How does your company define the difference between product marketing and integrated / brand / customer marketing?

On the Consumer side (where I sit) we have Brand Marketers and Product Marketers. Product Marketers need to deeply understand the value prop, positioning and user needs of the product. A big part of the PMM role is Inbound - leveraging research and insights to influence product strategy. When a PMM has Outbound work they need to do, we work very closely with our Brand counterparts to ensure our campaigns are consistent with the overall Brand message, and don’t conflict in terms of timing and channel.

I think there is a ton of value in having these teams work closely but separated into specific pods. As you noted, there are different skillsets here and they can be even more effective when given the space to own their domain expertise. That being said I think when PMM and Brand get too far from each other the end results suffer. I often think of PMM & Brand like a zipper in that they are stronger together and work in tandem. It's essential that brand messaging aligns with the product experience and that launches are appropriately timed and presented in the market. For all of these reasons, I am a fan of having these teams ladder up to the same marketing leader but for they also to be split into separate smaller teams/pods for ownership and skill alignment. 

At my current company, these roles are different and lean on the different skills that you mention! That said, at smaller organizations, or even smaller marketing organizations, you may not have the luxury of having different individuals occupy each role. 

If you are in a spot where you aren't able to add dedicated headcount to partner with product or creative separately, I'd suggest having a conversation about priorities with your leadership and using that to guide not only the talent you bring on, but the allocation of time on activities for those individuals. While it may feel like too much to execute on both capabilities simultaneously, it's also exciting and a benefit of being at a small company!

I see those as different skills sets and usually different teams but I don't think there are strict lines in between them. Product Marketers should own the story, the core positioning and messaging, the surrounding context / thought leadership and GTM strategy. Ideally there are counterparts in integrated marketing, campaigns or growth marketing to help make that come to life. 

But I think there's also what is ideal on paper and what is practical in real life. More often then not those integrated brand / campaign teams are swamped and not only serving the needs of product marketing. As a result, PMMs will more often then not need to stretch into what it specific assets and content needs to be created - whether that's videos, ebooks, blog posts, etc. And quite frankly, your partners in marketing will thank you if you come to them with ideas and they you can brainstorm the best path forward. 

When I am hiring PMMs the core positioning and messaging skills matter the most, but I also want to know that they can stretch to think and how should this be brough to market. 

Yes, great question! As a PMM, I've always worked closely with a separate integrated/brand marketing function. The PMM sits closer to product/eng, is more initimately familiar with the product, owns inbound product marketing (including user insights, strategy, competitive benchmarking, roadmap prioritization etc.). When it comes to outbound marketing, PMM sets GTM strategy and works with a variety of GTM stakeholders, including comms and integrated marketing, to bring a launch or campaign to life. The integrated marketing team usually works with a group of PMMs covering an entire product area, which has the benefit of upleveling how the brand shows up to consumers and ensuring you're telling the right brand narrative, versus a product specific narrative. They also have more specialized skillsets, such as working closely with creative teams (or being creatives themselves), are accountable to brand/campaign goals rather than product goals (e.g. driving Q4 sales vs. driving adoption of X feature) and are great thought partners for how a product will show up to consumers. 

It's been a while since we've had an integrated marketing function at SurveyMonkey, but here's how I'd envision this working:

Product marketing owns:

- Buyer persona research, development, and enablement

- Product messaging/positioning

- Go-to-market strategy (e.g. by persona, industry)

- Product/feature launches

- Bottom-of-the-funnel product content/collateral

- Competitive intelligence

- Analyst relations

Customer marketing owns:

- Customer advocacy: customer stories, customer participation in thought leadership, review site management, communities, advisory boards

- Customer marketing: scaled customer onboarding & engagement programs, cross-sell and up-sell customer campaigns - could include email nurtures, customer webinars, etc.

Brand marketing owns:

- Brand messaging and narrative, as well as brand guidelines

- The visual manifestation of the brand (logo, colors, fonts, imagery/animation style, iconography, etc.)

- Content strategy, and Top-of-the-funnel thought leadership content

- Creative production for full-funnel campaigns (ads, 

- Brand health measurement & tracking

Once the company scales to where there is a) a full portfolio of products and/or brands and b) there is significant investment in full-funnel campaigns across those products/brands, then integrated marketing becomes a necessary function.

Integrated marketing owns:

- Full-funnel marketing strategy & execution management for large-scale campaigns (these could be brand campaigns or Tier 1 launches).

I have seen this done differently in different organizations. There is no right or wrong way. However, I firmly believe that the Product Marketer should own the narrative for their product. 

• If it is a customer story - what value prop are we trying to highlight? 
• If it is an ad campaign, what audience are we going after and what is the right messaging and CTA?
• If it is an email campaign to existing customers, what outcome are we trying to drive, and what messaging are we using?

PMM, as the person closest to product and audience knowledge, needs to own these pieces. If that is in place, then whether PMM is directly working on the campaign or simply enabling an integrated marketing team is just a matter of logistics.

Love this question - we have recently been discussing this on our team! To me, brand marketing encompasses a broader view of messaging and campaign execution. This may include larger brand initiatives (such as one centered around a peak holiday or buying period) or a strategy around tone and voice overall. Brand likely consults or includes product marketing, but product marketing is only one piece of the puzzle. And finally, brand marketing can be the "hook" that catches the customer's attention – it draws them in and intrigues them.

Comparatively, product marketing has a tighter focus. This field is all about telling the product's story and communicating to customers how it solves their problems. Product marketing also focuses on breaking down the product into digestible (and easily understandable) pieces.