AMA: Discord Head of Marketing, Mike Polner on Consumer Product Marketing

Great question! I think about this one a lot...First off, it’s important to callout that there is no perfect org structure :)  In general, you have to identify what you’re optimizing towards and what structure will give you the highest chance to get there. When I was at Uber Eats, we always kept a fairly tight PMM to PM relationship, so we mapped PMMs directly to their Product counterparts.  Product is broken down by audience - ie., Consumer, Restaurant, Delivery Person so we have leads within e ...Read More

Great question. I would first caveat that this is something we're always working on, so if you haven't figured it out yet, don't worry, goal setting, responsibilities, and KPIs are always a work in progress! I think it's rare that in larger organizations and with significant cross-functional work there's one person or one function who owns one clear KPI. I try to think of it as a Venn Diagram. On the left is Product goals or responsibilities - overly simplifying here, but defining the product, b ...Read More

Love this question and something I had to do a ton when I first got to Eats and everybody was like - hold on, what is Product Marketing?  I talk a lot about internal marketing and say you have to Product Market, Product Marketing...This starts with a very clear and differentiated articulation of our value. For example, I made it very clear from Day 1 that PMM is the primary POC to Product within the Marketing organization and built teams, hired people, and reinforced with KPIs that story. Over t ...Read More

In my career path I've looked for a few things and created a few career principles... 1. Finding growth industries that will be more important in the next 3 - 5 years given where I see trends moving...For example, I was in AdTech in 2010 when mobile and display advertising was just starting to take off, marketing automation in 2014 as marketers were starting to get much tighter around spend, measurement, and performance and finally, marketplace-based food delivery in 2016 just as on-demand servi ...Read More

This is a great question. I would zoom out and think more holistically about how to approach career advice and what I tell people looking to get into Product Marketing overall.  I usually approach significant career transitions or moves in two-steps. Sometimes, people see the next job and say - I’m a content marketer at a startup - how do I get into PMM at Uber or Google? Sometimes you first have to get into PMM, then, you have to move over to Google or Uber in PMM.  Same approach for B2B vs. B2 ...Read More

I think Growth Marketing in tech is actually super applicable to Product Marketing on the consumer side. Most of the PMMs I've hired have actually come from growth / performance marketing backgrounds. I don't have any clear recommendations on courses or education apart from just taking on hard projects at work (sometimes outside your core scope if you have that flexibility) that move you closer to the product experience. Overall, the bar that I find Growth marketers sometimes need to be mindful ...Read More

I think there has been a massive shift in just the awareness and momentum around Consumer Product Marketing overall. When I joined Uber Eats as the first Consumer PMM when I was at Uber, everybody was asking what this role was and how we were different than Brand Marketing or Performance Marketing. Not only at Uber has that changed dramatically, but also, within the industry there has been a really evolution of folks who would traditionally be in "Brand Management" roles at CPG companies startin ...Read More

I touched on this a bit above - I started my career in B2B and learned really valuable lessons before moving more deeply into B2C.  I think Marketing is evolving so quickly that you can learn extremely valuable skills in either the B2B or the B2C world that are applicable across both, so wouldn't say strictly focusing on just one for the next 10-years is absolutely the right (or wrong choice.) It's more the growth mindset and defining and understanding what your career goals and ambitions are.  ...Read More

In general, I don't really think "background" is that important. To me, background does not = skills. I hire for signal on skill and not for whether or not somebody has done something before.  We have some absolutely incredible PMMs on Eats and almost all of them came from a background that was not Product Marketing.  Because the function and the role is growing so quickly, you rarely find somebody who's spent 5 years in Consumer PMM for example. Instead, hone your skills.  Uncover great insight ...Read More