DISQUS

April · 10 months ago

Hi Grace,
This is a great post and I totally agree with you. I think in my mind I was making the assumption that product management would report somewhere other than marketing (which is what I usually see in smaller companies). Almost every successful smaller company that I know of has started with product management, then someone from that team has branched out to handle product marketing. All the while, the marketing communications stuff, when and where it couldn't be handled in house by the product marketers/managers was outsourced to consultants.
What seems to be more common however, is that a marketing communications is staffed first, which I think is just plain backwards.
Love the blog!
April

Stewart Rogers · 10 months ago

Great post! Product management is such a crucial role, its hard to imagine someone would hire a marketing communications person ahead of product management. What exactly are they marketing? I suspect in most cases, they are hiring a product marketing person but have a) given them the wrong title and b) recruited the wrong skill set.

Also when I think of product management, I see it as a umbrella that also covers product marketing.

Bobette Kyle · 10 months ago

Great post, Grace! I "grew up" as a brand / product manager for a small company. In that environment, Product Management and Marketing were synomous...we were the same people! Consequently, I'm like Stewart and see marketing (and marketing communications) as a function driven by Product Management. Can't see how it makes sense any other way, since Product Management is the "central hub" for a product, involved with everything related to creating/making/marketing/selling/delivering the products.

David Kamm · 10 months ago

Grace,

Excellent post, and I generally agree with your arguments for hiring Product Management first. Yet in some small/emerging companies, the Engineering/technical team may decide that - at least in the short term - they can adequately cover the core "Product Management" duties, whereas they likely view the marcomm function as completely foreign turf. Hence the situation you describe, where marketing communications gets hired first in order to fill that perceived gap.

A somewhat related issue I've seen is that Product Managers can get so swamped with their day-to-day core PM duties, that they have little quality time to devote to the more market-facing activities of product marketing, let alone the marcomm function. While this isn't always the case by any stretch, it does happen. And of course, some PMs absolutely excel at the more technical aspects of their job descriptions, but aren't necessarily the best resources for writing collateral and press releases, briefing analysts, conducting webinars, etc.

Having been in product management, product marketing, and marketing communications roles, I'd probably go with hiring product mgmt. first, then adding marcomm (including corp. comm.), then adding product marketing if needed as a separate function, and/or to add firepower to the outward-facing efforts.

Great site and great blog. I'm looking forward to reading more here!

Dave

Grace · 10 months ago

Thanks for your comments. True, some Product Managers really do get too bogged down with technical details. I've seen this with many inexperienced Product Managers. They can't see the forest beyond the trees. I've also known Product Managers who just preferred to stay technical and leave the market-facing activities to Product Marketing. However, there are Marketers, as you said, who have the breadth of experience needed to manage the entire process. These are the folks that start-ups critically need.