There is an important distinction between technology and product. Product as a function owns the vision and strategy for the relationship between the product and users, which is why some companies see growth hacking as a product function. Technology on the other hand owns the vision for how the product is engineered. In most good companies, technology groups do have influence on the high-level vision for the product they are building, but the product group’s core purpose is to bring business acumen to the process of building a technology product.

It’s important to note that this sort of structure is mostly found in technology companies — especially those where the company and product are almost synonymous and the product and company missions are the same.

What I find interesting in this transformation is that many team members such as product managers and engineers are trained to think about humans as users, whereas marketers are trained to think about humans as consumers, which I believe is where the distinction in skill sets lies. However *most* marketing people aren’t trained in the product development process which, from personal experience, is very different from that of the process of developing communications.

In short, most marketers indeed do lack the hard skills and understanding of tech products necessary to develop innovative growth hacking strategies. Likewise, product teams’ focus is primarily centered around determining what to build and how that fits into a product roadmap, which in my experience does include monetization, but not explicitly marketing.

If marketers are going to make the transition to ‘product marketing’ or growth hacking, they need to be trained on how products are developed and learn how to work alongside engineers and product managers (among other stakeholders). While the goal of generating demand and acquiring customers is the same, growth hacking and marketing are almost two separate disciplines that utilize two separate skill sets and processes.

If I were to set up a company today I would have a product development manager aimed at improving the product and a product marketing manager aimed at growing users, both working side-by-side.

Could be narrow. Could be wide. Two different companies could have two vastly different sets of capabilities in their marketing departments — much more so in this new environment than ever in the past.

I make no sweeping judgment as to which is the “right” approach. It depends on many things.

But if marketers aren’t consciously thinking about these boundaries, and choosing where they want to define them, I think they will find themselves entangled in a digital mess.