AMA: HubSpot Former VP of Product and Solutions Marketing, Vidya Drego on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

It's an interesting time to be in product marketing because I think there will be significant shifts in the next few years in how we think about go-to-market. There's a fair amount being written today about how go-to-marketing motions have evolved from inside sales to inbound marketing to product-led growth and are heading towards more community-led growth. Each phase is additive to the one before it (i.e. companies are not going to stop doing one and move to the next but find more success in combining strategies) but I think a lot of the same skills will persist. First, PMMs will ALWAYS have to be exceptional communicators. Specifically, they have to be able to simplify the complex and not only write in their own voice, but typically in the voice of their company or sales team. They have to be able to understand a process or scenario that they're often not a part of and come up with ways of influencing it. And they have to be able to tell a story. Secondly, they have to be able to understand the dynamics of their market. This starts with who their customers are and how these people are changing or being challenged. The means by which a PMM influences or relates to their customers has changed and will continue to change but constantly listening to those customers and periodically picking your head up to evaluate whether the dynamics of the market have changed can often help you partner with experts to execute in the right way. As an example, my team has and will invest much more time with our customers telling their story, helping turn them into acvocates and build and develop their own communities. This is different from where we spent our time five years ago but involves many of the same skills.

Product Marketing is challenging because the function influences many metrics but isn't normally the owner of those metrics. Exciting new deal closed? There's usually a PMM that helped along the way although it's sales' win. Cool new product feature launched? Definitely a PMM in the mix, but it's the Product team's achievement. As a PMM, you have to be confident about your own contributions and not the type of person who needs complete ownership of a metric. Often, for myself, I like to make sure I have measures that help me understand how i've improved or advanced my skills as well as metrics that help me gauge my impact to the business. The former could like reducing cycles of review of messaging because you've committed to improving your writing skills or starting a program or process that helps solve a common challenge more efficiently. The latter depends largely on the organization and how PMM is aligned. If you're at a company where PMM helps shape product roadmap and adoption, how you test fit, launch, and drive adoption or usage could be your most important metric. If you're scaling an existing product, you may be looking at increasing average sales price (ASP) or improving the sales process or materials in some way. As I've evolved within PMM, more of my performance indicators are business metrics because my organization is expected to deliver for sales and/or product.

I like to ask PMM candidates to deliver their company's pitch. I'm not grading their pitch but rather the empathy and insight they display for and about their customers' challenges, the way they deliver it, and the storytelling ability of the candidate. There's no one answer to this that's stood out but it's the delivery that makes the difference. People who can clearly explain what pain point their customer feels and succintly how their company solves it (and can throw in some proof) are always the stand outs. The best answers are from the few people who aren't afraid to role play and pretend i'm a customer that they're pitching.

I think it's always possible for product marketers to learn varied skills by being open to new projects or opportunities when they've mastered a skill. At a large company, where roles are more specialized there are often opportunities to work on different projects or products that may have different product-market-fit. At a smaller company, the scope may be wider but you may not have the opportunity to go as deep with any skill set. I'd advise being open to all the opportunities you see around you and be unafraid to speak with your manager about your career and growth aspirations and have them help you identify projects or opportunities that might help you take the next step.

There are a couple of ways to think about advancement in a PMM career. You can specialize in a specific aspect of product marketing like inbound or product launches, for example. Or, you can broaden your experiences and amass experience in a variety of areas of PMM. In the current job market, there are plenty of opportunities for to follow either path. My recommendation is to find the aspects of PMM that you truly enjoy and balance that with your interest in learning and practicing different aspects of the role.

I like to ask questions in interviews that stem from real challenges and decisions my team are having or have made. I've seen great resources aggregated here on Sharebird, from the Product Marketing Alliance, and PMM Hive. But definitely don't memorize answer to questions or cases, make sure you connect examples back to work you've done or your own experiences.

Regardless of your background, you should always be looking in an interview to help bridge the gap between your own experience and the role you're interviewing for. If you know the role you're interviewing for requires some technical knowledge that you don't have, showcasing how you've solved similar types of challenges for customers before or how you've learned something you didn't know in order to help your customer can help to demonstrate how you'd face the challenge as a product marketer.

I think either is a valid path to a rewarding product marketing career but can depend on your own interest. If you're interested in the dynamics of different industries and you find that an inspiring aspect of being a product marketer, it makes sense to diversify your industry experience. If you find you're a rockstar at messaging and positioning, maybe you want to go deep into the skill and apply it to different companies in a similar space.