AMA: Forethought Head of Product Marketing, Ryan Van Wagoner on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

I'd have to go with this classic: "Describe your process for launching a new product." Why? A product launch is the quintessential act of product marketing. It places the product marketer as the orchestrator between product, sales, customer success, and core marketing. If you understand how to successfully launch a product, you understand how to be a successful product marketer.  The best answers to this question don't start with a laundry list of channels and assets--they start with the "why". ...Read More

At Forethought, product marketing works very closely with the product teams to bring products to market. I hold regular check-ins with product marketing and the Head of Product, as well as separate check-ins with individual product managers. These check-ins enable us to: - Align on product strategy and product messaging. This is especially important if new products are in development.  - Provide feedback from customers (either through Sales or Customer Success) that will be helpful for the devel ...Read More

Great question! Product marketing has been getting a lot of attention recently as a top career choice for anyone interested in marketing or strategy, but the truth is everyone's career path is different and product marketing may look different from one role or company to the next.  The product marketing role sits at the intersection of product, sales, customer success, and core marketing, which means: - Some PMMs will specialize more in product: release marketing, product launches, product & ...Read More

Everything! But really...I was pretty clueless. I wish I knew how product marketing works with sales, customer success, product, and core marketing to be successful. I wish I knew to spend time asking questions and getting as much information as possible before starting a project. I wish I knew how to use storytelling not just in external decks but also in internal meetings to influence strategy. I wish I knew how lucky I was to have a boss that wanted me to succeed and made it his mission to op ...Read More

The truth is, almost every product marketer I know switched to a career in product marketing from a different field (I came from Sales!). This is very rarely a career that people start out in right out of undergrad (but it does happen! Check out my good friend Lauren Hanson's post). Because product marketing encompasses a wide range of responsibilities and specialities, it's usually made up of individuals with a wide range of experience. That's good news for you. The most important product marke ...Read More

Be sure you understand and articulate *why* you're building out the team. We all want to grow the marketing team, but growing for the sake of growing can often cause more problems than it solves. To be effective at a small company with a small team, you need to grow strategically and focus on the most important initiatives.  Put together a list of projects you'd like to tackle and other marketing-related inititatives. Then talk with your stakeholders in product, sales, and customer success to se ...Read More

Over the course of my career, I've seen incredible product marketers enter the field in all sorts of ways: - Pursuing an MBA and getting an internship at a large tech company - Getting sales experience and then moving into a sales-enablement-focused PMM role as an entry point to the field - Starting in core marketing (demand gen / creative / content marketing / events / etc.) and using those skills to transition to PMM The best way to enter the product marketing field is the one that plays to yo ...Read More

My first recommendation would be to make sure you understand exactly what exactly your stakeholders are wanting to know (and why). Are they looking at making product decisions based on this information? Adjusting the pricing? Refining the messaging? Knowing the strategic goals behind the request will help you know what types of information to search for.  Next, frame your search by putting together a template for a product comparison matrix comparing your product with each of your top competitor ...Read More

This is a fantastic question and often where PMMs either excel or fail. Product marketing is the glue between product, sales, customer success, and core marketing, and understanding how to align those four functions is the key to success. Start with listening. Talk with each stakeholder (in your case product and sales, but I'd recommend expanding to customer success and core marketing / demand gen in many cases) and understand their priorities, upcoming projects, and anything they'd love to see ...Read More

Generally as you become more senior in your product marketing career (or any career), your role will become more strategic and cross-functional. As you begin to show that you can not only work well in the trenches (create compelling messaging and content, etc.) but also come to the table with new ideas, take more ownership, and influence other stakeholders, you'll be seen as more valuable to the company. Ask your manager to help you develop a plan re: what skills to develop and projects to own t ...Read More

What the interviewer really wants to know by asking this question is how you would handle a product launch, and you don't need direct experience to ace this question. You DO, however, need to do your homework and genuinely understand the launch process. I would highly recommend talking with several other PMMs (either at your company or elsewhere) to hear various points of view on what it's like to launch a product, and make sure you have a detailed answer prepared on what *you* would do if you w ...Read More