How do you split the PMM function vs general marketing function responsibilities, and how do you better manage this relationship?

The key is to clearly define roles and responsibilities within your Marketing organization. For starters, let's start with where Product Marketing fits in. Product Marketing operates at the center of product, marketing, sales, and customer success teams.

Under the general marketing umbrella, there are many teams that are dedicated to the tactical areas of marketing: digital marketing, PR, email marketing, PPC and paid advertising, social media marketing, etc.

But who creates the overarching strategy on how products are delivered to market? Product Marketing.

Product Marketing defines the positioning, value proposition, and messaging of a product. They educate and create tools to ensure internal salespeople and external customers understand the product that is being brought to market.

As well, Product Marketing creates the strategies and plans for generating the demand and usage of the product.

It's key to build strong relationships across your Marketing organization. For example, this can start with developing a messaging framework for product/or solution area and making sure each Marketing team member is versed on the messaging and how he/she can apply it to their respective program areas. Edcuate the team on your key buyers (primary and secondary), competitors, key differentiators, and key market trends. These key areas will help better setup how the Marketing team members think about the digital channels, events, and camapiagns to devise when it comes to your key solution or product areas. 

Remember: Without Product Marketing managing the commercialization of a product and leading the product launch, your marketing efforts will lack some key ingredients for success.

Product marketing and Marketing are all working towards the same goals: raise awareness, drive product adoption and drive business conversion to serve customers and help the company grow.

Marketing has existed since the late 1800's with the invention of the first mail product catalogue. Tiffany's Blue Book was the first mail-order catalogue in the United States that really set the standard for product-driven marketing. 

For the longest time, the evolution of Marketing has been slow and steady with very few innovations. However, with the invention of the internet and mobile phones, marketing has evolved more in the last 20 years then its previous 200 years combined.

This evolution also helped transform Marketing organizations centered around generic marketing manager roles to a hyper-specialized team of marketers. To create a strategy and an impactful marketing plan, PMMs need to know how to leverage each marketing function.

To succeed in a modern technology company, PMMs need to understand and collaborate closely with very specialized marketing colleagues, such as Brand, Creative, CRM, Performance and Content. Product marketing owns the GTM strategy and are the marketing campaign architects. They leverage insights to develop a product narrative, segment the market and coordinate an integrated multi-channel marketing strategy.

As a product marketing manager, you will partner with each marketing team to build a comprehensive, multi-channel integrated marketing plan. A PMM's marketing brief is the source of truth for all tactics and initiatives identified in the marketing plan. PMMs will create the strategy and marketing brief designed to inspire the other marketing functions to produce creative work and execute on the plan.

A great brief not only inspires work but can ultimately move cultures, brands, people. A great brief is a combination of: a problem + an insight + an idea. To get the best out of other marketing teams, PMMs need to be as clear and unambiguous as possible in their briefs. 

Once the brief is created and approved, PMMs will act as GTM managers, creating weekly status meetings, keeping a timeline, managing the launch calendar and reporting on the progress of each tactic and initiative. Please note, that at smaller companies, PMMs may need to wear different hats and perform some of the work specialized marketing work mentioned above.

Every company needs the following building blocks of marketing:

Upper funnel - Content engine (Attract eyeballs), Brand (Build a reputation)

Mid funnel - Demand gen engine (Turn eyeballs to drive demand)

Lower funnel - Product marketing (Help turn qualified prospects into customers)

Beyond the funnel - Customer marketing and advocacy (get the customers to become voracious users and raving fans — an extension of your marketing)

There will be a lot of connective tissue, partnerships, and dependencies between the above functions. But every function should define clean KPIs - lead indicators and lag indicators of success. Product marketing can be charged with different objectives depending on the company. My team at AlertMedia for example focuses on Lower funnel and beyond. Even within my team, our product marketing managers own the success of their respective product and work closely with the customer marketing manager to make sure she has the messaging she needs to drive product adoption with customers. The work of our customer marketing function feeds into customer advocacy - which then provides customer stories and referrals back into the top. Marketing produces the best outcomes when the various functions above are humming together. One’s output becomes the other’s input and so on.

I don't believe a general marketing function exists (or should exist) once a company matures past a product-market fit stage. Everything mentioned above is carried on to varying degrees as a team sport at a company until you hire someone to own it. Product marketing, for example, is typically driven by the CEO, product leaders, and/or marketing execs until a proper PMM function is established.

I think the most effective model here is the hub and spoke, (while remembering the wheel is the most important).

• PMM is the center of the wheel, setting the strategic direction along with their product counterparts.

• PMM should be aligning on business goals, developing competitive and differentiated roadmap & GTM strategy, and ensuring that your messaging and positioning is competitive and compelling. If PMMs are doing their jobs correctly, this direction should help all your general marketing functions build their own plans around the set direction. For example, demand gen should be able to take your set strategy to build and execute on campaigns that drive those goals.

• Then each craft should have their own guardrail metrics that show if their work is effective in driving towards the north star.

I find this model breaks down when the general marketing functions have their own goals that are disconnected to, or not directly driving towards the PMMs goals. For example, if PMM is trying to land new logos, and your brand team is trying to rebrand the company and using all of their resources to do that, it would be a good time to have a conversation with leadership and ask them to prioritize.

If goals are clear and aligned, managing this relationship should be easy. Your marketing counterparts are an extension of your PMM team, bring them along for the ride, involve them in your planning cycles and team meetings, buy them drinks, especially the creative team because lets face it, they're usually the most fun.