AMA: Shopify Head of Retail Product Marketing, Courtney Craig on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

At about 7-9 years into my career when I was mid-level, I knew I was at a crossroads and it was an important time to assess what I wanted to do next. I made a strategic decision to work at a different type of organization than I had before. -->Up to that point, I had worked in news, PR, online media/marketing, and customer success, then finally PMM, and decided I liked Product Marketing the best. However, I was mainly self-taught as a PMM, doing it at smaller companies. I wanted to see how ex ...Read More

Product Positioning - This is the most important skill you can possess/understand as a PMM. It drives everything else, and nothing else works when this is wrong. Messaging Development & Storytelling - I don't think you can be a great PMM without being a good storyteller. You need to learn a repeatable process for arriving at good messaging, and understand basic storytelling strategies/skills in order to create results as a PMM. This skill can carry you into any area of Marketing. Go-to-marke ...Read More

First, I was patient! I actually got hired as a leader, then for a short timeframe my team was flattened. I didn't enjoy being an individual contributor as much, but I used to the time to deepen my PMM skills and to lead the team by influence. Second, I asked for what I wanted.... and I kept asking for it. This is so important! I was very clear with my manager and demonstrated why I was the best person for the role. I kept doing the best work I could until there was an opportunity to get back to ...Read More

If you want to be an exec, you need to understand other areas of marketing (even as a Product Marketing exec). Period! But, you have choices in how you do that, and it doesn't necessarily mean you need to take a role in a different specialty. 1. Work very closely with other marketing specialities, especially the ones that contribute heavily to growth KPIs. Create pods/rituals/interlocks with Demand or Growth Marketing to understand their strategies, results, and best practices. Also do this with ...Read More

To become a PMM manager, I would:- Demonstrate that you can lead people, even if you aren't a manager. That means leading by influence and leading strategy. Come up with ideas and champion them across your team/organization. Rally others around them and execute, then report on the impact it made. Do this over and over.- ASK. Be vocal about what you want and set up a plan to get there with your manager. Possibly just ask to manage 1 person to start.- Work on as many cross-functional and collabora ...Read More

I've had to coach weak writers, and I will say it's very challenging. If you are set on PMM, then to improve your writing, messaging, and positioning skills I would:- Take a class through PMA, Reforge or MasterClass on messaging, positioning, and storytelling. Or read books on it, there are so many! It's less about writing style, and more about identifying the most captivating parts of a story or the "lead" and how to structure the flow of that narrative wherever you are putting it.- Lean heavil ...Read More