AMA: Adobe Director of Product Marketing, Adobe Sign, Melinda Chung on Developing Your Product Marketing Career
January 13 @ 10:00AM PT
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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?
Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
Yes, this is a tough one. I would suggest doing the following to gain some more recent “management” experience: Hire an intern - either summer or part-time Manage agenci...
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Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
Here are two opposite examples of people getting promoted to more senior product marketing roles: “Nancy” was extremely motivated and driven to get promoted. She proacti...
1028 Views
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Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
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 ...
677 Views
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Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
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 exp...
574 Views
1 request
Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
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 ...
1392 Views
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Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
For myself, I track based on completions of specific milestones (specific deliverables we planned for - i.e. sales play development, enablement, strategy completed, etc) ...
884 Views
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Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
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, a...
1077 Views
1 request
Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
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 exp...
1281 Views
2 requests
Credit Karma Senior Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • 4y
Required Hard (Functional) Skills: Analytical — both quantitative and qualitative. From financial modeling to behavioral analysis to awareness campaign tracking to focus...
1197 Views
4 requests