PM360 Product Manager Survey August 2011

CAREER DETAILS

Marketers share details about their salary, job satisfaction, and where they get the info to stay ahead of the game as well as the best places to go for new marketing ideas.

Current Position
The majority of respondents have spent a good chunk of time (7.1 years on average) with their current employer (Figure 3). Only 17% have been at their current company for less than 2 years while 60% have been there between 2 and 10 years. When it comes to job titles, 30% of respondents are either a Product Manager or Senior Product Manager while 21% hold the title of Director of Marketing and 5% are Vice Presidents of Marketing. There are also Product Directors (6%), e-Marketing Managers (3%), Directors of Sales (3%), and Research Managers (2%) as well as one CEO, a Chief Scientific Officer, and a VP Global Accounts. In terms of their level of responsibility within the company, on average each respondent has 4 people who report direct ly to them (up from 3 last year) while another 9 people, on average, report indirectly to them via a “dotted line.”

Salary
Anyone who works in the industry should be happy to learn that reported salaries are up from last year (Figure 4). This could be a sign of an economic turnaround in the industry, or it could just be that a higher number of people in executive-level positions replied to our survey. There was a 16% increase from last year in respondents making more than $200,000 and a 12% increase in those making between $151,000 and $199,000. There was also a 5% decrease in those making less than $100,000.

Satisfaction
Overall satisfaction levels remain high for people working in this industry (Figure 5). The majority of respondents reported high satisfaction levels for their current position overall, their brand team, their vendors, and even their relationship with their boss (with a small group wishing it was better). The most notable levels of dissatisfaction are with resources (including budget, sales, support, etc.) where 43% are only somewhat satisfied or worse and with their company’s regulatory environment where 46% feel like something is lacking.

Resources
Print is not dead yet. The great majority of respondents (72%) turn to print industry magazines to get information about their careers and the industry. Digital resources, however, still remain important. The same number of respondents as last year use e-newsletters (61%) and digital versions of print magazines (51%), while online magazine usage saw a slight bump (32% in 2010 to 38% in 2011). Respondents became less reliant on blogs (17% in 2010 vs. 14% today) and RSS feeds (18% to 11%), while more were downloading mobile apps (7% to 11%). There were also a few mentions of social media sites as good resources, as well as just good old-fashioned networking with peers and colleagues.What respondents most want to gain out of these resources is competitive intelligence; FDA alerts, industry news, and regulatory news also ranked high (Figure 6).

Most respondents ranked their advertising agency as the best place to turn to for new marketing ideas; internal strategy and development teams came in second. Next came getting ideas from live events (such as conferences and trade shows) and getting help from vendors. Other methods mentioned: examine what the competition is doing, customer interaction, industry publications, other industries, webinars, and cold e-mail solicitation.

Product managers know they could always learn more. The topic most respondents would want covered as part of an educational program or series is strategic planning/milestone management. Their next top 5 topics are: stakeholder mapping/analysis, pricing, health outcomes/HTA, messaging, and patient advocacy. The one topic they would most like to avoid is public relations.

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