Who is marketing manager?

Is a product marketing manager the hybrid of a product manager and a VP/Director of marketing?

• I've heard of PMMs but am not 100% sure what that role is.  Is it simply someone who handles both product development and the marketing of that product or is there a better way to describe this?

• Answer:

  In short the answer is no.   Let me define Product Management and Product Marketing so you can see how they fit together. Product Management is the function in the company that oversees product success over the entire lifecycle of the product. Product Management is responsible for things like understanding market needs, driving product strategy and plans (that align with company strategy), and ensuring product alignment across company departments and teams (e.g. pricing, channels, marketing etc.). In short, its business management at the product or product line level. Product Marketing also focuses on understanding the market and market needs but with an emphasis on understanding the buyer of the company’s products and services. Product Marketing is responsible for developing positioning, messaging, competitive differentiation, and enabling the Sales and Marketing teams to ensure they are aligned and work efficiently to generate and close opportunities. Product Marketing is strategic marketing at the product or product line level. Product Marketing as an overall function, is in fact, a part of the function of Product Management. Also beware of defining and contrasting Product Management and Product Marketing in terms of complementary opposites. e.g. Product Management is “inbound” and Product Marketing is “outbound” Product Management listens to the market, and Product Marketing speaks to the market Product Management focuses on putting product “on the shelf”, and Product Marketing focuses on getting product “off the shelf” Product Management primarily works with Engineering and Product Marketing primarily works with Sales All of these are somewhat correct, but they are overly simplistic definitions, don’t really help people understand how to define these areas properly and in fact often lead to confusion when defining these roles. In short - Both Product Management and Product Marketing are strategic, cross functional functions, responsible for overall product success across the lifecycle. But Product Marketing is a specialized area of Product Management that focuses on understanding the target markets and in particular buyer needs, and then working with Sales and Marketing to optimize lead generation, qualification and buying process.