Habitats of the Product Marketing Manager
ByThose with the job title of ‘Product Marketing Manager’ live in a variety of organizational habitats. There are four that I see as recurring themes, each with its own challenges and opportunities. If you were to get a product marketing manager from one of each of these habitats to sit down and discuss their roles, they’d be amazed at how different they really are (even when their job descriptions are remarkably similar).
The Product Manager Product Marketing Manager
I actually lived this one but seems to be rare. It’s where the person with the job title of product marketing manager functions as a product manager. In this habitat the PMM is compelled to work closely with development and scramble to fulfill go-to-market (GTM) duties as they near a crisis stage. Confusion on their role is abundant. Development, Sales, Marcom and the management team see the PMM in entirely different ways.
The no Product Manager Product Marketing Manager
In this habitat there are no product managers and Development builds whatever they like. Product marketing managers wait gingerly for Development to throw products over the wall with instructions to take it to market. PMMs reverse engineer positioning from product features (afterall, why would anyone build a feature that no one needed? Seriously!), work with Marcom to get the ‘checklist’ of go-to-market deliverables completed, and declaring victory throws the deliverables over the wall to Sales.
The Sales Support Product Marketing Manager
This is the organization that sees product marketing managers as captive suppliers to the sales team. There are little to no strategic activities performed by the PMM. It’s a life of doing whatever Sales wants like building PowerPoint slides, writing one-off pieces of collateral, giving presentations and demos. Basically these PMMs function as sales engineers without being called sales engineers. They get lectured for not being strategic, but when they say ‘no’ to the sales team for tactical requests they are punished.
The Market-Driven Product Marketing Manager
In this habitat the product marketing manager coexists with product managers, where the roles of both are clearly defined. Product managers often are of the ‘technical product manager’ (TPM) variety with a heavier emphasis on working/coordinating with Development, being the experts on their products and using criteria. Product marketing managers are experts on their buyers and buying criteria, with a heavier emphasis on working with Marcom and Sales. In this habitat the PM owns the product strategy and the PMM owns the go-to-market strategy. Harmony (queue rainbows and unicorns).
Which habitat do you live in?
I have lived in them all, as well as some others. Currently, I am in the Director of Strategic Alliances Product Marketing Manager habitat. Because we have a Sales Support Product Marketing Manager existing next to the Development Lead Product Managers, there is little strategic direction, no effective GTM and laughable magic documents. Someone has to clean things up and do some lead generation.
Another habitat I lived in was the Solutions Architect Product Marketing Manager habitat. That was fun. Inhabitants are usually found in close proximity with Propellerhead Solutions Architects and move from one tiger team sales engagement to the next. While highly enjoyable, this habitat went extinct during a RIF.
Steve, great post. I have a tough challenge. I am the new Director of Product Marketing at a sw company with 8 PMMs in my group. We have good alignment with Product Management, but sales is vertically aligned. We have industry marketing managers for each vertical and they “own” the go to market strategy for their segment. The result is that my group gets pulled into the Sales Support habitat by default. Thoughts???
If you have a direct sales force and a complex product, sales engineers are a critical role for most companies. Complex products require a strong technical presence on the sales team. Asking a sales person to sell and negotiate plus be a strong technician is usually asking too much.
If your PMMs are spending too much time in sales support, check to see if the SE role is understaffed. The industry average is 4:1 (sales people: sales engineers). Best practice is 2:1 and more and more companies I see are now staffing 1:1.
For complex products, sales people want a product resource on every call. If they can’t get an SE, they’ll get a PMM or PM.
See also http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/2/5/0410sj
I have held Product Marketing roles at both large and small organizations and found the Market-Driven Product Marketing habitat to be the most effective one. What is changing however is the additional ‘community’ to the ‘buyer expert’ hat that Product Marketers need to wear, putting them in an even more strategic position within the organization.
Thanks Bertrand. Could you expand on the ‘community’ aspect you mentioned? Sounds interesting.
Dave,
By that I mean that Product Marketers need to take the leadership role in their company’s community efforts – for one simple reason: As the buyer expert, they are in the best position to engage and have meaningful conversations (i.e. value based) with their audience – whether on twitter, facebook, youtube, online forums or private communities.
This can be a little challenging but is also extremely rewarding.
I have recently presented at ProductCamp Austin a session that touches upon this topic. See here for deck and notes: http://www.arandomjog.com/productcamp-austin-august-2010/
[...] Marketing function and/ or with Product Marketing responsibilities to find out in which of the ‘4 Product Marketing Habitats’ you live in. A worthwhile exercise that will save you a lot of [...]