If you’re looking for a new job and wondering, “what’s the difference between product marketing and product management?” you’re not alone!
Many people are unaware of what the difference is between those two concepts, especially when reading job descriptions; they might sound the same, but they aren’t. When developing a growth strategy, both product marketing and product management are needed. But what in the world makes them different? Today, we’ll explain clearly what both terms mean and what the job roles entail.
This article will cover everything you need to know about product marketing vs product management for business growth, including:
- Product marketing vs. product management
- Product marketing for growth
- Product management for growth
- Free Growth hacking template by FROGED
Now, let’s dive in!
Product Marketing vs Product Management
In order to understand the differences between product marketing and product management, we must first understand the two concepts in depth.
What is a Product Marketer?
Product marketing, also known as product marketing management (PMM), is focused on the customer. Product marketers bring products to market and make them sellable. They decide the product’s positioning and messaging, launch it, and ensure salespeople and customers understand it.
Here’s an example of a job description for a product marketing manager:
What is a Product Manager?
On the other hand, product management focuses on the product itself rather than the user. Product managers guide every step in a product’s lifecycle, from development to pricing. They combine user-focused thinking and technology expertise to create strong products. Moreover, product managers communicate important information to both internal and external stakeholders.
Here’s an example of a job description for a product manager:
Both product management and product marketing roles function as connectors. According to the Berkeley MBA blog, both roles commonly work on conducting market research, market analysis, market sizing, customer interviews, and ethnographic research to find out who their customers are and to understand customer problems. However, the key differentiator is the focus area. Product marketing is about bringing to market a service or feature that generates new revenue for a company. Whereas Product managers ensure that a product is built on time and meets market demands.
Product marketing for growth
Your company’s growth can be directly impacted via Product marketing. Having someone dedicated solely to the users’ demands and needs and guiding its positioning and marketing strategies will increase product retention and growth. To better understand this, let’s look at product marketing’s main functions:
Product messaging and positioning
According to market research and customers’ needs, product marketing experts develop product messaging and positioning. After that, they create an accurate marketing strategy in line with the product.
Customer and market research
Who’s the target market? What are their requirements? What do and don’t they like about your product? How do they think you can be even better? All those questions need to be answered and solved by product marketing teams to establish your company as the market leader and maintain customer retention rates.
Onboarding customers
Implementing a proper onboarding process is part of a successful marketing strategy. Check out how FROGED’s onboarding strategy helps onboard customers faster, increase sign-up conversions and educate users about your product with one platform.
Product management for growth
A product manager’s role is essential for a company’s growth. Developing a successful product is crucial to achieving customer success, retention, and company expansion. By following metrics, removing unused features, and optimizing the product roadmap, a product manager increases the product’s and business’s success. Product management’s main functions are:
Product improvement
A product manager constantly works on improving the existing product, testing it, analyzing data, and managing defects. The product manager ultimately decides what the end product should look like and how it should be developed and launched.
Development of product vision and strategy
Product managers must define a product’s long-term mission and develop a strategy for achieving its marketing and growth goals.
Team and stakeholders management.
Product managers are responsible for communicating requirements to the development team in an effective manner, as well as organizing the development process efficiently. They also have to negotiate with stakeholders and balance their demands and expectations.
Nowadays, there are a variety of services available to offer the tools and support you need to carry out your everyday responsibilities. Book a demo with FROGED today to discover all the features we offer to help you succeed in product marketing and product management.
Growth hacking template
FROGED has developed a free growth hacking template for Notion in which you’ll be able to organize all your growth initiatives and experiments. With this template, you can:
- Prioritize ideas based on the PIE scoring framework by sorting all your growth ideas out using a solid and credible methodology.
- Test and learn your plan using our Sprint, Timeline, or Calendar view, ensuring your team communication is clear.
- Track your goals by setting your OKR metrics easily so you can track your team’s progress to keep the path of your company’s growth.
To learn how to use our growth hacking free template, watch our five-minute Youtube video tutorial. To find out more about what FROGED can do for your business, book a call today.
Product Marketing vs Product Management
We hope this article helped you understand the difference between these two roles and their day-to-day responsibilities.. To sum up, a product marketer defines, builds, and communicates a product’s positioning, value, and go-to-market strategy. Alternatively, a product manager is responsible for developing and guiding the entire product development process.
It’s important to note that both roles are necessary to create a product success strategy. Product managers and product marketers have different perspectives that, when combined, can lead to major growth.
Are you interested in learning more about product success? Check out blog posts on the 4 best tools to achieve product success, and How to build your Customer Success Strategy using a Product Success Platform.