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2003 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey
Each year Pragmatic Marketing conducts a survey of product managers and marketing professionals. Our objective is to provide you with information about compensation as well as the most common responsibilities for product managers and other marketing professionals.
The survey was mailed to 5000 marketing professionals with 560 responses.
The survey was conducted during the period of November 25-30, 2003 using WebSurveyor.
Profile of a product manager
The average Product Manager is 36 years old;
84% claim to be "somewhat"
or "very" technical;
94% have completed college, 56% have some MBA classes,
and 47% have completed a masters program;
30% are female, 70% are
male.
The typical product manager has responsibility for three products.
Organization
The typical product manager reports to a director in the marketing department.
- 43% report to a director
- 33% to VP
- 27% report directly to the CEO
- 23% are in the Marketing department
- 15% are in Development or Engineering
- 10% are in the Product Management department
- 10% are in a sales department
Impacts on Productivity
Product managers receive 65 emails a day and send about 33.
Product managers spend roughly two days a week in internal meetings (14
meetings/week).
But 30% are going to 15 meetings or more each week and 25%
attend 19 or more meetings!
Working with requirements
The majority of product managers are researching market needs, writing requirements, and monitoring development projects.
- 72% researching market needs
- 55% preparing business case
- 24% performing win/loss analysis
- 85% monitoring development projects
- 79% writing requirements
- 50% writing specifications
Working with marcom and sales
Product managers also spend time providing technical content for marcom and sales.
- 49% writing promotional copy
- 38% proofing promotional communications
- 38% talking to press and analysts
- 53% training sales people
- 35% going on sales calls
Compensation
Average product management compensation is
$91,650 salary
plus
$11,363 annual bonus
(as in 2002, 78% of product managers get a
bonus)
Our bonuses are based on:
- 57% company profit
- 30% product revenue
- 42% quarterly objectives (MBOs)
Almost 40% say the bonus does not motivate at all and only 10% say the bonus motivates a lot.
Regional impact on compensation
| Compensation | Female | Male | Overall | ||||||
| (in US$) | Salary | Bonus | Total | Salary | Bonus | Total | Salary | Bonus | Total |
| Mid Atlantic | $85,154 | $10,900 | $96,054 | $92,278 | $10,286 | $102,563 | $89,290 | $10,542 | $99,832 |
| Midwest | 75,941 | 6,818 | 82,759 | 82,404 | 11,649 | 94,053 | 80,688 | 10,542 | 91,229 |
| North East | 87,600 | 15,625 | 103,225 | 99,070 | 12,194 | 111,264 | 94,853 | 13,250 | 108,103 |
| Pacific Northwest | 86,667 | 4,000 | 90,667 | 87,563 | 7,333 | 94,896 | 87,421 | 6,857 | 94,278 |
| South | 83,100 | 12,000 | 95,100 | 89,647 | 11,174 | 100,821 | 88,159 | 11,367 | 99,526 |
| Southwest | 93,250 | 9,200 | 102,450 | 83,333 | 11,250 | 94,583 | 86,783 | 10,647 | 97,430 |
| West Coast | 90,452 | 6,421 | 96,873 | 106,571 | 14,537 | 121,108 | 101,255 | 11,967 | 113,222 |
| US Average | $86,252 | $9,914 | $96,167 | $94,097 | $11,943 | $106,040 | $91,650 | $11,363 | $103.013 |
| Canada (in US$) | 77,556 | 3,500 | 81,056 | 74,750 | 12,500 | 87,250 | 75,432 | 11,115 | 86.548 |
| Canada (in CN$) | $102,916 | $4,645 | $107,561 | $99,193 | $16,588 | $115,781 | $100,099 | $14,750 | $114.849 |
Click to review Minimums, maximums, and international responses
What should the company know about the role of product management?
- PM role is more strategic than tactical
- I don't have time to do all that I can contribute strategically
- We tend to be understaffed
- Product management is not sales support.
- I need to visit the market to be a good product manager
(read the full list of comments)
Product Management ratios within the company
How are product managers allocated relative to other departments?
For each Product Manager (PM), we find:
- 2.7 Products
- 0.7 Product Lines
- 1.0 Services
- 13.3 Developers
- 1.7 Development Leads
- 1.7 Sales Engineers/Pre-sales support
- 5.0 Sales people
For companies with both product managers and product marketing managers, the average is 3.82 product managers and 2.63 product marketing managers for 13.84 products.
