What differentiation in skills and experience do you see between B2B and B2C product marketing?

At its core, I believe the skills of a B2B and B2C PMM are interchangeable.

The Customer: Whether you’re a B2B or B2C product marketer, it’s essential to deeply understand your target audience so you can connect their needs with what your product uniquely provides. In both roles, this requires an inquisitive mindset and the ability to drive or influence user research. (Skill: Drive Research)

The Product Experience: In either case, you’ll need to translate your understanding of the customer into key pain points and jobs to be done. You will then work with product teams to influence the roadmap to meet those needs. (Skill: Ability to Influence)

The Message: Whether you're focusing on a consumer or a decision-maker at a company, you’ll need to define a clear value proposition that differentiates your product from competitors and resonates with your target audience. (Skill: Storytelling)

The Metrics: Data-driven decision-making is critical in both B2B and B2C product marketing. While the metrics may differ, the intent is the same—making informed decisions that allow you to iterate quickly and optimize strategy. Key to this is identifying the right metrics to measure, ones you can own or influence, and that align with business goals. (Skill: Data-Driven Decision Making)

The Marketing Channels: Whether your role is B2B or B2C, a core competency will be developing marketing campaigns and materials that break through the noise and prompt your target audience to take action. This requires creativity as well as strong project management skills. While a PMM may not be expected to be an expert across all marketing channels, they must know how to bring together the right specialists, create a vision, and lead the team through execution.

There are nuances in terms of the channels a B2B versus B2C PMM may leverage, the length and complexity of the sales cycle, and how the message is delivered (directly to the end user or through a sales team). However, as long as you maintain a data-driven, experimental mindset, you can always learn what works best for your company and role. (Skill: Creativity, Strategic Thinking, Project Management)

Across PMM there is a shared core set of skills and competencies. The fundamentals are very much the same — it's about knowing the customer, finding the defining insight, and transforming that into product strategies and go-to-market plans. While the fundamentals are very transferable, execution can look quite different. For example, you’ll work more closely with product and research teams vs sales, the channels and strategies to reach your customers will be more digital and span the entire funnel, and you’ll likely be goaled on product adoption at scale. 

Some B2B companies, such as PLG, put the product at the front of their GTM strategy. The goal is to be very similar to a B2C company in that you target and market directly to end-users. Transitioning from B2C into a product-led B2B organization should be relatively easy. 

However, the skills gap widens the more up-market the B2B company is. PMMs who focus on end-users will have a steep learning curve for marketing to enterprises and buyer personas.