What is the difference between Product Management and Product Marketing?
Well, since we’re kicking off the launch of this site, I thought I’d address this particular question which gets asked a lot by those who don’t know much about product management and even those that do. The two terms are used in a variety of ways and definitions vary greatly across different organizations. Here’s our take on the difference in the two:
Product Management professionals typically work with engineers, development, senior management, and are tasked with making all sorts of decisions, both critical and non-critical, and making sure everything gets done so that the customer driven product gets brought to market.
They are tasked with such responsibilities as:
- Doing the initial Market Analysis, creating the Business Cases and doing the Profit and Loss investigation
- Identifying the buyers, the users and profiling them so as to make razor sharp connection
- Making feature, schedule and cost decisions as the product nears completion
Product Marketing professionals typically work with product management so that once these products are “ready”, they get launched and marketed effectively, to the target customer base.
They are tasked with such responsibilities as:
- Creating the Product Message, including Positioning, Features & Benefits and Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and Launch Plans
- Developing sales tools: white papers, presentations, collateral, competitive
- Ensure the product is effectively introduced to the market and continues to be effectively communicated across all sales and social media channels.
Do the lines between Product Management and Product Marketing blur?
Absolutely. It’s going to vary from organization to organization. In larger organizations, you may find both Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers. While in other smaller or mid-organizations, you may find individuals who have one title or the other, but actually perform both roles.
Furthermore, its no guarantee that there are even product management roles in small and medium sized technology organizations. Most smaller companies don’t start out with any product managers or product marketing managers per se. So the roles and functions of these two positions are usually performed by the founder, the CEO or a senior executive. As they say in supply chain management, you can cut the middleman, but you can’t cut his function.
This arrangement usually works fine for a while until the founder realizes that product marketing or product management is not their forte, especially when they want to launch their product or investigate new markets. And so, acquiring on-demand product marketing and product management services is a great idea as companies transition into a full-fledged market-driven organization.
