Download the Product Management vs Marketing discussion guide as a PDF

How should product management and product marketing teams divide responsibilities? Where does one end and the other begin? Where should there be intentional overlap?

This discussion guide will help you identify the various responsibilities that need to be distributed, clarify expectations, and support collaboration for product success. It provides the most value when used at least twice a year to revisit results, identify gaps, develop new approaches and experiments to adapt for ongoing improvements.

  1. Who is ultimately responsible for the financial results of the product? (e.g., profit and loss, revenue, growth, etc.)
  2. How is customer and market research distributed across the product management and marketing team? (e.g., geographic, vertical, size, etc.)
  3. Who is responsible for pricing?
  4. Who is responsible for positioning?
  5. Who is responsible for messaging?
  6. Who is responsible for sales enablement? (e.g., sales training, demonstrations, sales tools, etc.)
  7. Who will perform and maintain win/loss analysis?
  8. Who will organize and lead regular product roadmap planning sessions?
  9. Who communicates product strategy to internal stakeholders?
  10. Who will coordinate with legal to maintain alignment of license agreements?
  11. How will compliance and enforcement of license agreements be achieved?
  12. Who will coordinate with finance to generate forecasts?
  13. Who will gather competitive intelligence and complete competitive analysis?
  14. How is responsibility for managing relationships with technology partners distributed?
  15. Who will create and maintain buyer personas?
  16. Who will create and maintain user personas?
  17. How will the product management and marketing team collaborate to create marketing content? (e.g., presentations, webinars, data sheets, website copy, social media content, etc.)
  18. How will the product management and marketing content, artifacts, and data be made available to those involved in the success of the product?
  19. How is responsibility for the management of product backlogs distributed across the product management and marketing team?

Please send any comments or questions about the Product Management vs Marketing discussion guide to Jason Tanner at jtanner@appliedframeworks.com.