager, then I would work closely with that PM to understand the key metrics of success for that feature which should relate back to some form of product adoption.  If this behavior is broad – meaning the entire PM organization cares more about shipping features than solving customer problems – then this is a very tough problem. You can’t solve this yourself. Only the Head of Product can solve this problem...

The Product Manager's job is more than that, but you are right. We have to focus on consumer problems and solve them. However, we have a massive list of problems and bugs to fix and prioritize based on business growth, data results, and features that directly impact the goals. You can try to ask your Product Manager about the changes and bugs that he is prioritizing to understand how long it will take to fix the problems the users and marketing identified. Some Product Managers can make mistakes like dive into new features instead of fix problems, but if these problems significantly impact ...

I suggest that you start by taking a step back to really diagnose the problem. Why is it that the team wants to ship so many features?  I try to always assume good intent. With that in mind, the team's actions are probably logical, but there is either mis-alignment on the goal they are optimizing for or the process that will best get to the goal.  Start by getting on the same page about the goal. Do you have the same undersatnding of vision for the future of the product? Are you focused on the same metrics? Are you building for the same segment of customers?... Does the product team well ...

Ah I'm sorry you're in that situation. PMM should be part of product roadmapping meetings, since everything that's in the queue should be going through some sort of business valuation (what is the cost/benefit of putting this feature into the world). But I think stepping back to understand the motives here might be a good place to start. Maybe there's a company OKR on product differentiation, or a cross-team initiative to reduce competitive losses? Or maybe product<>market fit isn't quite there and the team is experimenting with different use cases for different audiences? If none of ...

This is extremely important but not easy to do. Sometimes it feels like product managers are so busy shipping features that they don't see the forest through the trees. If you involve them in the research process, they are more apt to incorporate the customer feedback into their deliverables. If possible, get your PMs face-to-face with a customer. Help them build some customer empathy. If that's not possible, provide short snippets of conversations in Gong. Be persistent. It's important. 

A few ideas on how to respond to your product partners in these situations: *  Propose bundled launches- Group similar features into one announcement to decrease cognitive load for users. *  Create requirements for broader marketing support- Create a framework of how PMM supports different levels of features. How does your team support features that are seeking product<>market fit vs scaled mature features? Share explicit expectations around funnel performance with your product partner, dig in with them about how to improve feature engagement. *  Highlight risks- If a f...

When looking at the product lifecycle, I typically refer to a framework like Product School’s 7 Phases of Product Development: • Phase 1 – Discovery • Phase 2 – Define • Phase 3 – Design • Phase 4 – Implementation • Phase 5 – Marketing • Phase 6 – Training • Phase 7 - Launch The critical points for collaboration occur in phases 5 – 7 described above. In these stages, the PM and PMM work together on messaging & positioning, value proposition, train the sales teams, and build a go-to-market that will lead to the official release of this new product and feature. While these final 3 phases a...

I am also a huge fan of Amazon's "working backwards" framework where a press release is written at the onset of development. In organizations that use this methodology, it is a great time to bring in the PMM. It also begs the question, when should a press release be written? We typically write in in Phase 5 or 7. I'd argue we should be using this template or another much sooner in the process. https://www.product-frameworks.com/Amazon-Product-Management.html

Ideally, PMM comes in during the product roadmap process. One area where I've seen PMM historically drive value is through market and competitive insights. Especially at Gong, given our product, Product Managers have access to customer insights but oftentimes don't have visibility into opportunities outside of the customer base.  When it comes to the product lifecycle, PMM should proactively come in very early on. For the same reasons as above, PMM brings a complementary perspective to the decision-making process. By bringing insights from the market, competitive landscape, buyers, and a...

1. Intial product definition - Owned by Product, PMM consults. Help the team to assess: Are we building something that meets the basic requirements of the market? Where do we fall alongside competitors? Are we creating a delightful experience that will keep users coming back?  2. Messaging/Value Prop development- Owned by PMM, Product consults. How can we talk about this product so that it drives comprehension and affinity? Throughout both product and marketing touchpoints, how might we create consistent language and a seamless user experience? 3. Go-To-Market Planning- Owned by PMM, ...

Oh interesting! I've done both, but I truly believe PLG is the future for everyone. Or, I should say the paths are likely to converge!  New organizational structures that are empowering end-users to make more decisions for themselves, coupled with extremely efficient try>buy experiences are reducing sales cycles and making the "executive buyer" persona less relevant (not irrelevant, just less of a blocker than it used to be).  As hinted about, none of this means sales GTM motions are going away. Anywhere a problem and solution isn't extremely well understood, a sales person can provid...

Both are super valuable, and gaining experience in both will make you a well-rounded PMM. Great for when you lead a team in the future :) That being said, it also depends on what you enjoy. Having done both, PLG PMM work feels more B2C to me, where most of my time was spent working with campaigns, brand, and copy teams (other than product of course!). So if you enjoy working on customer journeys, creative briefs, and marketing assets, then that's a great fit for you. Whereas with SLG motions, your primary stakeholders are enablement and the field. In these roles, I've worked on messag...

Wow! It sounds like you have great opportunity. I would recommend product led growth. So many companies are heading in this direction and these skill sets will be invaluable to you in the future. PLG has not slowed down and is infiltrating even the most complex B2B enterprise SaaS products. It's a great way to position yourself as a PLG leader in the future.