The role of a Product Marketing Manager (PMM): the real cameleon

Bridging the gap between the product and marketing worlds is no easy task, but product marketing managers are game-changing chameleons within their organizations.

A Product Marketing Manager is the one who tells the story of a product to the market. He is not a storyteller by definition but he’s well positioned to understand the product’s value proposition and translate it into tangible messages to prospects and customers.

I like to say that PMM don’t need to know everything themselves to craft the perfect product message, but they need to co-create unique and valuable messaging that will have a great impact on the market.
To accomplish this task, PMM must work closely with many stakeholders and truly work as a team with the product manager to articulate the product vision and the results.

Main Responsibilities

We can resume PMM responsabilities in 8 points:

• Develop user and buyer personas.
• Research and benchmark the market to gain insights
• Define the product positioning by being the voice of the customers
• Co-build monetization strategy
• Cooperate with the marketing department to create resources that emphasize product features and advantages.
• Train your Sales team to describe your product, how it works for your customers and how it provides benefits for your users.
• Develop a go-to-market (GTM) strategy
• Work with product management to set goals and metrics for the product launches.

These 8 points cover many moments in the product creation process from Discovery to Delivery. Depending on the requirements and on the organizations, PMM production can of course vary. It is up to the PMM to adapt its role to add value.

Again, depending on the tasks, cooperation with different teams and departments (Sale, Research, Brand, Marketing, Customer Service…) is essential. To get things done, the product marketing manager must contact the appropriate teams at the appropriate time.
In some projects, PMM will be primarily or only required on the go-to-market strategy and effective launches. However it is strongly recommended that the project team be aligned from the start of the effort on desired outcomes in order to avoid missing any crucial activities.

PMM Interactions

Reporting management

Depending on the organization, PMMs typically report to marketing or tech departments. In my experience so far, PMMs in tech companies have mostly been reported to product management, but that’s not the general rule. Many modern companies today choose to integrate their product marketing teams into their marketing departments to create synergies and facilitate go-to-market and communication deliveries with the same tools of publication for example. The reasons behind a reporting choice could be multiple but it is important to understand the WHY and the benefits from it.

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