Is marketing manager higher than product manager?

Question

Zippia Team · Accepted Answer

Yes, a marketing manager is usually higher than a product manager. Product managers are responsible for leading the creation of a product, while product marketing managers are responsible for leading the go-to-market (GTM) for that product.

To better understand the differences between the two roles, we have broken down the different responsibilities involved in each position.

A product manager is responsible for performing the following duties:

Sets the product vision and the product roadmap, including new products and new features
Identifies which customer pain points to target through both user interviews and metrics
Articulates business value of the product
Documents required functionality of the product and may write out user stories or test cases
Ships the product alongside software engineers, designers, QA, analysts, and others in the product development team
Manages stakeholders of the product and aligns them to the product strategy
Advocates for the end-user and shapes the customer experience within the product

A marketing manager is responsible for performing the following duties:

Identifies a coherent marketing strategy for the product
Conducts competitor analysis market research
Shapes communication product positioning
Identifies the product features to spotlight and empowers the sales team with clear value propositions
Explains benefits of product features via customer-facing messaging
Leads product demos presentations
Sets up marketing campaigns for demand generation
Selects the appropriate pricing strategy for the product
Guides throughout the lifecycle of the product, ranging from minimum viable products to fully mature products