What skills are universally key to being a great product marketer?

Answer

8 Answers

Product Marketing Career Path Product Marketing Soft and Hard Skills

Christy Roach

AirOps CMO • 6y
I answered this in this answer around soft and hard skills but if I were to pick my top, universally important skills for a PMM they would be:
- Messaging and positioning
- Cross-functional excellence
- Understanding of data
- Market, customer and competitor knowledge
- Process management
From there, it really depends on your specific role and where you want to specialize. The skills each PMM has really depends on what's needed for them in their role.
2,772 Views
Indy Sen

Canva GTM Advisor/Fractional Leader/Author | Formerly Google, Salesforce, Box, Mulesoft, WeWork, Matterport, Canva • 7y

Influencing: You need the ability to inspire and drive cross-functional teams, often without any of the "authority". Cross matrixed orgs FTW, baby. Storytelling: You can turn a plot into a narrative (see answer above). You have a knack for finding that storytelling hook that gets to your why this solution, and why now? Positioning: You can distill a product's features and benefits into something that's aspirational and make the audience feel like this product is uniquely suited to their needs, a ...Read More

2,542 Views
Eric Chang

1Password Director, Product Marketing • 4y

You'll often see something like go-to-market strategy/planning/execution mentioned as the most important skill for product marketers. While this isn't untrue, there is a key blend of hard/soft skills that enable a product marketer to really drive a successful GTM motion. I'll share my thoughts on the top 3 soft and hard skills that every great product marketer should have. Soft Skills Navigating Ambiguity - This is really a blend of multiple soft skills (adaptability, problem solving, organizati ...Read More

2,758 Views
James Winter

Telescope Partners Head of Marketing | Formerly Nexmo, Dialpad, Aspire, Brandfolder • 9y

I'll touch on a few of the slightly less obvious ones: Curiosity: I think curiosity is one of the most important traits you can have in product marketing. The role is often ambiguously defined and many times it will fall on product marketing to discover where the most effective areas to spend their time are. Empathy: If, like me, you subscribe to the idea that product marketing is primarily a customer centric function, that means that you must be able to quickly and effectively grasp things that ...Read More

1,611 Views
Pat Ma

Guidewire Software Senior Product Marketing Manager • 9y

In my opinion, I think the most important skill needed to be a great product marketer is sales (specifically pitching). You have to be able to get in front of a customer and pitch your product well. This means understanding your customer's needs, explaining your value proposition in the first 90 seconds, succinctly showing how your product can solve your customer's problems, and why your product is better than other products that s/he is considering. My ex-boss (CEO of Leadspace and former CMO o ...Read More

1,571 Views
Scott Hornstein

B2P Partners Partner • 7y

Empathy is a critical skill, and it is in short supply. Your customers only care about what matters to them. Engage them in structured conversations. Listen carefully. Then reread your messaging to see if it resonates. Look to see if your message is in channels they trust. Data will tell you alot, but actual people will tell you what matters.

699 Views
Steve Feyer

WalkMe Director, Solutions Marketing & Competitive Intelligence • 9y

I'll take a more nuts & bolts approach to this question. The two skills I see as mandatory are writing ability and presentation ability. With the ability to write and speak well, a PMM just isn't going to be effective and is more likely to be a great product manager.

756 Views
Daniel Palay

KPI Sense Chief Executive Officer • 6y

I completely agree with 3/4 of James' list (project management is a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have, IMO). But I'll go ahead and get even less obvious: 1. Introversion. Introverts make great product marketers because we're typically keen observers. Empathy and observational skills enable the product marketer to really understand a wide variety of audiences. 2. Writing. It doesn't help to understand a wide range of audiences if you can't communicate effectively with them. Know how to write, and ...Read More

694 Views