Job Description for a Marketing Product Manager

The marketing product manager strategizes to achieve high financial profits for his company.

A marketing product manager defines the type of products that a business needs to sell to maximize the company's profits. If you are in this role, you get to choose the appearance and function of the products, their sales price, how they are advertised and how they will be introduced to the customers. In other words, you manage the four P's--product, place, price and promotion--as Shane Frederick, Professor at the Massachusetts Institute Sloan School of Management, explains to his business students.

Significance

Businesses that seek continuous increases in their profits base their strategic decisions on the insights gained by the marketing product manager. This function has great leverage within the corporation although it is typically performed by one person or a small team. In the introduction to his book "Product Marketing for Technology Companies," Mark Butje, a 20-year veteran in product marketing, describes this role as being the chief executive officer (CEO) without the power of hierarchy.

Activities

Let's imagine that you wear the product marketing manager's hat. First, you have in your office a strategic map describing the customers, competitors' products, the issues faced by the customers and the solutions that your company can provide to them. You also have overlaid a vision of the sales forecasts for these products. You continuously build and revise this strategic board with new market intelligence that you collect by traveling and interviewing potential customers and walking exhibit floors at conferences to gauge the competitive solutions. From studying this map, you derive plans on how to stand out from the market and how to beat the competition.

Secondly, you become a source of information about how the customer may think. The design team consults you about product features and enhancements.

Thirdly, you monitor the manufacturing center to make sure it can produce to your market forecasts.

Education

The typical education qualification includes a bachelor's degree in business administration with a focus on marketing. Frequently, companies will prefer candidates with a high-level, marketing or business-related degree, for instance an Master's in Business Administration (M.B.A.). Technical industries will favor the combination of an M.B.A. with a technical undergraduate or graduate degree.

Advancement

Product marketing opens doors to faster career paths leading to executive positions with the company. Even though this type of job cannot claim to be the only highway to top positions, a 2002 Forbes study discovered that 38 percent of the top 500 CEOs in the United States had an M.B.A. The combination of higher education in business management and the profit-oriented responsibilities of the role of marketing product manager weave a professional background ideal for stepping into the highest strategic position of the company.

Compensation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a mean annual wage of $118,000 for marketing managers. Start-up companies offer additional income in the form of stock options that can be traded into revenues once the company becomes public.

References

• MIT: Sloan School of Management: "the 4 P's of Marketing"; Prof. Shane Frederick; Fall 2002.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Career Guide to Industries; Advertising, Marketing, Promotions, Public Relations, and Sales Managers; , 2010-11 Edition
• Forbes: "Keep your CEOs out of Grad School"; Matthew Herper; 2002
• "Product Marketing for Technology Companies"; Mark Butje; 2005

Resources

• USNews: "Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Marketing"; Apr. 20, 2010