What is a Technical Marketing Manager?

I started this morning writing a long post about my second 30 days in my new Technical Marketing Manager (TMM) post with The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT).  I found myself explaining how a TMM is similar to a Product Manager (PM).  It probably deserves a post of its own.  So here it is.

Some of you might be wondering why I take advice from a product management blog (On Product Management) when my job title is Technical Marketing Manager.  So what does a Technical Marketing Manager do?

In a sentence I see it as taking overall responsibility for marketing the product of a hugely technical organisation; something that is much more than the 4 P’s.

I see my current role as sitting on a spectrum of similar roles spanning from Technical Product Manager, Solution Specialist, Product Manager, through to Analyst, Product Marketing Manager and finally Technical Marketing Manger.  I’m probably a much better communicator than technologist, therefore the marketing aspect just feels like a better fit.

Ultimately all varieties of PM need most or all of the following skills:

  • Just doing it
  • Domain experience
  • Communication skills
  • Decision making ability
  • Environment scanning
  • Business understanding
  • Technical experience
  • Negotiation (both internally and externally)
  • Selling
  • Networking (of the human variety, not 802.x)
The list isn’t exhaustive but I reckon I use all of those every day.

Hat tip to onpm again for the skills list.  I’ve added a few of my own.

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