When most people think about marketing, they associate the industry with selling the consumer on a brand’s message. While brand management is an essential marketing concept, several other key players contribute to product sales and brand success. In this article, we will explore the essential role of product marketing more closely.

What is a Product Marketing Manager?

While a brand manager focuses on brand perception and their company’s public image, product marketing managers act as the voice of the customer, developing marketing plans and materials that connect consumer needs to their product.

A product marketing manager is an entirely separate role from a product manager who is responsible for the product, the product strategy, roadmap, and ensuring development builds according to the documented plan. However, these roles will likely overlap often. While the product manager focuses on all aspects of a product itself, the product marketing manager will communicate its value to the market.

What Does a Product Marketing Manager Do?

Product marketing managers control the positioning, messaging, and branding of their products. Additionally, product marketing managers develop marketing programs and collect and analyze feedback from consumers while also handling some customer relations areas.

This role also bridges the gap between the sales and marketing departments by presenting product, consumer, and market information in a clear manner that entices customers. The sales team requires the correct information to sell the product. In contrast, the marketing team requires the correct information to market the product. Information that passes from R&D or product management is frequently too technical. As a product marketing manager, you must be a product, customer, and market expert. Not only that, but you will translate all of the great technical details into benefits that your customers will comprehend.

Top 7 Duties of a Product Marketing Manager

Product marketing managers will find themselves balancing many different tasks, sometimes all at once. Here are a few of the major duties a product marketing manager might take on to help a new product perform well:

1. Product messaging – The right messaging is critical to sales and marketing success. Developing a solid product message that articulates your value and relevance will help position your product for success. The product marketing manager will use a lot of tools in their toolbox to produce messaging – target audience, pain points, solutions, benefits, and differentiation.
2. Determine target demographics – The most important part of marketing a new product or service is understanding who it’s for. Product marketing managers engage in comprehensive research to determine who needs the product, who has the resources to afford the product, and how often consumers will buy the product. The best way to understand customers is to build relationships with them. Find out how they made their decision, what challenges they are trying to address, and why they chose your product over the competition. Knowing your prospect base will ensure time and resources don’t get spent on ads and partnerships targeting the wrong people.
3. Monitor the competition – Any good product will inspire competition. Whether your company came up with an idea first doesn’t mean a thing if an imitator manages to market their version better. Product marketing managers will research competitor strategies and work to differentiate and position a product so that its differences and comparative benefits shine and inspire more prospects to come to you.
4. Contribute to Ad Campaigns – A Product marketing manager probably won’t be directly responsible for ad creation, but they will help construct advertising strategies. They’ll investigate ad campaigns for similar products to see which were effective and which weren’t. They’ll look at advertisements for other products regularly purchased by the target demographic. They’ll also look at where to advertise. Perhaps the product will sell best through infomercials; maybe social media is the best outlet; perhaps even physical media like brochures and newspapers will be optimal. Introducing a product through the right ad campaign means not only that you reach your target audience but that they’ll be enthusiastic about buying your product.
5. Go-to-market – Creating demand for your product is a shared role. The marketing team may execute campaigns and manage the journey through the marketing and sales funnel, but the Product marketing manager must advise on go-to-market strategy and provide valuable content from top-of-funnel through purchase and retention.
6. Sales enablement – Like constructing an ad campaign, knowing how to sell a product to potential buyers is integral to its success. If your business relies on a person-to-person sales model, a Product marketing manager has to make sure a sales team knows who they’re going to sell to and how to do it. The Product marketing manager will survey prospect preferences and understand what they look for in a product like yours and a buying experience. When the product comes to market, your sales team will know how to approach and construct the sales conversation to maximize conversions.
7. Product launch – All hot, new products have unique characteristics, and their corresponding product launches should reflect this. As you prepare for a product launch, you will likely be required to prepare the following or at least have this information handy:
   • Product launch plan – A new product launch or product upgrade requires an endless number of moving parts. What are the new capabilities and benefits? Does it need customer testing? What is the messaging for a press release? Is there a launch event? How will you train the sales team? How will customers find out about the product? As a product marketer, you have the unique ability to define and project manage all of these activities and orchestrate people and teams responsible for launch tasks even though they don’t report to you.
   • Customer interactions – How can you ensure that the product is a hit with the target demographic? In this case, you might propose a plan where prospective customers can interact with the product directly.
   • Pricing – Pricing and packaging are complex. A Product marketing manager is typically a contributor their knowledge of the market space, customer, and competitive intelligence to this process.
   • Press release – Product marketing managers contribute to the press release for the new product. Good press releases contain a succinct but informative summary of the product and why it’s essential, important statistics and facts, the company name, and the contact info of relevant parties.
   • Written resources – The product marketing manager is responsible for product collateral, supporting sales resources, such as email templates and presentations, sell sheets, solution briefs, and any other materials to support internal teams and external customers or partners.

Above all else, product marketing managers are responsible for organizing every tiny detail of a product launch while maintaining constant contact with each team member associated with its debut. They will work with market analysts, sales professionals, agencies, professional researchers, brand partners, supply chain workers, and a myriad of other specialists on a variety of different projects to make the launch happen and happen right.

The Most Essential Product Marketing Skills

The wide array of duties and responsibilities that can fall under the purview of a product marketing manager may seem daunting. As such, anyone hired for the position should be highly qualified. Here are some of the skills and talents a good product marketing manager will have.

• Outgoing and confident – You’ll be talking to everyone from executives to potential buyers. Having the ability to sell them on strategies, partnerships, and proposals of all sorts will be crucial.
• Time management – As a product marketing manager, you’ll have to read and construct thousands of reports, proposals, emails, and presentations. Tasks will pile up and hold the project back unless you can manage your time efficiently.
• SEO and marketing Fluency – In the past decade, SEO has become a cornerstone of the marketing industry. Keyword and search analysis are some of the best ways to discover and understand your prospect base. As such, fluency in SEO is critical for a product marketing manager. Expert knowledge of advertising and sales is also invaluable, both central to the orchestration of a product launch.
• Communication and teamwork – Because of the many individuals and groups you’ll work with, teamwork and communication are essential. You’ll have to get people to work together towards a common goal and ensure everyone is on the same page. Keeping tabs on all the different subsections of a project is vital if key goals and deadlines are to be met.
• Creative problem solver – If you hope to get a product to market that will sweep the competition and draw crowds of buyers, you’re going to have to think outside the box. Being able to come up with solutions to creative and administrative problems on the fly will keep the whole project moving smoothly and give your product the special boost it needs to succeed.
• Excellent writing skills – A quality writer that creates perfectly messaged, consistent, unique, and competitive content that is also grammatically correct is difficult to come by. Product marketers usually have this scarce combination of skills. They balance product, market, business, customer relations, and copywriting skills. They understand that each company is distinct, and content must reflect the company’s unique values. A good portion of a product marketer’s time is dedicated to writing value-driven content – collateral, sales resources, and product content.
• Flexibility – The ability to transition quickly from one area of focus to another without reacting negatively.
• Business acumen – A product marketing manager must have an in-depth understanding of marketing and product development functions along with financial and revenue knowledge.

Product Marketing Manager Job Description

Below is a sample of a job posting you may see when searching for a product marketing manager position.

Summary: We are seeking a product marketing manager to strengthen our brand and boost sales. The right candidate will be creative, agile, and understand quantitative measures for business success. You should also be familiar with organization structure, including campaigns, positioning, promotions, public relations, pricing, and development.

Responsibilities include:

• Working alongside the marketing team to devise practical, compelling marketing campaigns
• Gaining a clear understanding of the product and its significant attributes
• Researching your target market to understand the latest trends facing the industry
• Interacting with and building a two-way relationship with industry analysts
• Analyzing data and coming up with ways to present that data clearly both to other teams and to consumers
• Drafting, writing, and publishing press releases, ad copy, collateral, and other promotional materials
• Utilize many different platforms to convey your marketing message (i.e., social media, your company website, etc.)
• Conduct product test runs and report the results

To do the job successfully requires collaboration skills, attention to detail, simplifying complex concepts, the knowledge to complete thorough research and data collection skills.

Product Marketing Manager Interview Questions

When preparing for an interview for a product marketing manager position, expect to be asked a series of questions relating to your marketing experience, as well as any relevant technical expertise. Some questions may include:

• How many years of product marketing experience do you have in a market-facing role?
• What is your experience level with Microsoft Office, Project, and Basecamp?
• How many years of experience do you have using CRM tools (e.g. Slack, Salesforce)
• Do you have a working knowledge of marketing automation tools?
• Would you consider yourself a social media network expert?
• Do you have professional public speaking experience?
• Are you familiar with ROI?
• Do you have a Bachelor’s degree in business or marketing?
• Describe the journey from a marketing lead to a sales opportunity.
• Provide an example of your involvement in a product launch.
• How do you measure success?

Each of these questions directly correlates to the type of tasks you can expect to complete in this role.

Bottom Line: A Product Marketing Manager Must Understand Products and People

Now that you understand what it takes to be a product marketing manager, you can start honing your skills, updating your resume, and preparing for those big interviews. Remember to keep sight of who you are and what your ultimate goals are. If you can do that, you will surely land a role that suits your talents, skills, and experience.