I'm going to admit upfront that I answered this in a previous AMA, so I'll copy
and paste that same answer here. A year later, I can truly say that these
continue to be the things I think are most imp
Product Marketing Subteams
7 answers
Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • November 17
Director of Product Marketing at Ironclad • July 1
High growth mindset / hunger to continuously improve. Great negotiators. We sit
at the intersection of a lot of teams and needs! PMMs need to be skilled not
just at bringing value, but negotiating pr
VP of Product Marketing at Oyster® • September 29
Communication: You simply must be a good communicator to be a stellar product
marketer. So much of our discipline requires strong communication in order to
provide clarity (both externally and interna
Because Product Marketing is at the cross-section between Marketing, Product and
Sales, there are times when they are barely treading water to keep up with all
the product launches, become a “catch al
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
A couple of others that come to mind: 1. Excellent communication skills and the
ability to adapt these to the right audience - whether that's for consumers at
scale, customers, or internal stakeholde
Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • July 23
As I spend a decade working in product marketing at high-growth startups, I'll
focus on must-have soft skills for PMM in a fast-growing startup: Hight user
empathy: PMM should absolutely love talkin
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
A collaborative attitude is a must. Product marketing is one of the most
cross-functional roles in any company, so the ability to work well with
colleagues in every vertical of the business is vital.
9 answers
Group Product Marketing Manager - (CIAM / API Products) at Wiz • April 29
With so much at stake, a lot can go wrong when trying to influence the product
roadmap. When tensions run high, PMMs might risk their most important
relationship by: Not providing Sufficient Quantit
Group Product Marketing Manager at Codecademy • June 21
The biggest mistakes to avoid when influencing the product roadmap: Being too
prescriptive with the idea/solution, rather than presenting the problem space
and enlisting your product, design, and eng
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
Not knowing the product: I've known PMMs who had never...used...the product. For
real. This is job #1 - get familiar with the product, build and do demos with
customers, spend time with the product
Associate Director Product Marketing, Creator Promotion at Spotify • August 26
Two mistakes I've seen are: (1) Not getting on the same page as to the goals for
the product. If you don't have a shared undersatnding with your PM / your
product team as to what you are building and
VP of Marketing at BenchSci • October 12
A wise mentor once told me, there is a very big difference between being
respected and being liked. You don't need your PM to like you, you need them to
respect you. With that being said, remember th
Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Pendo.io • December 15
The big one is thinking they are smarter or better equiped to make roadmap
decsions than the product team. Don't do that. Don't make it your crusade to get
something on the roadmap. You have to give y
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
Product Marketers should be user/customer-centric, insights-driven, and
data-driven. Understanding what users/customers need with breadth (at scale,
representative of your target audience) and depth (
Senior Vice President, Product Marketing at BetterUp | Formerly Klaviyo, Qualtrics, Microsoft, MckInsey • October 26
First - Not knowing the product. It doesn’t matter how many customers you talk
to, how many insights you can glean from user analytics, or how many sales deals
you can unlock with your ideas- you wi
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
It’s so important to understand the lift of the project you’re petitioning to
add to the roadmap when approaching the team. If you’re not sure, speak with the
stakeholders beforehand. When I first beg
7 answers
Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 11
A lot depends on the type of role. In general hard skills is where a lot of
hiring managers would edge towards as it ensures the technicality of the role
can be carried out. Soft skills are also vital
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
I think it's a balance, but if I had to choose, leaning in to those soft skills
is a great strategy when you are starting out. It's really important to go
into a new team / company with a really st
Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Pendo.io • December 15
It certainly depends but I'd say it's more important to have the right soft
skills. Specifically for product marketing teams. What PMMs do can really vary
company to company. So while it's likely your
Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 20
If I had to choose one I would (slightly) lean towards soft skills. Having the
right soft skills is what I believe enables a PMM to find the biggest
opportunities and drive buy-in/alignment so that th
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
I think it depends ultimately on what the team needs. In a highly technical
area, I'd value industry and product knowledge highly, as long as the person is
then coachable and open to learn on other ar
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
I find that people with strong soft skills often have the ability to pick up the
hard skills quickly. People who’ve honed their soft skills are proactive about
asking the right questions, and are moti
10 answers
Product Marketing at Cohere | Formerly Adobe, Box, Google • September 28
Messaging is the ability to communicate pains and solutions for a specific
persona using the written word. PMM writing is unique because it’s all about
distilling a message down to it’s essence and pa
Head of Product Marketing at Symphony Talent • October 20
I would suggest practicing by creating your own messaging frameworks for some of
your favorite products or companies be they B2C or B2B. This should help you to
start to think through the different pr
Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 11
Research, and come with a growth mindset! Look and listen to what competitors in
your market are doing. How does their messaging make you feel, how does it
relate to your own organisation's. Why do cu
Head of Product Marketing at Klaviyo | Formerly Drift, Dropbox, Upwork • July 15
Practice, practice, practice! Get as many reps in as you can, and have a
marketer you admire give you very candid feedback. Bonus points if you can do a
working session with someone who’s skilled in m
Head of Marketing at Instawork • September 1
As others have mentioned, practice. It's hard to find the extra time, so here
are some ideas: Try different frameworks to refresh on basics Find reasons to
tag-team a refresh. I've used it as part of
Director of Product Marketing at Snowflake • November 4
2 pieces of advice here: 1) Take a look at the messaging from other companies
(even outside of your market or industry). Who is really nailing it and what do
you like about it? And who are the players
Director of Product Marketing & Lifecycle Marketing at Loom • December 2
This is mostly just practice, start writing, and keep writing. However, some
specific things you could do include: Actively consume other marketing content.
For example subscribe to your favorite bra
Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 20
I'd recommend making sure to spend enough time on the planning and information
gathering phase that is necessary prior to creating messaging. The most common
issue I've seen with messaging is PMMs jum
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
Messaging for me is both an art and a science. I've seen very good narrative
building frameworks and courses around that can you help you nail basic concepts
(e.g how to structure a well written value
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
Messaging is so important, not only when conveying new features, updates, and
opportunities to your customers, but also when getting internal buy-in and
gathering resources for a go-to-market plan. St
2 answers
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
I love the data debate. A couple of my favorite quotes: "If you torture the data
long enough, it will confess to anything" - Ronald Coase. "If I had asked people
what they wanted, they would have sai
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
The voice of the customer should be what drives your decisions as a PMM, and it
reaches you through various channels. In some instances for OkCupid, that is
completely data-driven. For example, when R
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
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
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
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
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
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
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
Particularly interested in technical products, but also curious for nontechnical.
12 answers
VP, Product at Barracuda Networks • August 3
IME this should sit in engineering, but it's generally not a bad idea for the
copy writer to solicit PMM feedback. PMM needs to be hyper focused on strategic
tasks. This is a good example of a tactica
VP of Marketing at Spekit • August 14
If your company has the resources, I would advocate for there to be an in-app
copy writer that sits under design. By putting them with design, they will have
the shortest path to where the product is
Senior Team Lead, Retail Product Marketing at Shopify • August 17
We like keeping this with the PMM or a Product Manager/Owner, as the person
writing this copy needs to be super familiar with the product and user
experience. They need to be power users, IMO. Occasio
Global Director, Business Strategy and Comms at TripActions • September 19
It depends on how big your company is! At large companies, there’s often a
Content Strategy or Product Writing person or team that sits under Design. The
PMM should ensure the in-product copy aligns
Senior Director of Corporate Marketing at Handshake • October 29
For my company, it's currently shared between product, product marketing and
design, but that's mostly a factor of being a startup and in the process of
building out each of those functions. I think a
Executive Vice President Products at Snow Software | Formerly Rackspace, Dell • March 1
In-app copy typically falls under Product Marketing. If it is something you do
not own today, my advice would be to work with the Design/PM team who is
currently owning this to understand how you can
Senior Director, Blockchain Go To Market at VMware | Formerly Accenture, United States Air Force • March 28
In my opinion, PMM has a better vantage of customer needs and command of
customer voice to produce best in app copy, product naming nomenclature and
in-product guidance. This responsibility can be sha
Senior Director of Product Marketing at Fivetran • April 13
In-app copy does fit with Product Marketing - and Product! So technically, our
PM team owns the in-product experience but PMM has full access to the tool. We
have a slack channel for all in-app messag
Head of Product Marketing at Cortex • April 27
A few answers here, based on use case! Naming inside the product (like
features, tabs, or experiences) would be handled by PMM during the launch
process. PM is likely to have ideated an internally-r
Director, Product Marketing at Gong • June 9
This is always a gray area :) At Gong, most UX copy is owned by the product
writing team, except for naming "Tier 1" products. Together with that team, we
established a list of criteria that qualifie
Vice President, Product Marketing at Clearbit | Formerly Glassdoor, Prophet, Kraft • October 18
The copy in the product itself is owned by our Product Design team. However, we
have a Customer Engagement / Customer Lifecycle Marketing team that owns copy
for in-app messages like tooltips, banners
Head of Product Marketing at Calendly • March 21
In quickly growing companies, I've found there are a few "hot potatoes" that get
passed around as the quarters pass by and employees come and go. One of those
jobs that get shared is in-app copy (or t
9 answers
Senior Director, Head of Product Marketing at DoorDash • March 31
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
Head of Global Inbound Marketing at Asana • October 15
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
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
Chief Marketing Officer at Blend • July 7
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
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
Vice President Product Marketing at Salesforce • August 11
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
Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • August 16
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:
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
4 answers
Head of Marketing at Discord | Formerly Uber, Fivestars, Electronic Arts • December 12
This is a great question. I would zoom out and think more holistically about how
to approach career advice and what I tell people looking to get into Product
Marketing overall. I usually approach si
Global Head of Product Marketing, Spotify for Artists at Spotify | Formerly Uber • December 20
I can relate to this one, I actually started off my career in PMM at a B2B
company. This experience was invaluable and where I learned the core
competencies of PMM – the importance of product positio
8 answers
PMO at TikTok • August 13
If product marketing is embedded within product, what that usually tells me is
that marketing is a secondary function to product. If you're operating within a
product-led organization, the cadence of
Chief Growth Officer at Verifiable • March 26
Our PMM team currently rolls up under the Marketing practice, which rolls up
into the Customer Org (Customer Success/Support, People Science, Marketing).
This means Sales reports up through another or
Product Marketing at Cohere | Formerly Adobe, Box, Google • April 2
The PMM team at HackerOne reports in Marketing. PM's purpose in the universe is
to build the right product by translating customer needs into products they
can't live without. PMMs role is to transla
Product Manager at Square • January 12
You would assume that being in the product organization would allow a PMM more
influence. However, I’ve actually found the opposite to be the case. For a
brief period of time at Zendesk, Product Mar
VP, Product and Growth Marketing at 1Password | Formerly Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn • February 11
There are pros and cons to any PMM reporting structure, with no perfect
solution. My experience has mostly been with a PMM team that reports into a
marketing leader and doesn’t report into product. In
Head of Consumer Product Marketing at Nextdoor • March 3
From my experience, it's less about product marketing's placement in the org
chart and more about product marketing's relationship with product and cross
functional teams. I've been in orgs where PMM
Vice President Product Marketing at AppFolio • April 6
I have led product marketing teams that reported into marketing and others that
reported into product. I've been reorganized from one to the other twice. I
don't find it makes all that much of a diffe