I’ve been heading up Product Marketing at my company for a whole year now and I still get asked to give clarity on the question of ‘What is product marketing?’ A lot of people have simply never worked with Product Marketing before. On top of that, the discipline has evolved substantially over the past decade, so there’s also a need to correct some of the traditional assumptions.
Well said, Rory! I've been in product marketing for nearly 20 years, and it's def true that the role isn't always well understood. We've seen job descriptions for product marketing that lean heavily into demand gen, we've seen others that lean heavily into product management -- the spectrum is huge! I love this space because it's all of the above disciplines and more. I like to think of product marketers as more gregarious and extroverted than product managers, while also less 'sizzly' and flashy than pure marketers (I'll catch flak for that one, I'm sure). We're like sales engineers who are comfortable with shmoozing and small talk ;)
Hi Rory, I just stumbled upon your blog and found this article very relevant. I starting reading and often chuckled as I thought "that's what I say!" when explaining the value of PMM. I see it as a conduit between internal teams and the outside world but also strategically aligned to the companies goals or 'why'.
Sadly I don't believe the latter is easy for companies to comprehend or understand. How does PMM provide strategic excellence? This is a question that isn't always asked outright but as a PMM you can sense the confusion when talking to stakeholders. It can be a tough battle to get buy in from the business to use PMM strategically. In my experience, those who choose to ignore or not have an open mindset when it comes to including PMMs in strategic conversations are the ones who either aren't sure what to do about customer needs or flatly don't care.
Question: with product marketing becoming more important but still misunderstood, how do you know if a company is really ready to hire their first PMM or build out the team?
Well said, Rory! I've been in product marketing for nearly 20 years, and it's def true that the role isn't always well understood. We've seen job descriptions for product marketing that lean heavily into demand gen, we've seen others that lean heavily into product management -- the spectrum is huge! I love this space because it's all of the above disciplines and more. I like to think of product marketers as more gregarious and extroverted than product managers, while also less 'sizzly' and flashy than pure marketers (I'll catch flak for that one, I'm sure). We're like sales engineers who are comfortable with shmoozing and small talk ;)
Hi Rory, I just stumbled upon your blog and found this article very relevant. I starting reading and often chuckled as I thought "that's what I say!" when explaining the value of PMM. I see it as a conduit between internal teams and the outside world but also strategically aligned to the companies goals or 'why'.
Sadly I don't believe the latter is easy for companies to comprehend or understand. How does PMM provide strategic excellence? This is a question that isn't always asked outright but as a PMM you can sense the confusion when talking to stakeholders. It can be a tough battle to get buy in from the business to use PMM strategically. In my experience, those who choose to ignore or not have an open mindset when it comes to including PMMs in strategic conversations are the ones who either aren't sure what to do about customer needs or flatly don't care.
Question: with product marketing becoming more important but still misunderstood, how do you know if a company is really ready to hire their first PMM or build out the team?