AMA: Customer.io Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Lyman on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

I have seen product marketers move into various roles as their careers evolve. The PMM skill set is very applicable in most marketing roles. For example, a successful PMM should be able to translate insights into strategy, build power narratives that engage customers, and drive cross-functional alignment/execution. Therefore, you can apply those skills in a more data-driven way on the demand gen side, or you could use those abilities to have more ownership over product decision-making as a PM, o ...Read More

The answer to this question really depends on the size of the company where you want to be CMO. Larger companies with massive scale and sell more mature products must implement successful brand marketing strategies to compete. Therefore, I would optimize your development of that brand marketing skill set. However, if you want to work for a smaller company or an organization selling products in a newer product category, they value that product marketing skill set when selecting a CMO. While there ...Read More

I believe that the best PMMs demonstrate the following characteristics - Customer-centric, Metrics-driven, and Strategically-aligned. I would seek out experiences that help you develop these skills. Here some examples of how to do that: Customer-centric: Most PMM projects would benefit from new insights from customers or prospects. Therefore, I would make sure that you build out time to complete those conversations into your project plan(s) and weave those learnings into the deliverables of the ...Read More

I was the second PMM at Dropbox, and when I left 4.5 years later, I managed a team of more than 20 PMMs, so I can empathize with your situation. I found that self-reflection is extremely important. You need to constantly evaluate the performance of different projects or initiatives so you can know where to double down on what worked and understand where iteration is needed. Also, you need to observe what other top performers are doing and replicate their approach. You don’t have time to “recreat ...Read More

Career development is not a ladder but a winding path so there is never a clear cut answer that I can share. However, I tend to push people to answer the following questions when deciding whether to stay or move on from a role: Am I challenged in my current role and still learning new things? Am I happy working in my current role?  If you answer “yes” to these questions, I would lean toward staying in your current role because it means that you will continue to grow professionally and it is a go ...Read More

I would seek out frameworks or templates that help you deliver on key product marketing activities. For example, leading product launches is a common task, so find a launch project plan that helps you deliver high-quality output and consistent execution for this important initiative. Given that people have personal preferences and companies have different expectations, no single template or framework is consistently used by everyone. Therefore, I would research the most common options and pick t ...Read More