AMA: Zendesk Director of Product Marketing, Polomi Batra on Product Marketing Career Path

In the initial weeks as a Product Marketing Manager, your focus should be on deeply immersing yourself in the product and GTM strategy to learn, absorb and build a strong foundational understanding of what you are tasked to market. This can involve key activities like: 1. Engage with the product: Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the product you'll be marketing is crucial. This can be achieved by exploring an internal demo environment, setting up a trial account, collaborating with a technical Subject Matter Expert (SME), or reviewing existing tutorial videos. The goal is to become intimately familiar with the product’s features, benefits, and potential pain points from both a user and marketing perspective. 2. Analyze the market landscape: A thorough understanding of the competitive landscape and market dynamics is essential. This includes studying your competitors, analyzing customer insights, and identifying trends that can influence your marketing strategy. By understanding the broader context in which your product operates, you can position it more effectively. 3. Start to build cross-functional relationships: As product marketing is a very cross-functional role, building strong relationships with key stakeholders early on is recommend. This includes product managers, marketing counterparts, and leadership. Establishing these connections will enable smoother collaboration and alignment as you work to bring your marketing strategies to life. 4. Understand your audience: To craft messages that resonate, you must deeply understand the audience you’re targeting. A great way to do this in the early days is to listen in on customer calls, study win-loss data, and reviewing recorded sales calls through platforms like Gong. By immersing yourself in the voice of the customer, you'll be better equipped to address their challenges and communicate the unique value your product offers.

This is a tough one and one that I still struggle with myself. Here are a few things I like to do: * Prioritize tasks: Focus on high-impact work and block off deep work time. I like to set time to do deep thinking work either at the start of the day or at the end of the day. * Use productivity tools: Leverage tools to streamline tasks and automate routine activities like ChatGPT, or Notion, etc. * I count meetings and relationship building both as work in my role: * Optimize meetings: Only attend essential meetings, keep them concise, and stick to the agenda. * Build relationships: Schedule regular check-ins and integrate relationship building into other activities * Protect Personal Time: Clearly define and respect your personal time. Prioritize self-care as you would any task. * Review and adjust: I attend to assess and tweak my time management to stay balanced and productive week by week. Product marketing is so cross-functional that our schedule every week looks pretty different.

Many things! Here are a few though: 1. Strategic thinking Ability to understand and analyze market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscapes to inform strategy. 2. Product knowledge A passion for products. Someone who has or can have a strong grasp of the product, its features, benefits, and unique value propositions. 3. Customer-centric mindset Understanding customer pain points and needs to craft messaging that speaks directly to their challenges, while also being a voice for the customer within the organization, ensuring their needs are reflected in what we are building and our roadmap. 4. Cross-functional collaboration Ability to work effectively and influence key stakeholders like product management, sales, engineering, marketing, and other teams to drive product success. 5. Communication skills Ability to craft and tell a compelling and clear story around the product, making it relatable and engaging for the target audience. 6. Analytical ability Ability to leverage data to make informed decisions, track performance, and optimize existing strategies. 7. Execution Skill in managing multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring timely and successful execution. 8. Adaptability * Ability to adapt to changing market conditions, customer needs, and internal priorities. * A growth mindset with a willingness to continuously learn and stay updated on industry trends, new technologies, and best practices. 9. Cultural fit Alignment with the company’s culture and values, bringing a positive attitude and a collaborative spirit to the team.

Breaking into product marketing as a recent graduate requires a strategic approach: 1. Build a strong foundation: Supplement your degree with certifications in product marketing (Product marketing alliance and Pragmatic Institute are two good spots to start), digital marketing, product management, or data analysis. 2. Gain practical experience: Seek internships, entry-level roles, or work on side projects that require similar skills to product marketing (skills like messaging, positioning, research on customer insights as an example). Hands-on experience is crucial. 3. Network: Join industry groups, attend webinars, and seek mentorship from professionals in the field, or friends in your network. Building relationships can open doors. 4. Tailor your resume: Highlight relevant experience and create a portfolio showcasing any marketing or product-related projects. If you're in psychology for example, you've likely had some research experience, are a great writer, and can understand humans well - these are all skills relevant to product marketing. 5. Prepare for interviews: Understand the role, practice case studies, and be ready to discuss how your skills align with product marketing. 6. Stay persistent: Apply broadly to related roles and be flexible. Continuous learning and adaptability will help you land your first product marketing position.

I think transitioning from consulting to product marketing is a natural move, as many of the skills you’ve developed in consulting are highly relevant to product marketing. Here’s how you can make that transition and demonstrate your transferable skills: 1. Leverage analytical and strategic skills * Showcase problem-solving: Highlight your ability to analyze complex problems and develop strategic solutions. Product marketing often involves understanding market challenges and crafting strategies to address them, a skill honed in consulting. * Data-driven decision-making: Emphasize your experience with data analysis and making data-driven recommendations. Product marketers need to understand market data, customer insights, and performance metrics to shape their strategies. 2. Highlight communication and presentation skills * Effective messaging: In consulting, you’ve likely developed strong communication skills, particularly in creating clear and persuasive messaging for clients. This directly translates to crafting compelling product messaging and positioning in product marketing. * Stakeholder management: Your experience in presenting ideas and influencing stakeholders in consulting can be a significant asset. Product marketers frequently need to communicate the value proposition to internal teams, sales, and customers. 3. Emphasize cross-functional collaboration * Team coordination: In consulting, you’ve worked across various functions and teams to deliver projects. Product marketing also requires close collaboration with product management, sales, engineering, and customer support, making your experience highly relevant. * Influence and leadership: Highlight your ability to lead and influence teams without direct authority, a key aspect of both consulting and product marketing. 4. Draw parallels between consulting projects and product marketing * Client-centric approach: Consulting often involves understanding client needs and crafting tailored solutions. In product marketing, this translates to understanding customer needs and developing targeted messaging and positioning. * Project examples: Provide examples of consulting projects where you were involved in market analysis, customer segmentation, or go-to-market strategy. These are directly relevant to product marketing roles. 5. Build industry knowledge and product understanding * Learn the industry: If you’re moving into a new industry, start building your knowledge of the market, competitors, and customer needs. This will help you speak the language of product marketing in that sector. * Understand the product lifecycle: Familiarize yourself with the stages of the product lifecycle and how marketing strategies shift at each stage. This understanding will strengthen your case for the transition. 6. Network with product marketers * Seek informational interviews: Connect with product marketers to learn more about the role and how your consulting experience can be applied. These conversations can also help you refine your pitch when discussing your transferable skills. * Join industry groups: Engage in product marketing communities, both online and in-person, to expand your network and learn from those already in the field. 7. Tailor your resume, pitch and look into certifications * Translate your experience: When updating your resume, frame your consulting experience in terms of product marketing. For example, if you worked on a market entry strategy, position it as experience in go-to-market strategy development. * Craft a compelling story: Be ready to articulate why you’re transitioning into product marketing and how your consulting background uniquely positions you to succeed in this role. Highlight your passion for understanding the customer and developing strategies that drive business outcomes. * Pursue certifications: If needed, consider certifications in product marketing or related areas to bridge any gaps and show your commitment to the field. Some good ones are Pragmatic Institute and the Product Marketing Alliance. By framing your consulting experience in a way that aligns with the key responsibilities of product marketing, you can effectively demonstrate that your skills are transferable and make a compelling case for your transition.