The Product Marketer is Nearing Extinction
The Product Marketer is Nearing Extinction
For years, the line separating a Product Manager and Product Marketer has become increasingly blurry. I predict that the two roles will converge.
“Anyone have stories and advice about navigating antagonistic PM<> PMM relationships?” - Product Marketer in a Product Marketing slack community.
I’ve seen a lot of folks ask questions like the one above. Sometimes the question is around the working relationship. Other times it’s about roles and responsibilities. In some cases, folks are getting right to the point - asking “What is the difference between the two roles?”
There isn’t much difference, honestly. Hence the discomfort. The overlapping responsibilities of the PM and PMM create unnecessary conflict. The constant banging of heads makes it uncomfortable at best and antagonistic at worst.
In 2023, I was at a Sales Kickoff in which the Product Manager and Product Marketer led a session for the Sales team. The PM - rightfully or not - decided the Product Marketer didn’t have enough background to speak to the merits of the product. He ran the entire session. The PMM, sadly, never said a word. There has to be a better way.
Ultimately, I predict that over the next several years these roles become one. Here are a couple of reasons why…
There’s too much overlap today. A typical Product Marketer (PMM) is responsible for many tasks. Here’s a random sample: competitive intelligence, market positioning, go-to-market planning, sales enablement. In my experiences, most of these tasks - while typically assigned to the PMM, require a large effort from the Product Manager (PM) to be successful. So, if the PM is already heavily involved, why not cut out the middle man? If nothing else, it reduces risk during the game of telephone.
When I hear of instances of PM-PMM conflict, it’s typically due to this. The PM is contributing to the PMM tasks at a level that begs the question: “Couldn’t I just do this myself more efficiently?” I’ve been in this position myself, many times. It’s not the PMM’s fault. They were hired to do this work. However, it’s an inefficiency today.
Let’s explore the overlap across the full journey of productization.
In the analysis phase, both PM’s and PMM’s are evaluating competitive threats, market preferences, GTM results, etc. The overlap is heavy in this area because a PM can’t create a product strategy and prioritize effectively without this content. A PMM can’t plan the GTM without knowing this information as well. So, we divide and conquer the work, and hopefully share our findings (but let’s admit that is never done well). We have two teams doing a lot of the same thing.
With strategy, again, we’re sharing a lot of the work in understanding how we’ll compete in the market and how our product will differentiate itself against competitive threats. The best PMM’s will approach the PM during the roadmap formation and offer advice such as “I think if we add this, it will allow us to perform better in the market.” However, I’ve rarely experienced this. In most cases, as a PM, I’m merely asked for a copy of the roadmap so it can be presented to the larger team. Then, I’m left to spend more time explaining why items are on the roadmap. Inefficiencies everywhere.
Productizing (in this case, I mean the development of the product) is an area where historically, the PM spends more time with Engineering and Design iterating on a product that can eventually be shipped. PMM might get involved in organizing a beta session with clients and prospects. We’ll talk about it later, but I suspect the PM-Engineering relationship will change a bit in the age of AI, making this less of a PM-specific task.
Similarly, go-to-market (what I’m referring to as “Commercialize” has historically been in the PMM charter. But should it be? Who can speak best about the product? Can a PM take the reins on pricing given they are familiar with the development costs? What about sales enablement? How is a PMM conducting this in a way that a PM couldn’t? The commercialization of said Product has long been in the PMM camp, but I could definitely see that changing.
The overlap will continue to grow. The role of Product Manager continues to be forged. When the tech PM rose to prominence in the 2000’s, it was accepted that the PM would be a stalwart member of a scrum team, directing the team toward priorities and - essentially - representing the needs of the customer for the team. I foresee Design teams taking on more research and contributing more to this effort. In cases where there is a need for a fulltime scrum member, the “Product Owner” can fulfill this role too. We should accept that the Product Owner is a different role.
Some might ask: Isn’t this a tremendous amount of work for the PM? It certainly is. I am also counting on the advancement of AI to replace a lot of the menial work that PM’s and PMM’s do today. Need to create content for a sales enablement deck? With generative AI, we won’t be starting with a blank deck. Need to prioritize a backlog? Here are the ten JIRA tickets that will move the needle the most based on customer revenue, strategic initiatives, etc.
(I teach an MBA course where we cover AI. I often speak about how the current phase of AI will reduce menial work and allow us to spend more time on strategy. This is no different for Product Managers.)
If you know me, you know one of my favorite definitions of Product Management: Creating and capturing value. If you agree with that definition, then it’s beholden on the Product Manager to build the right products and then ensure the world knows about it and the company is reaping the benefits.
So what then happens to the Product Marketers?
While I predict the role of “Product Marketer” goes away, I don’t expect the 50,000 Product Marketers in the world to retire. I predict that most PMM’s transition to Product Management and companies hire more PM’s if necessary. Or - in large companies - PMM’s gravitate to sales enablement, project management or research roles.
The best Product Marketers I’ve worked with had three primary traits:
Deeply strategic
Customer-centric
Incredible communicators
The Product Management function needs more folks like this. I can’t wait for this change. Welcome, Product Marketers. We need you.