AMA: You.com Director, Product Marketing, Ben Geller on Developing your Product Marketing Career

For landing Sr. PMM Interviews, here is a six-step approach (thanks to Coach Erika, for the framework): Hone your online profile/resume Know what’s out there (about you or authored by you): this could be your LinkedIn profile, Medium, Twitter, Github, etc Assess whether it fits how you’d like to present yourself Modify as needed to represent yourself as you’d prefer Walk down memory lane: Pick three to five recent major projects in your careers, and then remember every single detail they can rec ...Read More

One of the biggest struggles I've seen for PMMs is explaining the role and the value we create to team members who have never worked with PMM before. If you encounter this challenge, here's a simple framework I've found helpful: Elevator pitch: Product Marketing’s superpower is being the “Voice of Customers to Product and the Voice of the Product to Customers”: Voice of Customers to the Product (Inbound) Audience Strategy (Segmentation, Targeting) Consumer Insights (Unmet Needs) Positioning (How ...Read More

For candidates who are early in their careers, there's a huge benefit to getting experience with a more formal organizational structure. Larger companies tend to have well-thought-out best practices, and a deep bench of resources and mentors to tap. On the other hand, startup experience can be more challenging for an early hire, where you have to learn by hustling and have access to fewer resources/mentorship on the team. This can create bad habits and blind spots around what best practices shou ...Read More

When I think about foundational skill-sets and areas of focus for a PMM, I tend to think about Inbound vs. Outbound skills. For inbound: Get as much experience as possible running customer research, and then using those insights to drive changes in the product roadmap. Especially as a junior PMM, your superpower is getting in front of customers, and delivering feedback to the organization in an actionable way. If there aren't any immediate opportunities here, raise your hand to help get customer ...Read More

In hiring PMMs, typically, there's a specific problem I'm looking to hire for, and I want someone who is an expert in solving that type of challenge who can bring best practices to the table (i.e., a specialist vs. a generalist). For example: in one of my most recent openings, I was looking for an expert in consumer segmentation and audience strategy, and ended up hiring someone with deep experience that came from a strategy background (who was incredible). In addition to domain-specific experie ...Read More

Many of the best PMMs and marketers I've worked with are extremely analytical and/or have deep experience in advertising. If you're unable to land a dream PMM/marketing job directly, roles that give you experience working with data or advertising can be a great stepping stone. Some possible career paths to consider include: Consulting: Many of the top-tier consulting firms have great new-grad programs, and will give you a lot of experience relevant to PMM. Data Analyst: Working as an analyst wil ...Read More

The best strategy that I've seen in pushing for a raise/promotion is demonstrating a bottom-line impact on the business. Why is this? As you become more senior, it's not entirely up to your manager whether you'll receive a raise/promotion -- they will likely need to pitch you to a broader promotion committee, and build conviction. This promotion committee may not be intimately familiar with the day-to-day function, and what excellence looks like (e.g., the head of finance might not deeply unders ...Read More