Jamie Wallis

25 October 2019

Why Redgate has Product Marketing Managers and Product Managers

You may be under the impression that Product Marketing Managers and Product Managers fulfil the same function. At some organizations they do; defining the commercial position of the product and working with, or within, the product teams to ensure development matches the business strategy.

So why would a software company hire both?

At Redgate we have both Product Marketing Managers and Product Managers, who work closely together to plan and execute the commercial and development strategy for their products.

The best way to explain this relationship is through the SiriusDecisions Product Marketing and Management Model.

Both the Product Marketing Manager and Product Manager bring a mixture of technical and commercial expertise to the table, but the focus is skewed with the Product Marketing Manager taking on more responsibility for the commercial factors, and the Product Manager focusing on the technical aspects of the strategy.

As such, there are clearly defined activities and deliverables each work on independently, with a central overlap that delivers a strong and aligned framework to move the product forward.

In sync: Product Marketing + Product Management

For example here are how some of the tasks are divided between the Product and Marketing managers:

This isn’t an exhaustive list, nor do we keep strictly to it – we may collaborate differently on varying projects, and take a pragmatic approach based on what’s needed on a given piece of work.

However, this division of tasks allows for each manager to provide their unique strengths and perspective to build the strategy. It also gives them the time and space to do an awesome job in the areas they specialize in, rather than one person trying to do everything.

Both roles retain strong relationships across the business, particularly with the sales, product and marketing teams – they are at the epicentre of linking commercial and development activities together.

How Product Marketing works at Redgate

If you’ve already read Renu Martingale’s post on Product Marketing at Redgate, you’ll know that strategy is absolute core to the role at Redgate.

Our Product Marketing Management team are key to ensuring that the marketing and product strategies are aligned, both to each other and the overall company strategy. We set and get buy-in for the strategy, and then drive it through to execution – not many other businesses give you the chance to do both.

From this, we can develop and deliver on a detailed marketing execution plan by working closely with the other marketing teams here. We’re really lucky at Redgate to produce all of our marketing in house, from web development through to events, demand generation to accounts marketing.

Research is central to our commercial intent initiatives, and so we spend a lot of time looking into market conditions, competitors, speaking with customers, and attending industry events. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative analysis we can plan the future direction of our marketing approach.

At Redgate we have a large sales operation, based across our offices in the UK, US, Germany and Australia. Product Marketing Managers have a very close working relationship with all our sales offices to ensure they are well briefed on product positioning and campaigns, as well as supported in closing deals.

We produce and regularly update competitor research, battlecards, nurturing content, buyer personas, and lots more. This all gets distributed online and in person throughout the year (yes, we do rack up the air miles).

It’s important for us to know exactly how our strategy is delivering, so we have ownership of data points that tell us both the success of campaigns and their conversion into revenue. We love data at Redgate, and our Product Marketing Managers make maximum use of the numbers available to both inform on previous work and plan for what to do next.

Would you make a good Product Marketing Manager?

If you’ve read the above and think this sounds like the sort of role you’d like do, you’re in luck because we’re hiring! Apply now to be the next Redgate Product Marketing Manager.