Product marketing and product management are essential functions to a product’s success, and they are sometimes confused due to their overlapping responsibilities.  

Both product managers and product marketers share the goal of delivering a product that meets customer needs. They collaborate frequently with each other and work with similar teams, making it easy to blur the lines between the two. However, product management and product marketing roles have key differences, and understanding those differences is critical to your product’s success. 

In this blog post, we’ll break down product marketing vs. product management and provide free templates for each role to help your teams excel.

Product marketing vs. product management

Product management is responsible for defining the product: who it is for and what problem it solves. Product managers help develop the product roadmap and collaborate with engineers to design a winning product that attracts (and retains) users. The product manager is the leader behind product development from ideation to launch. 

Product marketing defines how the company communicates the product's value to customers. Product marketers develop the product messaging, positioning, and go-to-market strategy to create demand and drive adoption. Product marketing is also responsible for educating the sales team on the product messaging and equipping them to speak with potential customers.

What is product marketing?

Product marketing managers wear many hats and often work in the middle ground between the marketing, sales, and product organizations. They are primarily responsible for crafting the product messaging and providing the sales and customer support teams with the proper materials for how the company positions itself. They develop the go-to-market strategy from the planning phase to execution. After a product launch, they continually monitor and evaluate messaging and make improvements where needed.

For current or prospective product marketing managers, here are some of our top templates to help you improve your brand, develop a marketing plan, and better understand your customers.

4P marketing matrix: Differentiate your company from competitors. Define the 4 Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. Improve customer satisfaction, hone product strategy, and align with other teams.

Market segmentation matrix: Divide your target market into geographic, psychographic, behavioral, and demographic subsets to better understand it and improve the marketing experiences for your products. This template makes it easy to collaborate with others to visualize your market segments.

BETTER creative model: To create a winning brand strategy, you must be intentional. Use the BETTER model to identify your brand personality, emotional connection, target audience, two-way interaction, exponential elements, and reach. Invite marketing leaders to collaborate on this template with easy sharing options, and start brainstorming your ideas as a group.

“Lucid templates are doorways to better collaboration and understanding. As a PMM, it's essential to deeply understand your user base and the ceremonies that matter most to each persona. Templates help me immerse myself in the workflows of roles like a CISO or VP of sales, gaining insight into their daily challenges and decision-making processes. Beyond that, templates are perfect for quickly documenting 1:1s, project boards, or even diving into strategic exercises like market segmentation or creative brainstorming.”

—Jaxson Perry, product marketing manager at Lucid

What is product management?

Product managers oversee many moving parts. They have to communicate with multiple teams, conduct user research, choose which features to prioritize, and more. To successfully juggle all of these responsibilities and deliver an attractive product, they must have strong communication, time management, and technical skills. Product management is a balancing act between cross-functional collaboration, strategic planning, and execution. 

While this is not an exhaustive list, here are some of our top product management templates to help you and your team stay organized and aligned:

Product roadmap: Easily design the perfect product roadmap for your next launch. Keep track of timelines, features, and tasks on a customizable, collaborative canvas. Make this template the central place for communication where teams can update their progress, call out blockers, and ask questions.

“I use this template to communicate plans with the team—it’s simple, clean, and helps keep priorities front and center.”

—Birch Eve, senior product manager at Lucid

MoSCoW prioritization: Prioritize project tasks into four categories: must-have, should-have, could-have, and won’t-have. This easy-to-use template will help your team define what needs to be done and when, helping everyone align on crucial project elements.

Product requirements document (PRD): Efficiently create your product requirements document, giving a high-level overview of your product. You can customize it to fit your company’s needs and easily share it with stakeholders and executives.

“The PRD template is a game-changer for organizing ideas and turning them into actionable steps. It keeps everyone aligned and avoids last-minute surprises."

—Birch Eve, senior product manager at Lucid

Overall, the main difference between product marketing vs. product management is that product marketing managers develop the proper messaging for the product and successfully bring it to market. Product managers help build and manage the product with engineering and design teams.