What is a Digital Product Manager?
You’ve probably seen the term Digital Product Manager (DPM) floating around recently and wondered what it meant. You may have also noticed that many Digital Marketing agencies are looking for DPMs.
In an age of constantly evolving customer preferences and emerging technologies, digital product management has become increasingly critical to business growth. Recently, companies have sought to restructure product management to support agility and customer focus, two critical components in today’s digital economy.
One may have noticed that digital products dominate the newest tech industries.
According to Bloomberg, the two most valuable corporations in the world are Apple and Microsoft, with market caps of $2.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion, respectively.
The demand for digital product managers is now high, and there are many opportunities for those who want to enter this field.
Who is a Digital Product Manager?
Digital product managers oversee the creation, launch, and maintenance of digital products connected to the internet. They work with other team members to establish their products’ goals and objectives, then plan how best to achieve them within the scope of budgets, timelines, and resource limitations.
Why Become a Digital Product Manager?
Digital product managers are the glue that holds every part of the digital world together. They ensure that the user experience is seamless and intuitive while ensuring that the company’s goals are met.
A digital product manager manages every aspect of a digital product from conception to launch. They work with designers and developers to create new features, communicate with customers to gather feedback on existing features, and manage the overall lifecycle of a product.
In short, a digital product manager is essential to any product team working on anything in the digital space.
Digital Product Manager – Duties
Digital product managers oversee all aspects of their company’s digital products — including websites, mobile apps, software, and other online services. The duties they perform vary depending on their employer’s needs, but in general, a digital product manager will:
- Write business plans that outline goals and objectives for the digital product(s) they manage.
- Create roadmaps that detail all steps necessary to reach those goals, including timelines, milestones, and costs.
- Research industry trends to identify new opportunities that could benefit their company’s bottom line or improve the customer experience.
- Collaborate with marketing teams to develop strategies for promoting their company’s digital product(s).
What Are Digital Product Manager Skills?
Digital product managers must have a wide range of skills to perform the role successfully. These include
Strategic Planning
A digital product manager needs to be able to plan out their projects strategically. So, they meet the goals of both their team and the business as a whole. They should also plan out how long each stage will take so they can get feedback on their progress along the way.
Understanding Usage
Data digital product managers need to analyze usage data to better understand how users interact with a product or service. They also need to know how to use this information to make informed decisions about plans for the product or service.
Prioritization
As a digital product manager, you will receive many requests from other departments and customers about what features should be added next or changed in existing ones. You must prioritize these requests based on what will bring in more revenue or make customers happier with their experience using your products or services.
Design Thinking
As a digital product manager, you must consider how users interact with your products. It might be through social media or mobile apps — whatever it is. It needs to be designed well, using design thinking principles like empathy and user-centered innovation.
Research and Analysis
A digital product manager needs to understand how users interact with their products, what they want, and how they want to use them. They need to be able to conduct research into these areas and analyze data from previous projects to determine how best to move forward with future work. This may involve looking at user behavior on social media or other websites where users spend time online (such as Facebook or Twitter).
Digital Project Manager Salary
Digital Product Managers in the United States earn an estimated $135,682 annually or $108,678 on average. These figures depict the median, or the midpoint of the ranges, derived from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate algorithm, which is based on wage data gathered from our users. Wage increases are estimated to be $27,004 per year.
Additional pay may take the form of cash bonuses, commissions, tips, or profit sharing. The values in the “Most Likely Range” fall between the 25th and the 75th percentile of all the payment information that is currently available for this role.
What is a Digital Product Manager vs Product Manager?
Product manager and digital product manager are the two most prevalent job titles in the modern workplace. You’ll find them in every industry, at all levels of seniority, and in every company size. But what exactly do these jobs entail?
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Product Manager
Management of product development and delivery is the responsibility of product managers. A product designer works closely with an engineer and other team members to create or improve a product. Product managers usually have business degrees and experience in marketing or business development, but it is optional to understand how their products will be used in the real world.
Digital Product Manager
Digital product managers have similar responsibilities as regular product managers, but they use technology to interact with customers instead of physical products. They may focus more on software development than physical design and manufacturing processes. In some cases, digital product managers may be responsible for managing mobile apps or websites instead of physical products.
Related Read: Program Manager vs Product Manager
Final Words
All of these responsibilities make the job of Digital Product Manager so challenging, as it covers all aspects of managing a product. As a result, companies are allocating a separate role for this important role. Understanding the duties of a Digital Product Manager will become increasingly essential in the coming years as more companies shift their business model toward digital products and services.
Digital product managers are in charge of greater responsibility and accountability than ever, but they’re also in a better position to influence the evolution of their products. Only tools like Agile Product Roadmap & Story Mapping can help them map and manage their team.