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When you have a product marketing team and a marketing team how do you draw the line internally?

Charlene Wang
Qualia VP of Marketing | Formerly Worldpay, Coupa Software, EMC/VMware, McKinseyJune 6

Every marketing team operates differently, so the answer depends on the organization.

 

In general, Product Marketers own the core positioning of the company & products and are responsible for translating this into messaging that wins deals and market share. To do so, Product Marketers need to deeply understand target audiences, the buying process, competitors and the market, and the company and product(s). Product Marketing often sits in Marketing, sometimes in Product, and rarely in other functions. Usually, market research, positioning and core messaging, such as pitch decks and datasheets, are owned by the Product Marketing team, though responsibilities often extend beyond this.

 

Product Marketing interacts with many other marketing teams, most commonly with Demand Generation (or Growth Marketing). Product Marketing often works closely with Demand Generation to provide input into campaign strategy and content. Content Strategy sometimes sits within Product Marketing but is more often a separate organization or a branch of Demand Generation that takes positioning from Product Marketing to come up with content to feed campaigns. In many organizations, Customer Marketing sits within Product Marketing to align customer advocacy more closely with core messaging, though this may also be a separate organization. Analyst Relations often sits within Product Marketing due to its close ties to market positioning and category creation, but can also be in a Corporate Marketing or Communications group that also includes PR.

 

Team structures can vary greatly based on the type of GTM motion (product-led vs sales-led), the target audience (especially B2B vs. B2C companies), the size of company, whether companies have one product or multiple products, and more. Ultimately, a Product Marketing leader needs to collaborate cross-functionally and build the team in a way that best aligns to the organization's needs.

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