AMA: Zendesk Senior Director, Product Marketing, Candace Marshall on Product Marketing Career Path

In large companies, you can make your mark as a PMM through alignment and relationships. Firstly, it's important to ensure your work directly aligns with the company's goals and objectives. Start by familiarizing yourself with your business unit's OKRs (objective key results). For example, if your company is trying to increase market share in a specific region and let's say you have a product launch coming up, you should proactively think through how to position the product and tailor the messag ...Read More

Sounds like your business is growing - how exciting! It's hard to answer this question without knowing how your business is structured but I'm happy to share common structures for 10 pmms. Structurally, a people manager or team lead should have at least 3-4 people; this is typically a good "pod" size and enables your people manager/team leads to scale. So with 10 pmms, you could have 1 Director with 2 people managers with 3-4 under them. When b2b businesses are growing, typically the focus for p ...Read More

The best thing about being a product marketer is the strategic role it offers and the opportunity to have a seat at the table when shaping the direction of not just a product or service, but the business as well. I also love that we serve as the voice of the customer, delving into their needs, challenges, and mindset to ensure our offerings/messaging/strategy truly resonate. On the other hand, the biggest challenge can be the ambiguity surrounding the role. Product marketing can mean very differ ...Read More

Absolutely. In fact, there are numerous CMOs who came up the ranks through product marketing. Take a look at ex-Salesforce product marketing leaders - many of them have gone on to become CMOs of public and private companies across various sizes. To grow into a marketing leadership role, consider flexing your muscles in other marketing functions - demand gen, for instance, is also a highly sought-after marketing skill set. P.S. it's easier to make this move internally vs. getting hired as a deman ...Read More

IMHO, the jump from Senior PMM to Director/Head of PMM is one of the biggest! Having people management skills is important, yes, but it's not the only skill that's needed at that level. It's critical to be a strategic leader - this means aligning initiatives with business objectives. You've got to have a proven track of cross-functional collaboration and driving results. To do this, the best PMM directors I've seen are data-driven, adaptable, and they think outside-the-box - always thinking of n ...Read More