Product Marketing Career Path

What are the fundamental differences between a PMM and a senior PMM? What are some clear indicators that someone is ready to take on a senior PMM role and the responsibilities that come with it? And, when in the senior PMM role, what are the key stages that distinguish the different levels of senior PMMs?

3 answers

Head of Marketing, Google Maps Platform at Google • May 12

This is a hard question because I've found that even the nature of product marketing and the title "PMM" means different things at different companies. Generally, however, I'd look at the framework fo

307 Saves

4 Replies

MELANIE KARUNARATNE

VP Marketing - Product Marketing at IVANTI (former employer) • April 18

As with many roles, a PMM already demonstrating they are working above their level is potentially ready to move up. Here are some further thoughts to determine whether someone is suitable to take on

24 Saves

Victor Kuppers

VP of Product Marketing at Betty Blocks • March 31

I wanted to share with you a resource that I found incredibly helpful and informative. As I was searching for information on this particular topic, I stumbled upon a document created by the Product M

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Product Marketing

What advice do you have for a current product marketing manager who's looking to grow his/her career in product marketing?

What type of opportunities should current product marketers seek out in order to best position themselves to lead the product marketing function at a company?

7 answers

Laura Jones

Chief Marketing Officer at Instacart • December 9

Once you've established deep expertise and credibility in the field, the transition to leading a Product Marketing team will depend largely on finding the right opportunity. This can happen with your

111 Saves

Horacio Zambrano

CMO, TruU.ai ; B2B GTM/PMM Advisor at Truu, Inc. • December 5

I think showing a promotion within an organization signals something a bit more special than a title change across organizations, so that is a way to motivate someone to stay on longer if an opportuni

28 Saves

Indy Sen

Hypergrowth Leader and Advisor at | Formerly Google, Salesforce, Box, Mulesoft, WeWork, Matterport • July 24

See my answer here in terms of what can help you personally grow as a PMM. In terms of moving up the ranks, the journey is probably similar to other marketing roles where beyond a certain level, you n

49 Saves

Dana Barrett

Head of Global Inbound Marketing at Asana • October 16

Every product marketing org is different, but there are typically three big areas that may or may not be included in a product marketing org including, inbound (working more closely with Product), out

170 Saves

Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel

Director, Product and Solutions Marketing at Hopin • June 2

Product Marketing has so many different specialties that it’s almost impossible to be a master of all of them. My advice is to pick a product marketing swimlane and develop a strategy or project that

30 Saves

Leandro Margulis

Head of Product at Prove • September 8

Product Marketing is an evolving role and can mean slightly different things at different companies, from sales enablement to competitive analysis and everything in between. Hence, I would suggest thi

7 Saves

Jeff Hardison

Head of Product Marketing at Calendly • March 26

Growing your career in PMM can mean many things from mastering each aspect of product marketing to going deep in a particular discipline (e.g., pricing, competitive, etc.). If growing your career me

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Product Marketing

What's your best product marketing 30-60-90 day plan to make a big impact at a new company?

I'm starting a new job next week! Would love to hear your top tips in general as well as at the director level.

19 answers

Dave Daniels

Founder at BrainKraft • June 9

30 days - Learn the market and competitive landscape. Visit as many customers and non-customers as possible. Read every Win/Loss report you can get your hands on. Talk to as many sales reps as possibl

210 Saves

James Winter

VP of Marketing at Spekit • August 24

One thing I'd add that's very tactical to the great stuff that David has already laid out: Find your allies. Talk to everyone within the org that you can and assemble a shortlist of people who have

177 Saves

JD Prater

Head Of Marketing at Graft • January 8

I suggest combining pieces from my answers to these questions. What's your framework to prioritizing needs/deliverables when you're the first Product Marketer at a company establishing the function?

176 Saves

LeTisha Shaw

Director, Product Marketing at UserTesting • February 26

Whenever you are starting a new role, it's critical to understand what's important to your manager and what the objectives are for your new organization so you can align yourself well to them. Every c

187 Saves

Harsha Kalapala

Vice President Product Marketing at AlertMedia | Formerly TrustRadius, Levelset, Walmart • April 16

Copied over from a similar question: There are a lot of things you could do - and it's easy to get distracted as a product marketer. First 30 days - Listen, listen, listen. Ask a TON of questions. Ho

140 Saves

Suyog Deshpande

Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing at Samsara • May 14

First 100 days in a job quite important. The First 100 days are your opportunity to ask questions, make some bold moves, build trusted relationships, and set the tone. I would focus on the following t

256 Saves

Eve Alexander

Vice President, Product Marketing at Seismic • May 19

I don't know about you, but I think there's so often a tendency to jump right in and start delivering. I encourage everyone that starts working on my team to spend their first 30 days learning! If you

106 Saves

Charlotte Norman

Head Of Product Marketing at Canva • May 21

The first 90 days is such an exciting and sometimes overwhelming time in a person's career. The best way to set up for success in 90 days is as follows: Day 1 - 30: Learn, learn, learnThe first task

204 Saves

Pallavi Vanacharla

Vice President Product Marketing at New Relic | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Intuit • May 28

Here is what has worked for me in the past. This pace below is relevant for smaller teams/orgs. You can pace this out for larger teams/orgs as needed. 30 DAYS Goal: Establish credibility and define

252 Saves

Grant Shirk

Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • July 7

Time for some radical transparency. I'm in the midst of this right now. Tomorrow is my 30-day milestone at Cisco Meraki. It's been an awesome first four weeks, and I'm really looking forward to what

196 Saves

Naman Khan

Chief Marketing Officer at Blend • July 8

There is a ramp plan that I like & have used many times, both for myself and members of the team. Like most things that are awesome, it takes the form of a very simple looking table. 3 Columns:

148 Saves

Leandro Margulis

Head of Product at Prove • September 8

Congrats on the new role! Very excited for you. I agree that it is good to have a 30-60-90 day plan and to make sure you can show progress and positive impact early yo make a good impression. That sai

86 Saves

Jasmine Jaume

Director, Product Marketing at Intercom • October 27

It depends a little on what the situation is with PMM in the company you join (i.e. size and maturity, what the team is currently doing, what your role is going to be, whether you're an IC or a manage

254 Saves

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 6

I don't split it out into 30-60-90 day increments, but within that period, these are the things I'd suggest doing: Get to know your product - get demo certified, the same as your AEs Start building k

166 Saves

Natalie Louie

Product Marketing, Senior Director at Replicant | Formerly MobileCoin, Zuora, Hired, Oracle, Responsys • January 12

I break up my 30-60-90 day plan into 4 phases of success for Product Marketing – it also includes focus for after your first 90 days, all outlined below. You may not get to everything in each phase,

201 Saves

Kashyap Patel

Sr. Director, Product Management at Druva • February 8

Here is what mine looked like roughly when I started about 9 months ago: 30 days: Product onboarding and learning Meet key people in PM, Sales, Marketing Get introduced to tools used in the org Under

44 Saves

Sina Falaki

Head of Industry, Segment, and Solutions Marketing at Motive | Formerly Procore • June 23

First 30 days - Meet with key staholders across the company - ensure excitement for the mission and what you're about to take on. Ask key questions about their responsibilities, what they are workin

22 Saves

Christine Sotelo-Dag

Director of Product Marketing & Customer Marketing at Mode Analytics • January 20

This is a great question, and one I thought deeply about prior to starting at Mode. Thankfully, I had a nice long break between Intercom and Mode which I leveraged for lots of down time 😉 but also as

22 Saves

Jeff Hardison

Head of Product Marketing at Calendly • March 24

Years ago, a VP of product management made a joke while asking me about the status of my 30-60-90 Day Plan: "Let me guess, it's 30 days of studying, 30 days of planning, and 30 days of finally shippin

4 Saves

Product Marketing

How do product marketers make sure they're learning enough varied skills to be a well-rounded professional when scope is an issue?

i.e. working at a large company with minimal scope, focusing on sales enablement but knowing you need experience on the product launch side, other marketing teams covering responsibilities, etc.

7 answers

Christy Roach

Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • October 9

This is a great question! I know lots of product marketers who worry that in getting more specialized they’re missing out on the opportunity to get that broad skillset. I reject the idea that you have

74 Saves

Hila Segal

VP Product & Customer Marketing at Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • January 28

The role of a product marketer is very different in every company. Still, I believe you shape up the position in your organization - the strengths, interests, and passions you bring with you can expan

51 Saves

Robert McGrath

Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 12

There are multiple ways I'd suggest doing this. One approach is to use the current area that you're focused on i.e. sales enablement, and how you can use your knowledge and experience of this to influ

32 Saves

Leandro Margulis

Head of Product at Prove • September 8

This is one of the reasons to work for a smaller company where you get a wider scope, there is always pros and cons on each company type. Now if you are in a large company with a small scope, Make the

5 Saves

Vidya Drego

VP of Product and Solutions Marketing at HubSpot • January 20

I think it's always possible for product marketers to learn varied skills by being open to new projects or opportunities when they've mastered a skill. At a large company, where roles are more special

13 Saves

Ryane Bohm

Product Marketing at Clari | Formerly Gong, Salesforce, GE • April 15

Great question and a challenge I've definitely run into throughout the years. Every role and every company is different and you're not always going to get the full spectrum of PMM with every move. T

10 Saves

Jane Reynolds

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

Reach out to the product marketing network! Sharebird is a great place to start :) And I find that LinkedIn is another helpful resource for connecting with other product marketers to get insights from

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Product Marketing

What advice do you have for recent graduates that want to go straight into product marketing?

Typically, these roles require 3-5 years of experience and/or an MBA. Are there roles we should target instead that will help transition into product marketing? What qualities do you want to see in young professionals that want to land in product marketing?

7 answers

Savita Kini

Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • July 24

I believe there is no hard / fast rule about requiring an MBA. I have seen plenty of young graduates make the transition to product marketing. The first year or two is critical in terms of the kind of

34 Saves

Christy Roach

Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • August 14

I agree with a lot of Savita's points above. I see a lot of new grads who are interested in product marketing and recommend most new grads to try to build up general marketing skills before they try t

43 Saves

Ajit Ghuman

Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • February 28

It is possible to start a junior product marketing role straight out of college, but a true PMM role requires some real world skills. As a hiring managers, these are some of the things I look for: 1

20 Saves

Abdul Rastagar

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

Written and oral communication are probably the most important skills you can develop, as they will help you get a foot in the door early in your career and also will continue to be useful throughout

32 Saves

Manav Tandon

Head of Product Marketing, Collaboration SaaS at Cisco | Formerly Adobe, Samsung, Verifone • February 16

You should seek out product marketing specialist roles. In such a role you'll get to help product marketing managers conduct market, customer and competitive research, analyze data on product adoption

6 Saves

Valerie Angelkos

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

Product Marketing Specialists, Associates or General Marketing Specialist roles are good roles to kick-off your career in Product Marketing. They all will require you to develop Product Marketing skil

4 Saves

Jane Reynolds

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

I started my career in editorial, and didn’t transition over to marketing until about six years ago. I can’t stress enough how important sharp communication and collaboration skills are when it comes

2 Saves

Product Marketing

How important are brand marketing skills for product marketers compared to analytical skills?

There is often a huge emphasis on analytical skills, instead of brand marketing skills, when it comes to product marketing job descriptions.

12 answers

John Gargiulo

Head of Global Product Marketing at Airbnb • December 1

It's funny, I've been working on a deck looking at exactly this question. It's fascinating how much it varies from company to company. We're moving to a place where the distinctions between product ma

254 Saves

2 Replies

Feng Hong

Global Product Marketing Manager at TikTok • December 22

For companies of a certain DNA (Bay Area, technology), brand marketing is not a priority compared to being able to measure the performance of your own marketing, with a philosophy of investigating wha

34 Saves

Savita Kini

Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • January 20

Just a feedback on the last comment, as I reacquaint myself to the "new" bay area. I have noticed more emphasis on demand gen skills amongst many startups. If there are stakeholders in the company alr

47 Saves

Suyog Deshpande

Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing at Samsara • November 20

First, you can not decouple analytical skills from brand marketing skills. They are not mutually exclusive. You are right that there is more emphasis on analytical skills in job description for produc

152 Saves

Felix Huang

Senior User Acquisition Manager at Hopper | Formerly Skillz, Telus Health, • January 3

100% agree with Suyog. Nothing we do exists in a vacuum and all of the positioning and messaging we bring to market should be looked at from a brand lens to ensure consistency. Ultimately, the consume

21 Saves

Anthony Kennada

CEO at AudiencePlus • January 29

I definitely appreciate this tension -- and in a perfect world you find the right mix of both on the team. Analytical skills will benefit our understanding of market sizing and opportunity, pricing an

101 Saves

Jason Perocho

Vice President, Product Marketing at Braze • March 11

Analytical skills tend to be the preferred skill set of a product marketer because they are "running the business". Product Marketers own a product's P&L and must have the business acumen to drive

95 Saves

Elain Szu

VP Marketing at Sentry • April 9

You've hit upon one of the reasons why marketing in tech is a neverending challenge (and the fun part IMO). I think the best marketers have both strong analytical skills and grasp how to build long-la

23 Saves

Liz Tassey (she/her)

VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 9

Brand is more than just a logo or color palette or tag line. Brand is the combination of customer touchpoints that create meaning and belonging for that customer...Brand attracts the customer in the f

9 Saves

Valerie Angelkos

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

Understanding how Brand Marketing works is critical to succeed in Product Marketing as these two teams work closely together to bring any Marketing and Product work to life. Brand Marketing thinks ab

11 Saves

Raman Sharma

Vice President, Product Marketing at DigitalOcean • February 7

In my opinion, a big part of Product Marketing is storytelling - connecting the customers' and prospects' desires and pain points to the capabilities of your products and solutions. Brand Marketing

6 Saves

Jane Reynolds

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

It depends on the role. As Head of Product Marketing at OkCupid, I rely on data and analytics to drive product decisions. But ultimately, my priority is ensuring that our product lives up to our brand

3 Saves

Product Marketing

What should I do when I don't think that the feedback from my boss is correct and how do I approach it?

I get a lot of critical feedback from my boss and I don't always know what to do with it or how to improve. Sometimes I don't even agree with the feedback.

6 answers

Abdul Rastagar

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

I admit, that’s a tough one. When you say ‘critical’ feedback, I hope it’s still constructive rather than just tearing you down. 1) If the feedback is just criticism, it’s time to move on to a new bos

29 Saves

Josh Bean

Senior Director Product Marketing at Zendesk • January 28

Its important to have a maanger who believes in you and supports your career. I'd break the meetings apart into weekly tactical conversations about what needs to be done, blockers, etc. Monthly convos

6 Saves

Valerie Angelkos

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

First of all - I empathize with you and I know it's hard to receive critical feedback, but I applaud your interest in wanting to do something about this feedback and improve it. Feedback and manager r

3 Saves

Milena Krasteva

Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology at Walmart • June 9

Even when feedback seems completely unfair, there may be some small nugget to pay attention to. So, in general don't dismiss the feedback without some introspection. Giving objective feedback is actua

6 Saves

Tracy Montour

Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29

We all get feedback we don't agree with. It's important to know when to push back and when to disagree and committ. But in general, if you're getting feedback that you're not sure what to do with, it

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Jane Reynolds

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

It sounds like the feedback you’re getting may not be constructive, so I encourage you to ask your boss for specific examples, as well as recommendations of how they can see you improving. It’s more t

2 Saves

Product Marketing

What are some things you wish you knew in your first few years of Product Marketing, that you have learnt since

9 answers

Brandon McGraw

Senior Director, Head of Product Marketing at DoorDash • April 1

I came from a background in brand and so my natural instincts served me most well on the outbound side of product marketing. I had my fair share of imposter syndrom in the early days when I looked at

104 Saves

Dana Barrett

Head of Global Inbound Marketing at Asana • October 16

I spent a lot of time in my early career worrying about getting to the next promotion and how I was progressing versus my peers. Looking back now, this was all wasted energy. I wish I had been more fo

288 Saves

Jasmine Anderson Taylor

Senior Director, Product Marketing at Instacart • June 2

One thing I wish I learned earlier is the most powerful product marketing you can do is always centered on a shared human truth. When I look back on my very early PMM GTM work, I focused primarily on

33 Saves

Naman Khan

Chief Marketing Officer at Blend • July 8

There is one key learning: Actively plan & manage your development. Here is what is involved: Know the menu: Since Product Marketing is such a broad discipline, its important to understand the va

11 Saves

Francisco M. T. Bram

Vice President of Marketing at Albertsons Companies • March 24

When you're starting out your career as a PMM, it is very important to remember that your value promise is to customers and not internal stakeholders. I don't mean to say that internal alignment and b

8 Saves

Rekha Srivatsan

Vice President Product Marketing at Salesforce • August 12

Don't box yourself, ever! Don't always stick to how things are always done. And ask questions more. And observe and take notes. And don't pretend to know it all! Here's the thing: When you are

14 Saves

Lisa Dziuba

Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • August 17

As someone with a tech background and self-education in marketing, I learn everything in practice. I wish I knew more about the importance of user research and CI at the beginning of my PMM journey:

6 Saves

Louis Debatte-Monroy

Director of Product Marketing at Backbase • March 1

You are not here to market products. That's the main thing I wish I knew. Would have saved me countless hours and tears. The number one mistake PMMs make is to start from the product. They organize we

3 Saves

Jennifer Kay

Product Marketing Expert & Mentor at | Formerly Homebase, Angi, The Knot • March 21

The ability to effectively build cross-functional relationships is really important in product marketing and understanding the role that each functional area plays in making a product successful. I'd

2 Saves

Product Marketing

What key metrics do product marketing managers need to meet in order to get promoted?

8 answers

Alexa Scordato

PMO at TikTok • August 14

Where to start? Every company has different policies for promotion criteria, but ultimately it needs to take into account 2 things: merit and business need. Business need has to come first. It means t

42 Saves

Pete Schott

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Zenput • March 24

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become a popular way for companies to clearly define goals and measure progress against them, at the employee, team, and company level. https://en.wikipedia.org/

24 Saves

Rehan Mirza

Chief Growth Officer at Verifiable • March 27

If you're on this forum as a PMM, you know that one of the biggest challenges for the PMM org is "What the hell do we measure!?" - an age-old conundrum that PMMs always struggle with. This is especial

82 Saves

Brandon McGraw

Senior Director, Head of Product Marketing at DoorDash • April 1

This varies by company and role, but I generally think about the path to promotion on the two key vectors: ownership level and degree of autonomy. Strong performance against OKRs or KPIs is a core u

96 Saves

Francisco M. T. Bram

Vice President of Marketing at Albertsons Companies • March 24

The best way for a product marketer to get promoted is by demonstrating the impact of their work. To do this, I incentivize all my PMMs to befriend data and tie their deliverables to key business and

6 Saves

Jam Khan

Senior Vice President Product Marketing at 6sense • July 21

I'm not a fan of connecting metrics to promotions for a role like product marketing becuase there are so many other dependencies that can't be controlled. Rather I like to establish some expectations

11 Saves

Amanda Groves

Senior Director Product Marketing at Crossbeam | Formerly 6sense, JazzHR, Imagine Learning, Appsembler • September 7

PMMs often are measured by output, since most of what we provide are tied to other metrics. I would focus on delivering tangible assets on a regular cadence (case studies, one-pagers, pitch decks, etc

6 Saves

Jennifer Kay

Product Marketing Expert & Mentor at | Formerly Homebase, Angi, The Knot • March 22

The short answer is this is going to be highly dependent and will be different given your company, product or service, stage, and marketing organization. Every company is different and the role of pro

2 Saves

Product Marketing

How do you communicate product marketing achievements upwards and build visibility?

It can sometimes be a struggle for those on the executive team, or in higher leadership roles, to see the value that product marketing is bringing to the business - especially if they do not have regular interaction. How do you build visibility for you and/or your team, and clearly communicate the achievements and activities throughout the year?

5 answers

Priyanka Srinivasan

Head of Product & Growth Marketing at Qualia • August 13

I love this question. I’ll step away from PMM for a minute and say - regardless of what function you’re in at a company, you should be championing yourself and your team constantly. People who ‘get ah

57 Saves

Lindsey Weinig

Director of Product Marketing at Twilio • March 16

Marketing your accomplishments is critical! It is epecially important to align leadership expectations with reality since product marketing roles and responsiblities can vary greatly from business to

13 Saves

LaShaun Williams

VP, Marketing at Observable | Formerly Figma, Abstract • January 13

Tying your work to tangible outcomes, specifically those related to product growth and revenue, and socializing it has worked well for me. Here's my approach: Have a revenue-first mindset. Businesses

3 Saves

Lauren Hakim

Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk • January 20

Great question. At Zendesk, we do a lot of monthly/quarterly syncs with product leadership, sales leadership, marketing leadership, etc to discuss top programs and communicate achievements. Quarterly

6 Saves

Candice Sparks

Director of Product Marketing at Attentive • March 17

One of the key challenges with communicating product marketing achievements is often times there are less concrete KPIs. For example, demand gen is looking at MQLs and sales is looking at quota attain

2 Saves