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AMA: Adobe Director of Product Marketing, Adobe Sign, Melinda Chung on Developing Your Product Marketing Career
January 13 @ 10:00AM PST
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Adobe Director of Product Marketing, Adobe Sign, Melinda Chung on Developing Your Product Marketing Career
Top Questions
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
With every new job, you have a period during which you need to prove yourself. As PMMs, we gain influence and prove ourselves by knowing the customer, market, business, and product better than others in the company. Figure out which one of those matters most to your company and your leadership, b......Read More
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Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
1. Ensure that your focus areas are aligned with what is most important to the company. For example, if Enterprise is the core segment, you might not get the support and interest you need/want if you are focused on B2C. Doing what is most important to the company means that you are delivering val......Read More
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How do you prepare yourself to become a Product Marketing Director and manage a team, without any experience managing anyone previously?
I'm on my 5th year of product marketing in my career, with another 5 years before that in general demand gen at very small companies. I've had management experience in the past, but not in a Product Marketing role. Often times in smaller companies, there will be 1 or 2 PMMs, usually in a very flat hierarchy, or a single boss, with no room to really move up a proverbial ladder and into management experience. So what are ways that I can prepare myself now, so that if the time comes to apply for a Director position (either internally or at another company) that I can be considered even without recent people management experience? Are there any courses for this that are highly regarded in the management arena?
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
Yes, this is a tough one. I would suggest doing the following to gain some more recent “management” experience: 1. Hire an intern - either summer or part-time 2. Manage agencies or contractors 3. If side projects are possible at your company, see if anyone wants to work on a PMM side proj......Read More
889 Views
3 requests
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
People often say that you can get into organizations by either function or domain. If you haven’t been in SaaS before, get into a SaaS company through your functional expertise - product marketing. I would recommend moving into a SaaS company that does both B2C and B2B. You have the product mark......Read More
501 Views
1 request
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
For myself, I track based on completions of specific milestones (specific deliverables we planned for - i.e. sales play development, enablement, strategy completed, etc) that were led by myself and/or my team. I also track my team’s engagement score in our annual surveys and work towards improvi......Read More
769 Views
1 request
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
The key differences in Sr PMMs and PMMs come down to ownership, self-sufficiency and complexity. As a Sr PMM, you will be expected to self-sufficiently drive projects on your own without significant guidance from your manager. You will also be expected to be able to lead and own more complex ini......Read More
1107 Views
1 request
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
Great question. I haven’t focused on this, but here are three actions that I’ve intentionally done: 1. Show up on video in meetings where important leaders are present so I get visibility (literally) 2. Set up virtual 1:1’s with people I haven’t seen or connected with in awhile 3. Comment......Read More
904 Views
2 requests
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
Here are two opposite examples of people getting promoted to more senior product marketing roles: 1. “Nancy” was extremely motivated and driven to get promoted. She proactively raised this in our regular check-in’s, and I asked her to create a plan with milestones against her annual obj......Read More
717 Views
4 requests
Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
Required Hard (Functional) Skills: * Analytical — both quantitative and qualitative. From financial modeling to behavioral analysis to awareness campaign tracking to focus group findings, you’re going to need to be able to dissect data, interpret it, and figure out what the implication......Read More
998 Views
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Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp • January 13
People often say that you can get into organizations by either function or domain. If you haven’t been in SaaS before, get into a SaaS company through your functional expertise - perhaps marketing, demand generation, or operations, for instance. From there, you can move around. The core competen......Read More
787 Views
2 requests
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