KUMARketing.com

The function - Product Marketing - varies in scope from company to company. Irrespective, it is pertinent that the product marketing personnel have some technical know-how on the product they are going to market. This is because their opposite number on the customer side can be anyone from an Engineering Manager to Senior Engineers. Talking in their language is key for effective communication.

This is an era of outsourcing. Yet, product marketing is one of those functions that still lives outside the outsourcing dictates. It is difficult to maintain customer relationships when the product marketing group and the customer are in different countries and speak different languages. So, you find a lot of companies assigning product marketing duties to the sales personnel. While it saves operational overheads, it is a burden on the sales person as he now has to equip himself with more than his fair share of technical expertise. Some companies lessen the burden on the sales manager by transferring product marketing responsibilities to the sales engineer.

"In Silicon Valley, in particular, product marketing professionals have considerable domain experience in a particular market or technology or both. Some Silicon Valley firms have titles such as Product Marketing Engineer, who tend to be promoted to managers in due course."

Answers.com Recommendations:

Franteractive

S. Wheelright and K. Clark in Revolutionizing Product Development (1992),

My recommendation (additional):

Blue Ocean Strategy -W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne