What advice do you have for someone who is trying to break into a product marketing role? What websites and blogs do you follow that are related to product marketing?

Getting started can feel overwhelming, so I just want to give you a few resources to start with. 

Sharebird is a great community to start with online. So kudos for finding us here!

I also recommend the following books:

- Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets 

- Obviously Awesome

- Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

Most importantly, Product Marketing is about strategy and understanding the customer. If you're trying to break into a role in your current company, I recommend getting involved in anything related to Voice of the Customer and talking to your Marketing/Product/Product Marketing leaders. Most PMMs come up through the ranks in other functions. You've got this!

A few ideas:

• start by looking at your favorite company and see what they do when they launch products or changes
• read whatever you can find about product marketing - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-product-marketing is a good start
• talk to some product marketers and ask them what they do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis 

This is a great question and I'm excited to hear you're interested in PMM work.

• To start, read up on Pragmatic Marketing's framework. That will give you a good foundation to begin studying to be able to confidently and cogently speak "PMM language", if you will.
• Start combing through the LinkedIn profiles of PMMs for a few hours one day... What do you see them highlight in their resume? What kind of experience? What kind of content.
• Start getting coffee with the PMM team at your company. Reach out and ask to learn from them (study how to make this contact). Start building relationships with that team and ask one, or a few, of them to mentor you. Ask if you can meet with them once every 4-6 weeks for a quick coffee to pick their brains (but of course, hold off on this until you've already met with them once)...
• Start asking if you can help on PMM projects as you learn more about their work. Even if you just help with a launch email, or doing a few customer research calls, whatever it is, if you do a little bit for them your relationship building will accelerate, and you'll more quickly be able to start having conversations about moving into their org.
• Start becoming close to the hiring managers on that team. Perhaps target them as mentors as they'll ultimately be the ones that decide to bring you over.
• Of course, go Alex and Derek's PMM meetup every single time! And find others too as well (but of course remember this one is the most important ;) - https://www.meetup.com/product-marketing/
• Start networking and go deep. Ask people in this channel for coffee. Ask to learn from us. Start asking thoughtful questions (which come from doing your research) and start building relationships in the field
• If you really want to take a big step towards the move, reach out to pre-Series A start ups and offer to volunteer to help them do market or customer research, do marketing strategy, positioning, messaging, and GTM planning. Google your way there along with all you'll learn from your new PMM network you're building. Get experience as fast as possible, and wherever possible, even if it's small. Something is better than nothing,
• Check out the notes from our last meeting: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s23/sh/0180e78f-e8b6-47dc-bf13-b6ba65d028a2/240803c3fdce20fe4a58b527f55fda0c and read the books listed - they should be able to help too!

I hope this is helpful.

Cheers,

Ross

For everyone looking to learn more about Product Marketing, these are awesome free resources:

1️⃣ Advanced Product Marketing by Jon Chang (Linkedin course, short, easy to digest, free, and with certificate): https://lnkd.in/dVQWj69h

2️⃣ What is product marketing: A great guide by Product Marketing Alliance that covers:
- The Product Marketing Framework
- What does product marketing do?
- What is the role of product marketing?
- Does the perfect product marketer exist?
- Why is product marketing so important?
- How do you get into product marketing?

3️⃣ Product Marketing Getting Started Guide by RocketBlocks: covering:
- What are the key aspects of the PMM job?
- What does the career path of a PMM look like?
- What's the difference between B2B and B2C PMM'ing?
- What's the day-to-day of a PMM like?
- What type of skills are tested in PMM interviews?
- Will PMM interviews have case interview questions (hint: yes!)?
- How should I prepare for PMM interviews?

4️⃣ Product Marketing Metrics and How to Measure Your Business Impact by Diana, formerly at Segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvO3-KFVa9M&feature=youtu.be

5️⃣ Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): How To Create A Comprehensive Customer Profile: https://www.mykpono.com/ideal-customer-profile-icp-how-to-create-a-comprehensive-customer-profile/

Enjoy learning!