Product Marketing Manager Job Description

Want to find a marketer that creates stellar product campaigns for the right market? Here’s a job description guide to attract the ideal Product Marketing Manager for your business.

Your exceptional product deserves to reach the right audience that will find value in it. Thus, we uncover everything you need to know about creating a Product Marketing Manager job description to hire the best candidate who can optimize your campaigns. 

Scroll down below to view the sample template, which should only serve as a guide and may be edited according to your company’s needs. We also provide a comprehensive description of the role below.

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Product Marketing Manager Job Description Template

About the Company

This is where you make a first impression with prospective hires. In this section, write a concise paragraph about your company and what candidates can expect from working with your team. 

Here are a few details you may include in your introduction: 

• Products & services

• Company size

• Company’s mission & goals

• Key clients

• Company culture & work environment 

Product Marketing Manager Job Description

You will be responsible for identifying the right target market, defining our product features’ value proposition, and creating promotional 360 campaigns. You must obtain an in-depth knowledge and understanding of our key products, brand, and market trends as you will be working closely with the rest of the marketing team to ultimately strengthen brand recall and increase sales. 

Roles and Responsibilities

• Conduct market research and competitor analysis to optimally drive product awareness across all marketing channels.

• Identify and communicate our products’ unique value proposition.

• Create uniform and compelling messaging across all channels.

• Develop and implement annual marketing strategies (including pricing) and 360 promotional campaigns.

• Implement the best marketing sequence for both lead and sales generation.

• Work with internal stakeholders (SEO, content marketing, social media) to discover the best strategies for each channel.

• Align with the sales team members on the correct messaging and key features of each product. 

• Optimize marketing campaigns based on key performance metrics and customer feedback. 

Skills

• Campaign management

• Project management

• Strategy

• Data analysis 

• Market research

• Customer acquisition and retention 

• Product messaging

• Content creation

• Copywriting & storytelling

• Digital marketing

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s Degree and/or Master’s Degree in marketing, advertising, mass communications, or any related field.

• At least 5+ years of experience in a marketing role.

• Has subject matter expertise in our product and industry.

• Has the ability to solve complex problems and make informed decisions. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

• Excellent teamwork skills.

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What is Product Marketing?

Product marketing promotes a product’s unique value proposition to the right audience. Thus, it defines the position of your product in the go-to-market, and why they need it. It touches on aspects of sales, marketing, and product.

Thus, a product marketing manager must successfully know how to identify the right audience, deeply understand the market, launch your product, create strategic marketing plans, and build customer loyalty. 

What Does a Product Marketing Manager Do?

As mentioned, the product marketing manager role develops the product’s positioning and messaging in the market, and eventually manages promotional campaigns for the new product. 

Moreover, there are vital steps a product marketing manager should have a deep understanding of. We’ve listed these steps down below to help you consider strong candidates. 

• Market research. A good product marketer understands the market and competition to make informed strategies and decisions. This step helps them determine where to position your product.
  
  An example of successful market research was done by Airbnb. They diversified by entering new markets. Despite the risks, this yielded great results for them because they conducted extensive market research before doing so.  
  
  How exactly did Airbnb do it? According to SimilarWeb, Airbnb looked into its competitors’ growth strategies using web analytics. Thus, they focused on the following marketing activities below.

• Analyze your target customers. A good product marketing manager must understand your customers’ needs to know what solutions your product can provide. 

• Develop content and messaging. They must know how to describe your product in various different content and platforms. They are also in charge of your product’s messaging, and communicating it to both the sales team and customers. 
  
  Mailchimp does this really well. They used to be known for strictly delivering email-related services, but they have also diversified since then. And product messaging doesn’t fail to inform us that they have well-rounded services for every type of market. 
  
  

• Develop and implement a product launch plan and promotional campaign. Your candidate must know how to delegate and align responsibilities across teams for the product launch. Their attention to detail is vital.

• Follow through. Not all launches and campaigns go smoothly, but a product marketing manager must be quick to solve problems and implement multi-channel campaigns.

• Build brand loyalty. Once you’ve built awareness and made sales, a product marketing manager must be knowledgeable of customer retention strategies. 

• Measure success and optimize. A good product marketer knows how to measure success and identify improvement areas. They create plans to fill opportunity gaps by the following strategies. 

Product Marketing Manager & Product Manager: Similarities & Differences

Simply put, a product manager leads product development to ensure market success. Although they also identify what the product’s value proposition is to a market, they are not responsible for communicating them to the audience. 

Product managers only determine how the product answers customers’ needs during the development stage, and they work closely with engineers/developers to ensure a successful product. The product marketing manager is in charge of what happens next after the development stage – they communicate the product’s key features and value to the target audience. 

Both roles share the most similarities in research – they both need to have a deep understanding of the target audience’s profile. They both identify customer needs and how the product addresses those needs. 

Product launches and campaigns are usually most successful when both roles work closely together.

Can product managers be good product marketing managers?

Some product managers do make a minor career shift towards the marketing side of things. Product managers may be good candidates since they already know how to identify the target audience, a product’s key features, and its value proposition. 

However, they aren’t used to wide-scale communication outside the internal team, so it’s best to test the candidates’ campaign and strategy skills.

Can I hire a product marketing manager without a degree in marketing, advertising, or comms?

While most companies have a bare minimum requirement of hiring candidates with a related bachelor’s degree, there are some that accept the experience and the right certifications. 

Here are a few relevant product marketing-related certifications that may contribute to qualifications: 

• The Certified Product Marketing Manager (CPMM™) Credential from AIPMM

• Product Marketing Certification Program from eCornell (Cornell University)

• Product Marketing Certification Program from CXL

• Product Marketing Certification from LinkedIn
  

Ultimately, the decision depends on your company’s values and requirements. There is no doubt that there are competent and skillful professionals without a degree, but they must possess the right background and skill set.