The job opportunities in industrial product management are expected to rise by about 2% and in product marketing by 6% by 2032. With the growth in demand for product marketing and management, there will be an increase in the number of profiles from 700,000 to 1 million on LinkedIn from 2023 to 2024. But did you know most people get confused with the roles and responsibilities of product marketing vs. product management?
Because of their similarities, marketing vs. product management positions sometimes overlap. Their characteristics, however, vary significantly from one another. Go through the article to learn how product management and marketing are essential to providing high-quality products, satisfying consumer needs, and boosting an organization's profitability and product efficacy.
Here is what we’ll cover in this article:
- Understanding Product Marketing
- Responsibilities of a Product Marketing Manager
- Understanding Product Management
- Responsibilities of a Product Manager
- Product Marketing vs. Product Management: Key Differences and Similarities
- Ace Your Preparation with Interview Kickstart
- FAQs on Product Marketing vs. Product Management
Understanding Product Marketing
Product marketing is a means of distributing, promoting, and selling products to customers in the market. A thorough grasp of the target customer's needs, their demands for a calculated approach toward the rising demand, and the product's worth in the marketplace are all part of product marketing. Product marketing managers closely monitor several factors, from bringing products to market to customer reviews. This may include creating messaging and positioning that connects with customers, delivering promotions that trigger customers' pain points to attract them, and analyzing market trends and patterns, competitive landscape, and customer feedback.
Product marketing managers develop an identity for the product by delivering their features through several ways, like website content, blogs, testimonials, and advertisements on television, radio, and/or newspapers, etc.
Responsibilities of a Product Marketing Manager
Let us know how product marketing managers play a vital role in potential product marketing.
- Conducting Research on the Market and Customers: Product marketing managers do their research on distinct target audiences to understand what specific product they are seeking. This approach of understanding the customer’s persona helps innovate the product that meets their needs, making them convinced to purchase products. This can lead to the growth and profitability of the businesses.
In addition, comparison strategies with the competitors are crucial to bring quite different and advanced products that can enhance the adoption of the product in the market because of its uniqueness.
- Developing Marketing Strategies: Product marketing managers derive awareness of the product and develop strategies to establish the product’s messaging and positioning in the market. They involve cross-functional teams, including product management, to plan and participate in the launch, sales, and promotion of the product to reach heights in the market. They collaborate with professional writers to create attractive content to deliver the features and insights of the product to the customers to get their attention.
- Increasing Sales and Building Profit: The product marketing team is responsible for tracking the rates of sales, gathering insights and feedback from customers, and implementing strategies to improve the quality where lacking to meet customer’s expectations.
In addition, online presence and community management play a vital role in delivering the products desired by the audience to make them convert into potential customers. This approach ensures the product is reaching a distinct target audience at a time, which increases sales. Once the efficient product leads in the market due to its demand, the profitability and revenues automatically increase.
Understanding Product Management
Product management refers to the systematic approach of an organization to deliver quality goods or services within a predefined timeline and budget. It involves strategic planning and organization of functions for the product creation, quality improvement, and marketing throughout the overall lifecycle. Several factors are considered for product management, including planning, team collaboration from different sectors working on the product, design, feedback, and the delivery of the products to evaluate whether it is achieving the business goals and satisfying the customers' needs.
Through efficient product management, several problems occurring during the process can be resolved easily without affecting the overall productivity and efficacy of the product. Product managers are responsible for a deeper understanding of the product, market demand, and challenges and generate guidelines, strategies, and plans to reach the desired outcomes and increase the profitability of businesses.
Responsibilities of a Product Manager
Product managers play a vital role in determining the vision, mission, strategy, and procedure of the product. Their daily routine tasks focus on the following responsibilities:
- Performing In-Depth Research: Product managers have to conduct quality research to gain valuable insights into the organization’s market, rivals in the market, user persona, competing products, customer demand, and expectations, along with the latest trends and patterns in the market.
- Creating Strategies: What product managers have learned through their research, now they have to shape all the knowledge to bring an innovative product. They construct goals and objectives, outline the processes and steps of all level workings, and strategic planning from manufacturing to processes to achieve the desired out and meet customer’s expectations.
- Plan Delivery and Collaboration: Once strategies have been made, the product manager must communicate with the cross-functional teams across the organization, including development, product marketing, executives, and stakeholders, to present their plan. Once all receive the green light, they begin to execute their plan while collaborating with cross-functional teams by defining their roles in the task.
In addition, after production, testing, and marketing, product managers analyze the market value of the product through feedback and data analysis to improve the process and deliver the product to meet the expectations of the customers.
Product Marketing vs. Product Management: Key Differences and Similarities
The key difference between product marketing vs. product management is their goals. Product management focuses on developing innovative products that meet the customer’s expectations. In contrast, product marketing is responsible for marketing the products in the competitive market. Both product management vs. product marketing may share the same product scope, but their focus on stages differs in the overall product lifecycle.
Product marketing managers ensure that developing products must follow the plan and meet the standards. Their KPIs revolve around building new products, adding unique features and innovations, adherence to product roadmaps, and metrics of customer satisfaction with the product. However, product managers focus on developing marketing strategies, executing promotions through several platforms, converting target audiences into valuable customers, evaluating the competitive market, and increasing demand and sales in the competitive market. Their KPIs revolve around customer acquisition cost (CAC), business and market growth and profitability, lifetime customer value (LCV), and following trends and patterns of marketing.
On the other hand, when it comes to similarities between product marketing vs. product management, they collaborate to develop and launch go-to-the-market plans of the product, work with cross-functional teams, involve features and functionalities based on reviews and feedback from the customers, create product positioning and messaging and developing sales based on user demand and satisfaction.
Ace Your Preparation with Interview Kickstart
From building, designing, and managing the product from the initial to the customer’s reach, the responsibilities are divided between product management vs. product marketing teams. Companies hire potential product managers and marketing managers to scale up their profitability and proficiency to lead in the market. Thus, the demand for skilled PM and PMM are at the competitive edge of the business market. Several candidate are preparing for an interview but fail to crack the same due to a lack of ability to deliver their knowledge and experience in the best possible way. Therefore, We at Interview Kickstart have brought programs to teach you how to crack interviews in top-tech companies like FAANG+ and get hired at high pay offers. With Interview Kickstart, you can steal the spotlight on the competitive edge of the job landscape and give your dreams a flight!
FAQs About Product Marketing vs. Product Management
Q1. What are the three major areas of product management?
The three prior most areas of product management are discovery, planning, and creation. These three functions are pillars in developing a framework used to determine the roles and responsibilities of cross-functional teams in an organization.
Q2. What are the five P’s of product management?
The five Ps of product management are perspectives, prioritization, persistence, presentation, and passion. These five P’s are the critical factors that are responsible for leading the product in the competitive market.
Q3. Which pays more, the product manager or the product marketing manager?
Product managers earn an average salary of $151,000 per annum. In contrast, product marketing managers earn an average salary of $102,509 per annum. However, the salaries may differ based on the company's brand name and size, locations, and experience level.
Q4. What is the key difference between product management vs. product marketing management responsibilities?
When it comes to product management vs. marketing, product management involves the development and determining the product, and product marketing includes the strategies for leading the product in the competitive edge of the market.
Q5. How do PM and PMM work together?
Product managers (PM) collaborate with product marketing managers (PMM) to determine and deliver the finest possible experience for their customers. However, PM generally partners with engineers, and PMM partners with PM to conduct research, launch products in the market, and incorporate strategies to increase sales.
Q6. What is the role of PMM in the marketing?
The project marketing manager examines the marketing products consistently and monitors the success and failure rates within distinct target customers. With respect to their assessments, they develop strategies to increase demand, market value, promotion, and sales growth, along with meeting the expectations of customers.
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