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I'm sorry I think you've confused the Product Marketing role with something else. PM's role is not to run campaigns, either brand or 'demand gen'. That's regu

I'm sorry I think you've confused the Product Marketing role with something else. PM's role is not to run campaigns, either brand or 'demand gen'. That's regular operational marketing. Product Marketing's job is to define the Product for the appropriate segments in terms of messaging, features, pricing. Then, outbound, they will provide the overall strategy for the various campaigns. So part 1: They know the market well. Who uses it, why, what their needs are. They'll sit in on sales calls i.e. should be one of the primary conduits into the company from them. They'll do market research, understanding pricing trends. They'll generally do some kind of segmentation, even if crude. Part 2: Direct product activities in this regard i.e. 'Each nation has different regulatory apparatus re: this feature so we need to break it down'. Or, even though our software has nothing to do with security, this specific issue is a problem and we need to have XYZ feature even if it's perfunctory. Part 3: For everything outbound, they'll be setting the messaging and the strategy. 'What groups are we targeting' and 'What those groups need to hear'. Probably putting together the 'baseline copy' and materials. The 'Marketing Ops' shouldn't be making a whole lot of those decisions on their own. They should be taking that from the PM and then deciding which channels to push their budget into. There's quite a lot of overlap in terms of customer relationship and product features, as the Product Manager also does this, but I usually think of PM's as satisfying satisfying specific customer requests, having a broader vision for the architecture that goes beyond any segment needs. The Product Marketing team is the one that says 'We'll be selling in 5 tranches with these features at this price'. The Product Manager cares less about that deliniation and more about the product as whole including internal architecture.

redwood 5y ago
The line between product management and product marketing is definitely a gray zone and really depends on the organization, but rather than saying product managers are more focused in the architecture I think a fundamental difference is that they tend to be working much more closely with the engineers via a constant back-and-forth developing a shared understanding of what's possible, trade-offs, roadmap planning etc. Pricing is another one that in some organizations is product management led and in others product marketing.
- jollybean 5y ago
  So there is definitely gray in overlap, but there are also functions which are distinct. Market segmentation is definitely marketing. Usually pricing is as well. Product Roadmap and direct links with Engineering is Product.

redwood 5y ago

The line between product management and product marketing is definitely a gray zone and really depends on the organization, but rather than saying product managers are more focused in the architecture I think a fundamental difference is that they tend to be working much more closely with the engineers via a constant back-and-forth developing a shared understanding of what's possible, trade-offs, roadmap planning etc. Pricing is another one that in some organizations is product management led and in others product marketing.

jollybean 5y ago
So there is definitely gray in overlap, but there are also functions which are distinct. Market segmentation is definitely marketing. Usually pricing is as well. Product Roadmap and direct links with Engineering is Product.