5 minute read
LSBR Blog
Can you imagine that the sole aim of your job is to champion or channel projects that bring about life-changing products to the market? Would you describe yourself as a product marketer or a product manager? Technically you can be called either, but if you desire to work effectively and professionally with products, you should know about the significant differences between product management and product marketing. There are fast track courses online that could swiftly bring you up to speed on the most important differences.
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Concrete definitions of product management and product marketing may differ from company to company and are often dependent on how the organisation or company perceives these roles. It is crucial to note that each job has its defining and unique characteristics; therefore, there are no absolute roles and responsibilities attached to these jobs. A better understanding of these characteristics will help you to determine which product role you will fit into.
Product managers (known as PMs) are in charge and accountable for the overall success of a product. They productively monitor products through its development process, giving engineers, designers, and workers guidance on how things should work, how it should be done, and what to do next. These Product managers do well in defining a product’s functions and workflows, and they also communicate vital information to the stakeholders.
Product marketing, or product marketing management (PMM), is solely focused on the customer. The product marketer is responsible for ensuring that the company fully understands its customer needs and builds these products to meet those needs and demands.
Product marketing managers also maintain communication with customers once a product becomes available, Branding, and promoting the product so that customers understand how its benefits into their lives and how it helps them to fix a problem or issue.
David, and executive in Residence and seasoned marketer who works with MBA students interested in product marketing, explained further that most companies make use of two different models of product marketing to achieve their aim.
"In the first model, the product marketer is like a subcontractor who becomes an expert in first understanding the user and then communicating a differentiated value proposition to the right customer," says David. "The product marketer supports the product manager in deciding where to take the product strategically based on customer input gathered and analysed by the product marketer."
"In the second model, the product marketer is mainly responsible for communicating with the customers but doesn't play as active a role in informing the product strategy," says David. In both models mentioned, product marketers or product managers work with a wide range of people every day.
"Product marketers work with researchers, customer experience designers, and other customer-facing resources in the company to understand the customers as well as possible," says David. David further emphasised data;” They may also work with engineers and data scientists to use feedback tools to get customer insights based on how people use the product. Once they have accumulated all of that data on how customers behave, they then work with the product management team to share what they have learned about the customers and what they think the product team might do in terms of setting product priorities to meet customer needs."
Product managing managers work with communication professionals, brand marketers, marketing communicators, and organisation teams. David explains that this teamwork is required to develop excellent marketing communication and an active access point for customers to engage with the company. The marketing team’s goal is to come up with optimal means of acquiring and retaining customers
Skills every product marketer should have
There are several skills that every product marketer should have: These specific skills will help product marketers succeed in their roles and can be learnt from online fast track courses. A product marketer should be able to:
Listen and talk to customers to understand their basic needs (functional and emotional). Use data to understand how a product is being used. Access information (customer, competition) and company capabilities in plotting strategies for products. Communicate well with your customers so that they can write a good product story or give direction to others. Good products management responsibilities LSBR.UK
Product management responsibilities
Vince Law, a former head of product management at General Assembly, consults and instructs individuals and organisations on product management and leadership abilities. He says that the primary responsibility of a product manager is to build a product that solves customer problems and needs.
This involves knowing your customers, who they are, their needs, discovering their problems, determining the solution to solving these problems, and how to go about these problems.
There are a lot of responsibilities and activities in understanding your customers' needs, and this often results in an overlap between product management and product marketing roles and responsibilities. Product Management and Product marketing revolve around conducting research on the specific market, doing market analyses, market sizing, customer interviews on customer development, and ethnographic research to find out and understand their customers’ problems.
Finding out what to build and how to build is chiefly the focus and benefit of good product management.
According to Vince, “There are a lot of different ways to find a solution to a problem and a lot of reasons why one solution might be better than another.” Product managers need to find various ways to solve a problem in the most optimal way. To focus on the things that matter most, building something that is faster, more efficient, or more effective, but it may also involve assessing and mitigating market risk.
Product managers may team up with engineers and designers and people in marketing, sales operations to come up with the best solutions.
Behaviours of successful product managers
Vince helped us identify the fundamental behaviour of successful product managers. Listed below are some of the actions that aid product managers in achieving success in their role:
Conducting thorough market research and find suitable and actionable data to understand customers and the market better. Listening to customers and their worries to fully understand the problems they face. Being objective, instead of making assumptions Making analytical decisions about trade-off and risks Being good leaders, leading teams toward achieving goals, and help them overcome any potential timeline and tactical issues.
Product management and product marketing are interwoven in many ways, but they have their differences. Production managers work to create, depict, and define new products and features, while product marketers dwell on bringing those products and features to the market. The skills and required qualities for each role vary and should be considered before determining which role you will fit in. To get an overview of each role’s description, sign up for a fast track course.
