Guest Post- By Dinesh Sharma

Both Digital Marketing and Product Marketing talk to the market. However, there is a fundamental difference in the strategy of both, in fact, they are not the same even for Digital products also.

What is the definition of Product Marketing?

Product marketing is the process of bringing a specific product to market. The end goal for product marketers is to ensure the product is successful. Product marketing starts with the go-to-market strategy. The marketer understands the need that exists within the market, has a product that satisfies that need, and is now developing the positioning and value proposition that will resonate within the target market.

[Source] – “https://www.newbreedrevenue.com/blog/what-is-product-marketing “,

What is the definition of Digital Marketing?

Per Wikipedia, Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

Typical roles and responsibilities of a Product Marketing Manager:

• Product Branding
• Product Packaging
• Definition and delivery of sales tools (e.g. demos, sales presentations)
• Definition and delivery of marketing collateral (e.g. brochures, datasheets)
• Definition and delivery of sales enablement and training
• Definition and delivery of channel partner training
• Developing and executing product launch strategies
• Supporting the sales process (e.g. provide product sales expertise)
• RFPs, RFIs support
• Case study and customer feedback
• Customer Reference
• Win-Loss Analysis
• Value-based Argumentation and ROI Analysis
• Be the top product evangelist

As the saying goes ‘Product Manager (PM)’ listens to the market and ‘Product Marketing Manager (PMM)’ talks to the market. PMM is an outbound role…it’s a highly externally focused job.

PMM is a face for a product line. He/ She provides support for program strategy, ongoing sales support for a product line. PMM is responsible for bringing the product to market and driving adoption of it.

Typical roles and responsibilities of a Digital Marketing Manager:

• Design, build and maintain a social media presence
• Lead Generation
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay Per Click (PPK) Marketing
• Google Analytics Service
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
• Video Creations
• Content Creation
• Email Marketing Service
• Brand Management and many more…
• Measure and report performance of all digital marketing campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and KPIs)

It’s almost next to impossible to find a person who does both, basically, you cannot expect digital marketers to do the job of product marketers and vice versa.

Desired Skills for a Product Marketing Manager:

Top/ Essential skills of the Awesome Product Marketing Manager –

• Strong communication skills are a must
• A great storyteller with a vision
• Creativity and expression – Trying new stuff
• Technical skills along with Business Basics – PMM needs to understand the technical elements of a product to communicate how and what benefits they bring to the customer
• Good Writing ability – Great products with great features are awesome, the provided customer understands them
• Leadership and Teamwork
• Problem Solving ability – empathize customer’s situation, understand customer’s needs and relate these needs with product capabilities

Desired Skills for a Digital Marketing Manager:

Top/ Essential skills of an awesome Digital Marketing Manager –

• Experience in digital marketing and advertising
• Well-versed in the use of social media as a marketing tool
• Understands website metrics and best practices
• Experience with search engine optimization, lead generation, and email marketing
• Ability to develop marketing goals and evaluate results
• Good at problem-solving and communication
• Strong Content writing skills

Average Salary of a Product Marketing Manager in India:

The data payscale.com shows that the average salary of a Product Marketing Manager in India is:

Average Salary of a Digital Marketing Manager in India:

The data payscale.com shows that the average salary of a Digital Marketing Manager in India is:

Top Product Marketing Courses and Training in India and Global:

It’s hard to find focused courses in the area of product marketing in India, most of the training institutes are operating at the global level. Here are few top ones.

1. PragmaticInstitute offers very comprehensive training and certifications in the area of product marketing, you can get more details at: https://www.pragmaticinstitute.com/product/
2. 280Group is also a very popular institution offering product marketing and product management training courses, https://280group.com/product-management-blog/category/product-marketing/
3. Apart from that, you can find several B-schools and Coursera offer product marketing training programs.

Top Digital Marketing Courses and Training in India :

Per key source from https://soravjain.com/digital-marketing-courses-india/ and https://aryanjalan.com/top-digital-marketers-in-india/

Here is list of top digital marketing courses and training institutions –

1. Digital Scholar – Digital Scholar is the brainchild of Sorav Jain, launched in 2019.   It is a one-of-a-kind digital marketing training institute in India, offering the unique premise of agency-styled learning
2. digitaldeepak.com –   Digitaldeepak provides a unique training program, it’s a cashback model of the internship. It’s a great idea to give incentives to people for completing the assignments on time.
3. Digital Vidya – Founded in 2009, Digital Vidya is a company built exclusively for digital marketing and data analytics training. Having trained over 20000+ professionals from 10000+ brands in more than 1200 training sessions, it’s apt to say that Digital Vidya is Asia’s leading Digital Marketing & Data Analytics training company.
4. EduPristine – Established in the year 2007, EduPristine has a global presence and is one of the leading digital marketing training institutes in India
5. UpGrad – Founded in 2015, Upgrad’s vision is to help marketers understand marketing as a whole rather than just focusing on just a piece of the puzzle.
6. Delhi School of Internet Marketing (DSIM) – Started in 2011, DSIM has trained 13,000+ professionals in 390+ batches with a trainee rating of 8.6/10.

In short, a digital marketer must be well versed with the paid SEM tools like google swords, Facebook ads, etc to generate leads and have the ability to write good content. It’s okay even if the knowledge of the product is limited.

Product marketing includes identifying the value proposition and product narrative to the customer, creates the go-to-market strategy, and developing the sales materials. It’s essential to have a strong knowledge of the product and its domain.

Product marketing: Squarely focussed on “Product adoption”, product’s feature adoption.

Digital marketing: Focussed on-demand/lead generation of that product.

Thus, both are interrelated and cannot do without each other.