Product Marketing vs Product Management

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. 

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. 

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!

The more context the better. PMMs should help to fill in the gaps, but a product brief should include: - What problem this product / feature solves - Who it solves for and insights about this audience - Why we solve it differently (different > better) - Timeline with milestones to get there - Risks to timeline  - Broader context/ how this fits in with other things you're doing (or if it's brand new, why / how)  Others?

I’ll probably need to write a blog post about it one day. :) For now, here is a brief summary of what we aligned on with the product team in terms of the categories of inputs we need to prepare a successful launch: Earlier in the process: 1. Feature Description 2. Target Audience 3. Use Case and Customer Benefits 4. Timeline Later in the process: 5. Business Objective 6. Availability (plans the feature will be available under – might not be relevant in your case) 7. Support Needed from Marketing 8. Linked to Product Assets 9. Additional Resources Hope it's helpful. I'm happy to chat more!

This is a tricky question! I’d argue that there is more to the collaboration between Product Management and Product Marketing than the effectiveness of the Project Brief. However, you can read more about the relationship between PMMs and PMs here . As for what to include in the project (or Product) brief, it should outline (at least) the following: 1. Product name and release date 2. Who the product is targeted to 3. Product description 4. Summary of the customer needs the product will meet 5. Customer value proposition 6. The impact the product will have on the customer 7. ...

When the transfer of information between PM and PMM occurs via a Project Brief, it is essential that the PM include a good description of the market problem this feature/product is intended to solve, why is this problem worth pursuing, who cares about it, why is our solution different than anything else the target customer could have purchased in market, and key use cases. The use case information should be broken down into feature and benefits.

oh mylanta I love this question. I think a lot of this can be an interative process with the PMM, but I think the things I see most often left out of these documents that could completely change the way a new feature is positioned includes: - Not just what problem this solves, but how was the problem solved before this feature existed? (Was there a workaround in our product, or did users lean on external solutions?) - Not just who will use the solution, but who, downstream, benefits from its use? - Not just the business value, but the value for an individual that will prompt them t...

There are different levels of information PMM needs from their PM partners throughout the development process. Depending on how your product documentation works, this information could entirely live in a product/feature brief or be split up between the brief and the product spec.  At a high level, here's a deck we've used internally to build collaboration between PM and PMM. To be honest, we don't always get the answers to these questions in document format (or early enough), so sometimes this information is shared in meetings.  Of course the size of the feature is a consideration as ...

Product Managers have to give us PMMs the information we need to be successful, but it's often on us to inform them of what we need and hold them accountable for providing the proper documentation. Ensure you have a good relationship with the PMs you engage with, as well as the VP of Product who can give you the clearance to hold PMs responsible for providing the right context in the form of a feature brief.  While the work starts WAY before the feature brief is created, here is what I hold the PMs accountable for providing (in general, it varied launch-by-launch): Target audience: -...

PMs should always lead voice of the customer (VoC) programs While PMMs need to have their ear close to the ground when it comes to customer feedback, it's ultimately the PM who will use the feedback to make product decisions. Additionally, PMs should never be in a situation where product feedback is "second-hand" or being prioritized by someone who doesn't own the roadmap.

I think "share" is the right term to use here. I've heard marketing teams claim that only they represent the voice of the customer, which is obviously not true. There are many groups in a company that interact with customers and listen to their voices. It's a PM's eternal challenge to figure out which voices are the ones they should weigh more heavily and which ones less! I would say that PMs tend to engage deeply with a small proportion of the customer base and get a certain perspective that is then balanced by the views that PMM gains by interacting with the broader market using differ...

* It’s a good idea to try internal transfer if you want to transition from PMM to PM, or vice versa. Learning the craft of a new discipline is not easy. You are more likely to set yourself up for success if you minimize other variables like new company, new product, new team. * Anchor on your strength. There are many transferable skills between the two disciplines, e.g., customer discovery, data analytics, communication and influencing skills. Leverage your strength in the new role and you will find it easier to get early wins and build confidence in yourself. * But def...

I love this question since I recently made the PMM to PM transition! 1. Focus on transferrable skills. Three of the most important PM skills include: communication, leading through influence, and problem solving. PMMs looking to transfer into a PM role should ensure they are strong in all three. 2. Leverage institutional knowledge. It's much easier to transition from PMM to PM in your current company than applying to a new position in a different company. In your existing PMM role you are likely to know all the relevant stakeholders, have product knowledge, and un...

This is a great question. I've transitioned from PM to PMM and back again, so I can give you my perspective on both. The biggest challenges for anyone moving into PM, whether that be from PMM or other roles, are the following: * deeply understanding the domain; * leading by influence; and * being comfortable with high levels of ambiguity. (And, of course, the ability to make good judgment calls on top of all that.) For PMMs specifically, particularly those without a technical background, the first area is going to be the one that's most challenging. You can't be successful at lea...

It’s a joint decision between product management and product marketing at Square. In general our PMMs tend to have more ownership here. They will lead competitive analysis and commission qual/ quant research to inform pricing decisions. That said, from what I observed, when you zoom into the specific PM/ PMM pair, it really comes down to whoever has the expertise and the respect from the team to make the right call.

Pricing and packaging is typically a PMM function. 1. P&P is typically a business decision. In general, PMMs own business and go-to-market decisions, while PMs own the user experience and the product roadmap. And P&P falls into the former.  2. Product should have a perspective on which features to build. Pricing and packaging refreshes typically happen because the composition of your existing product has changed materially (i.e. a lot of new features have been launched, new acquisitions, etc). As such PMs will always have a role to play in determining how certain ...

I used to be very much on the side of "PMM should own pricing" but I will now caveat this with a couple considerations. First off, though, I think at a smaller company, say a startup where you're the only PMM, PMM should still own pricing. That's because there's both a strategic ("how should we set our suggested retail prices and package the product?") and tactical ("how much should we allow our reps to discount the product and on what basis?") element to pricing. At smaller companies, I've seen more problems with the latter. Failure to set acceptable discount levels and enforce them wit...

Ha, organizational design questions are always the fun ones. :) These types of questions don’t have a right or wrong answer. Each design will have its pros and cons and it’s all about what you are trying to optimize. When I started in product marketing at Square, we reported into marketing. About 8 months later, we got spun off marketing and reported into product GMs. While I didn’t think that changed how I did my job - reflecting on the experience - I did feel some differences. While I was in marketing, I felt a lot closer and in sync with my channel and creative partners. On the other h...

Usually Marketing, but in some smaller companies Product. PMs and PMMs will almost always have very close relationships (and if you don't then that's a problem). So, it usually doesn't matter which organization PMM reports into. However, at larger companies there can be some misalignment of priorities if PMMs report into the product management team. PMM teams that report into product become too narrowly focused on launches. PMMs typically cover a wide range of responsibilities, beyond just features. For examples, PMMs at Zendesk work on customer stories, industry solutions, sales enableme...

This is a popular question and one that I've struggled with a lot in my years doing both PM and PMM. Most answers I've seen tend to weasel out of a strong point of view ("it depends!") but I am going to go out on a limb and firmly state that I believe product marketing should report into marketing. Here are a couple of reasons why. 1. It sets up a nice, healthy tension between two functions at the executive level. Too often, product executives complain that marketing (that would be the traditional office of the CMO without product marketing) is doing a poor job at pitching ...

Both roles are quite tough to get into without experience, but PM is marginally easier. 1. Companies will typically have more PMs than PMMs. The PMM to PM ratio is roughly 1:4. Even if the company prioritizes PMM roles, it's rare that the ratio will get higher than 1:2. 2. There are fewer PMM roles in the industry. Just doing a quick search on LinkedIn shows that there are about ~100k open PMM roles, while there are about ~280k open PM roles.  3. PMs typically get hired first. Most companies will start with PMs. This is unsurprising since the goal at early stage comp...

It depends on what your background is. If you have a background in traditional marketing, it's going to be easier to get into product marketing by learning both the domain and the product in-depth. The advantage of coming from marketing is that you already know what a demand generation organization needs from product marketing in order to effectively articulate the product and fill the funnel. It's easier to get into product management if you come from a technical background such as engineering or design, but also including roles like technical support, customer success architect, or pro...

The most important business objective for Product Marketing is to help the business achieve its sales targets – for some businesses this will be measured in MRR or ACV. However you measure this number, ensure you understand PMMs role in helping the organization meet it. This is the most important thing PMM can do and everything we prioritize needs to tie back to it. If it does not, then we should not be working on it.

Customer segmentation—who cares the MOST, why are they using us, what are their alternatives, why would they stay, why would they leave. Both qualitative (interviews), and quantitative( (product usage and sales cycle data).  I think getting incredibly clear on user profiles, habits and motivations is a critical input for every other area of the business. Things like posiitoning and messaging fall out of user understanding, and the very downstream activities many PMMs attach themselves to—things like enablement, demos, content creation, pricing and packaging, etc can all actually be split...

This really depends on your business model, the org structure, and company norms, but I can share the mission we developed for the PMM team here at Gong.  PMM deeply understands our customers, products, and market in order to deliver the right product, to the right audience, with the right message. This is the #1 objective, and the way you accomplish this is through a variety of intiatives. Our top ones are: 1. Develop GTM strategy 2. Inform product strategy 3. Prioritize customer segments 4. Serve as subject matter experts for enabling the field 5. Evangelize our category, cust...