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Julie Towns

AMA: Pinterest VP, Product Marketing & Product Operations, Julie Towns on Product Marketing Skills

January 17, 2024 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. How important are brand marketing skills for product marketers compared to analytical skills?

    There is often a huge emphasis on analytical skills, instead of brand marketing skills, when it comes to product marketing job descriptions.

    Julie Towns
    Julie Towns

    Pinterest VP, Product Marketing & Product Operations • 2y

    A strong product marketer should have skills across both the inbound and outbound components of the role. Inbound = inputs into product to define the roadmap and build the right features to achieve product market fit for customers. Outbound = owning the product message, positioning, and GTM strategy outwards to the market and customers. I believe that product marketers are at their best when they're influencing and helping to build the right product from the onset. Branding and marketing the pro ...Read More

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    2 requests

  2. What skills are the most important to develop when going from Sr. PMM to Director of Product Marketing?

    I will work to see how I can accomplish this at my current company, but there are limited slots and I may need to go elsewhere. I know PMM is different at different companies, but it's helpful to hear what you look for

    Julie Towns
    Julie Towns

    Pinterest VP, Product Marketing & Product Operations • 2y

    First, here is how I'd define the scope and complexity of a Director level PMM role: At a director level, your work will be highly strategic in nature. For example, you should be identifying and devising strategies to solve company-wide issues with longer term implications (18-24 months out). Your proposed solutions will go beyond the boundaries of the product or marketing orgs and likely shape how other functions think about the problem space and influence VP+ leaders to help secure the right r ...Read More

    11,592 Views
    3 requests

  3. Should product marketing decisions be data-driven or more so data-informed? Should PMMs lead with intuition and use data to back up their assumptions?

    Julie Towns
    Julie Towns

    Pinterest VP, Product Marketing & Product Operations • 2y

    The highest quality PMM decisions are ones where the data and customer anecdotes align. Skilled PMMs often bring a strong perspective to a conversation, but are willing to be wrong and change their recommendations in light of new or better information. A strong POV can come from either data or your intuition, but one alone is never enough. You can state a hypothesis and then seek to validate this through both direct customer feedback and qualified data. You should always be suspicious when the d ...Read More

    1,997 Views
    4 requests

  4. When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job or vice versa?

    Julie Towns
    Julie Towns

    Pinterest VP, Product Marketing & Product Operations • 2y

    As you get more senior in your career in any role, but especially one as cross-functional in nature as PMM, soft skills become much more important than hard skills or product expertise, especially if you are a fast learner. You can learn the hard skills of a job, within reason. For example, if you're a PMM, taking a job in engineering will be stretch, but if you have a background in one industry you can absolutely take a PMM job in a completely different industry. What's important is your abilit ...Read More

    1,595 Views
    2 requests