Your PM Needs a Wingman – Not Another Job
Product Marketing isn’t a side task – it’s the PM’s wingman: separating PM and PMM is a growth multiplier.
Let’s be honest: Product Management and Product Marketing are not the same job.
Yet in too many companies, especially in early-stage startups or lean teams, these two critical functions get rolled into one person – the Product Manager.
On the surface, it might seem like a tidy solution: “They know the product best, so let them market it.” But this shortcut often costs far more in long-term product success than it saves in headcount.
Here’s why.
1. Different Missions, Different Mindsets
Product Managers (PMs) are responsible for building the right product — maximising value by being the strategic nexus between business goals, user needs, and technical execution. They play a critical role in understanding customer pain points, managing the product roadmap, prioritising features, and working closely with engineering and design to bring meaningful products to life. Their world revolves around backlogs, sprint cycles, user research, and navigating tough trade-offs to deliver the most impactful outcomes.
Product Marketing Managers (PMMs), on the other hand, are the strategic voice of the customer in the business and the voice of the product in the market. They focus on translating product value into customer impact — crafting clear positioning, enabling sales teams, analysing the market, and driving product adoption. Their world is shaped by messaging frameworks, go-to-market strategies, launch plans, and the tools that turn product features into customer wins.
While the two roles overlap in customer and market understanding, they approach it from fundamentally different angles. A PM wants to solve a problem. A PMM wants to sell the solution.
2. Time is the Enemy
Even if a PM had the skills and inclination to handle both roles (some do), time will always be the limiting factor.
If a PM is spending time on sales decks, launch emails, and market segmentation, guess what they’re not doing? Meeting with users. Writing PRDs. Unblocking dev teams. Tracking success metrics.
In short, they’re not doing their real job. And that creates risk: delayed launches, poor feature adoption, missed customer feedback loops, and vague messaging in the market.
3. Your Product Deserves a Wingman, Not a Clone
The best PMM is a strategic partner, not a task-taker. Think of them as the PM’s wingman – someone who:
Translates product features into customer benefits
Builds narratives that make your product unforgettable
Drives alignment across Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing
Brings competitive insights and market validation back into product planning
Done right, Product Marketing helps the PM think better – sharpening positioning, identifying market gaps, and giving the product the story it deserves.
4. PM, PMM, and Marketing: Get the Right Roles or Miss the Market
When PMs are the only voice driving GTM, messaging tends to stay feature-heavy and inside-out. The story becomes: “Here’s what we built,” instead of, “Here’s why it matters to you.”
On the flip side, Marketing cannot fill the gap of a PMM role – They are not equipped to do so, with focus on execution through campaigns, brand, and demand generation. Product Marketing is specialised for a reason. It is a strategic function that bridges product and market. Understanding the product at a technical and strategic go-to-market level – how it works, why it matters, and how it solves customer problems.
Great Product Marketing flips the script. It speaks the customer’s language. It builds connection, not just comprehension. It builds momentum – inside and outside the company – so your product doesn’t just launch, it lands.
Conflating roles weakens impact. If you assume Product Managers or general Marketing will handle Product Marketing, you risk a diluted message that lacks customer insight, ineffective launches with misaligned positioning, underpowered sales teams without the right tools or training, and slow product adoption due to missed market cues.
In short: PMM is not just "marketing with product knowledge." It’s a strategic role that demands its own seat at the table — or you risk product underperformance in the market.
5. Collaboration > Overlap
PM and PMM should be joined at the hip – not fused into one role. A high-functioning duo can:
Spot misalignment early
Shape roadmap priorities with market context
Build launches that excite Sales, not just Engineering
Close the feedback loop between product usage and market perception
Bottom line?
Let your PMs focus on the “what” and “why” of the product. Let your PMMs bring the “how” and “who.” And watch what happens when each can do their best work, together.
Your product doesn’t just need to be built right. It needs to be understood, adopted, and loved. That’s why Product Marketing isn’t optional – it’s essential.