Product Marketing vs. Product Management
There’s a lot of confusion and debate over the differences between product marketing and product management. This has been the case for as long as I can remember.
The confusion is caused by the fact that the two roles share a lot of similarities. And, both roles are seemingly suited for the same type of person. Let me try to provide an easy explanation of each one. My experience is with B2B technology companies so you should keep that in mind.
Inbound vs. Outbound
The biggest difference between the two jobs is that the product manager (PM) focuses on a lot of inbound work whereas the product marketing manager (PMM) spends most of her time on outbound work.
A common example of inbound work would be the gathering of customer (and market) requirements, prioritizing them, and working with engineering or development teams to incorporate them into the product. This is the work tasked to a PM in all tech organizations.
A common example of outbound work would be to spearhead or drive meetings (e.g., ‘live’ webinars) with enterprise sales prospects during a trial or demo to help move those prospects closer to a deal closure. This is the work that a PMM would do. Another basic job of the PMM is to create source materials for outbound marketing and sales.
Location on Org Chart