How do you break into a product marketing role?

It's hard to break into product marketing with no experience as it is a tough job. PMMs have to manage a lot of cross functional stakeholders and are often responsible for executing large, complex launches. My suggestion is to enter a company in a function where you have experience and network your way into a PMM role. That is how I got my start in Product Marketing. I transitioned from Operations to Product Marketing by working on projects (some outside the scope of my role) with a woman who wa ...Read More

It is tough. If you are planning to move internally, it starts with finding a sponsor - someone who is willing to take risk for you. That is not going to happen automatically.  I answered a similar question so posting that reply.  There are multiple entry paths into product marketing If you are fresh out of college (MBA) and want to switch to product marketing - - Problem solving (Can you identify the right problem and can you analyze the problem to identify the root cause?), Creativity (Will yo ...Read More

I agree with everything Dave has written, another role I would look for is someone in Content Marketing who has worked with Product Marketing, and wants to get into how the sausage is made. Understanding what the otherside of that world looks like, can be valuable coming into PMM, because when you create your messaging briefs/docs, you will have an eye on making them usable to a content writer/marketer.   PMM can be a pretty heavy role, which is why it can be hard to hire someone with no experie ...Read More

For those just starting their Product Marketing career, this can be a challenge. When evaluating candidates that don’t have previous PMM experience, it’s a risk for a hiring manager. You’re competing against many other candidates that do have PMM experience. So what could make you stand out and be the preferred candidate? Related Roles That Translate Well Sales Sales Engineer Customer Success Product Management Why? The transferrable skillset of storytelling and championing the voice of the cust ...Read More

Is it possible to move laterally within your current company to a PMM role? Or look for an open position with your current title at a company you know you could move laterally into PMM?  This is what I did - I was running a small team of Pro Service designers at a SaaS company and just started doing my own product/solution marketing for our service packages (didn't ask permission). One day the Director of Product Marketing comes to me with a job offer because I had demonstrated a strong skill se ...Read More

My experience is probably a bit unique, but it may be helpful to those interested in the role. I started my career in a technical support/customer success role, then later moved into an entry-level product management role (probably most aligned with a product or business analyst), and then moved into product marketing as at an associate level. This was all at the same company over a number of years, so I already had a deep knowledge of the customer, their fears and frustrations, etc., as well as ...Read More

Unless you can find someone to take a shot on you, the best route is definitely making an internal move. I moved to product marketing from content marketing – I made it clear to my manager that PMM was where I wanted to end up, and we worked with the existing PMM org to find me stretch assignments and side gigs so that I could get exposure to the practice while still fulfilling my existing role. After some time doing that, a role opened up and they agreed to give it to me in an entry-level capac ...Read More