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

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), outbound (or GTM, working more closely with Sales), and compete (often supports competitive needs of Sales or Marketing). On top of that, Product Marketers can often be called upon to support many other functions across Marketing such as demand generation or acquisitions.If you want to run a Product Ma ...Read More

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 current org if there are internal transitions or scope expansions that open up leadership roles, or may require seeking out a role at another company. Often times earlier stage companies that are looking to hire their first PMM may provide a great on-ramp to functional leadership. If you can come in ...Read More

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 need to go from being an IC (individual contributor) to being a manager.  To grow as an IC, and if that's your speed (management, despite the fancy titles, is not for everyone), you need to develop subject matter expertise and the reputation as a someone who is the best at x, y, z. Product marketing ...Read More

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 you can completely own and run with. This way, you become the go-to person at the company for messaging, or competitive intelligence, or solutions marketing, or product launches, etc....you develop an expertise in this area, gain credibility, and can then make the case for higher visibility projects ...Read More

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 opportunity will open up for them. Start-ups offer a much broader scope of responsibility but may lack the true people management/external industry exposure that goes with say a Director or VP title at a large company, and may introduce risk into career progression if the growth stalls (I have seen this pers ...Read More

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 means managing others, however, I recommend first learning to influence others who don't report to you. After all, influencing others is how many people — in all professions — grow into management roles in the first place. They start thinking less like an individual contributor, and more like a collabo ...Read More