A good competitive intelligence function starts with great listening. Engaging
your frontline (both sales AND customer success...why you are losing deals is
good insight, but why you are losing customers is incredibly powerful), win/loss
reports, gleaning insights from your customer experience and brand tracking
programs, dark funnel data, first party research when possible....
Establishing listening upfront will help you then get a clearer picture of where
you need to focus. Which competitors in which segments should you focus on,
where / how are they winning. This is where layering in some 1st party research
can be helpful. And then being really clear about which deliverables and
training will be most helpful to your stakeholders (e.g. Sales) - and getting
into a motion where you build those out and socialize (e.g FUD respose docs,
trap setting, strong differentiated messaging backed by product truths, etc)
Another key part of the function should be around competitive alerts and
wallows. Having a structure where you can deep dive quickly into a competitive
move (e.g. acquisition, new announcement, etc.) and get out a perspective and
guidance to your front lines so they know how to react if a customer brings it
up. This is often a big pain point in a highly competitive industry, so may be a
good place to focus first.
Product Marketing Career Path
2 answers
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
First off, congrats! The positive impact that can have on revenue and growth is
pretty remarkable. When standing up a new function, I always think broadly to
start. For example, when considering “competitors”—think beyond your direct
competitors so you can cover a more robust scope. A company in a parallel
industry can be just as helpful a case study as one in the same industry. At
OkCupid, we’re often looking to social media and self-improvement apps for
inspiration.
Analysis will also be key. Be sure to have the tools in place so that analysis
will be accessible for all stakeholders. Transparency is so important when
analyzing data. And on that note, make sure everyone’s aligned on the function’s
KPIs from the start; plan a weekly email or sync to review updates and
unforeseen issues.
Finally, it’ll be important for the function to be closely aligned with the
product and marketing teams. These teams will help bring the learnings to life.
Let them know about the analysis you’re most excited about so they can add any
pieces that may be helpful for their teams in creating new features.
5 answers
While interviewers focus on your response to the hard skills question, they are
simultaneously evaluating your soft skills as well. Generally, they are
evaluating your EQ and your communication skills, your ability to interpret
questions and think critically in real time, and your ability to provide direct
and concrete answers.
Here is an example that I hope really illustrates my point: if an interviewer
asks “Tell me about yourself,” they are looking for a concise career narrative
but also watching how the candidate will respond more generally. Is the answer
succinct and can the candidate narrow the message on the most important points?
Does the response highlight how it is applicable to the job the candidate is
applying for? If it’s a 5-minute long (verbal diarrhea) response, it’s a red
flag that the candidate is unable to focus on the important key messages. It
also betrays a certain lack of self-awareness. So long rambling answers (which
are surprisingly common) are concerning for multiple reasons.
To answer your question about how to work on your soft skills:
1. Be succinct in your answer. I can’t stress this enough. Answer the question
that was asked directly, without long background or detail. (I recommend you
research the concept of ‘core answers’)
2. For those who are shy: make eye contact and work on being confident in your
answers. You do that by owning your answer and your career path and by not
making apologies for yourself, such as gaps in your employment or not having the
100% right background. You chose your career path so don’t be afraid to take
pride in it. Also, smile lots because that will help you be more relaxed.
3. For those who are really confident: Please don’t come across as arrogant.
I’ve seen numerous really strong candidates sink their job opportunity because
they came off as condescending (they were besserwissers, they talked over
people, they didn’t listen to the questions that were being asked, they made
strong and off-putting statements, etc.) They may have been perfect in every
other way but no one wants to work with a jerk. EQ matters and if you are
perceived as arrogant, you are communicating to everyone that you don’t have the
right level of EQ.
4. Some interviewers try hard to throw a candidate off balance during the
interview. They purposefully push and push and push to see how you react. Don’t
let them rattle you – it’s a cheap trick designed to get under your skin.
Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 11
Bring your behaviours into your answers. The relationships you've built, the
challenging people you've persuaded etc. It's important to be clear on the
activity and the task, but ensure, within the STAR framework, you're not only
answering the "what" you did but the "how" you did it.
As an interviewer the "how" means more to me, as it's a signal not only to your
ability to succeed in the role but your ability to be the best you can be within
the culture of the organisation.
Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 20
I am a huge fan of the STAR format (and also keeping answers to two minutes or
less)! For any interview, I think it's important to identify and prepare your
key 3-4 examples, which you can then use to display a wide range of skills
depending on the question type. When you're responding to a question using one
of these examples, make sure to take the opportunity to quickly highlight some
of those soft skills.
Example: If you're asked about a time where you had to analyze data, of course
you should convey how you analyzed the data, but you likely had to work with
someone from analytics to identify the right data set, perhaps you got a second
opinion from a different team that differed from yours which you had to
reconcile, and then you had drive cross-functional alignment when you created
recommendations based on that data.
If you are an experienced product marketer, you should naturally have lots of
examples that can display your soft skills. For candidates in other functions
that want to transition into product marketing, make sure to identify examples
where you've partnered with other teams or engaged with customers that will give
you the opportunity to let your soft skills shine through.
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
I'd weave these topics in as you answer the hard skill questions. Depending on
your examples, theu could be easier to be included. Things to touch upon:
1. Leadership + Influencing without authority
2. Collaboration with XFN teams
3. Dealing with ambiguity (in particular in startup/smaller companies)
4. Managing conflict
5. Inclusiveness (this is something I look for frequently but hardly ever
touched upon by candidates)
6. Communicating across stakeholders
However, please note that a good interview process should cover both hard and
soft skills. If no one in your interview panel is asking you the soft skills
questions, I'd do a deep dive to see if this is a red flag - you want to work
for a company that cares about these areas and that pushes their employees to
develop them as well. Both the WHAT and the HOW are equally important.
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
I agree that soft skills are key, and highlighting them during “STAR” stories is
a great way to work them into your interview. You can also share them when
expressing your interest in the role and/or asking about the role. Most job
descriptions include some mention of soft skills, so note that when discussing
the role with your interviewer and how the role felt like a great fit for you
because of that. Ask about which soft skills the interviewer is looking for, and
highlight which ones are your strengths.
i.e. working at a large company with minimal scope, focusing on sales enablement but knowing you need experience on the product launch side, other marketing teams covering responsibilities, etc.
7 answers
Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • October 8
This is a great question! I know lots of product marketers who worry that in
getting more specialized they’re missing out on the opportunity to get that
broad skillset. I reject the idea that you have to change jobs in order to get
the experience you want and think there are plenty of ways to get it in your
current role. Here’s what has worked well for me:
Do your homework: While there are some skills that are universally important for
a product marketer (ex: bringing new products to market), there are some that
are more niche and specialized (ex: specific expertise in freemium business
pricing strategies). Before you start mapping out how to get the experience, you
need to figure out what experience you want to get and what’s not as important
to you. This likely sounds like a “duh” comment, but I’ve talked to many people
who know they want to be great product marketers but haven’t done the legwork to
figure out what that means to them. To start, have an explicit conversation with
your manager about what they think are the skills you need to have to be a great
product marketer, rather than making assumptions about what they think. From
there, talk to some leaders you admire who have the type of well-rounded career
you’d like to have or, better yet, are hiring for the role you would like to get
a few years down the line. Ask them what types of skills they see as mandatory
for someone they’d hire onto their team and compare that list to the skills that
you’re getting to build in your current role. Don’t have any leaders in your
company that fit the bill? Reach out to people on LinkedIn, contact people from
the Sharebird community, or approach people at meetups. I can’t speak for
everyone, but I personally have always been open to chatting on the phone or
getting coffee with someone who wants some advice.
Create a shortlist and share it with your manager: Turns out, most managers
truly want to help their employees succeed in their career goals. Once you have
a list of the skills you’d like to build in your role, you should have an honest
conversation with your manager about what you think the gaps in your skillset
are and where you’d like to get exposure and get their point of view. Once
you’re on the same page that yes, this is an important skillset to have and no,
you’re not getting exposure to it in my current role, it opens the door to
exploring opportunities to take on projects to build that skill. You have to
remember that the company will put you in the role that they think is best for
the business, so it’s important to communicate to your boss that you’re willing
to go above and beyond to take on extra work in order to get the skills you’d
like. As a manager, once I know what someone wants, and once they’ve made clear
they’re willing to work for it, I’m usually pretty excited to find opportunities
for them to get the skills they’re looking for. When you’ve got a strong
performer on your team, you don’t want to lose them, but you also don’t want to
keep them in a role they’re not happy in. It’s a total win for me when I know
where my direct report ultimately wants to go and I can find new projects for
them to take on to help them grow in their career.
Seek out other teams who have projects like the ones you’re wanting to do: In
talking to your manager, you might find that they are fine with you taking on
other work, but aren’t able to give that to you themselves, either because they
don’t have influence over that area of the business or they want you to take the
initiative yourself to grow your career. If that’s the case, you can reach out
to a lead on a team that does the type of work you’re looking to do and make it
clear that you’d be interested in taking on a special project or helping out to
grow your skills in that area. So long as you’ve already talked to your manager
and they’ve agreed to let you dip your toe in something new, most leaders will
be excited about someone who wants to help out their team. The thing to remember
is to be realistic about the work that’s already on your plate, make sure you
take on work you feel confident you can get done in the time allotted, and you
and the leader who is responsible for the work are clear on what level of
involvement you’d like them to have.
Be realistic in your timelines: If you’re like me, as soon as you figure out
what you want to be doing or identify a gap in your skillset, you want to tackle
it immediately and all at once. Take my hard-earned advice, this mindset sets
you up to fail. Take an 18-month approach to this work and map out, in 6-month
increments to start, the skills you think are most important to build and how
much work it will take to build them. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t
go from never launching a product to running the quarter’s biggest product
launch right away. You also can’t look at these skills like checkboxes that you
do once and you're done. If you’re approaching growth as a bunch of checkmarks
to help you get where you want to go, you run the risk of looking at execution
as your measure of success, not the quality of work. Of course, you should push
for what you want and set ambitious goals for yourself, but it’s important to
recognize that once you and your manager have a conversation about where you
want to grow, it may take a few months for an opportunity to present itself that
gives you what you’re looking for.
VP Product & Customer Marketing at Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • January 27
The role of a product marketer is very different in every company. Still, I
believe you shape up the position in your organization - the strengths,
interests, and passions you bring with you can expand the role beyond its
initial job description. Whether you're a PMM at a global enterprise with
thousands of employees or part of a lean and mean marketing team at a
fast-growing start-up, you have to control your own destiny.
The vast majority of learning and development happens not in formal training
programs, but rather on the job—through developmental assignments. Identify the
set of PMM skills that are important for you to develop - it can be more
opportunities to actively pitch your product in sales cycles, running large
quarterly launches, or sharpening your writing skills. From here, you have to
continually look for new projects and ways to get yourself involved in a broad
set of initiatives across the company. Take advantage of your connections in
sales, enablement, GTM, product management, customer success, and devote at
least 10-15% of your time to extra curricular activities. Coordinate this with
your manager and make it part of your OKRs (objectives and key results).
Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 11
There are multiple ways I'd suggest doing this. One approach is to use the
current area that you're focused on i.e. sales enablement, and how you can use
your knowledge and experience of this to influence the likes of product launch
strategies. For example, if you're in sales enablement you have a birdseye view
of what the sales teams challenges are, what they're hearing from their
customers and what works within the pre and post-sales processes. Use this
knowledge to springboard yourself into conversations with other people across
the org. This helps because 1) it allows you to build lasting relationships and
trust, and 2) gives you insights and experience into how and what they work on.
Be curious, ask questions and champion the customers.
Head of Product at Prove • September 7
This is one of the reasons to work for a smaller company where you get a wider
scope, there is always pros and cons on each company type. Now if you are in a
large company with a small scope, Make the implicit explicit and talk to your
manager and others to express your interest in learning more about the wider
scope. That should open doors to get more involved with a wider variety of
product marketing tasks.
VP of Product and Solutions Marketing at HubSpot • January 19
I think it's always possible for product marketers to learn varied skills by
being open to new projects or opportunities when they've mastered a skill. At a
large company, where roles are more specialized there are often opportunities to
work on different projects or products that may have different
product-market-fit. At a smaller company, the scope may be wider but you may not
have the opportunity to go as deep with any skill set. I'd advise being open to
all the opportunities you see around you and be unafraid to speak with your
manager about your career and growth aspirations and have them help you identify
projects or opportunities that might help you take the next step.
Product Marketing at Clari | Formerly Gong, Salesforce, GE • April 14
Great question and a challenge I've definitely run into throughout the years.
Every role and every company is different and you're not always going to get the
full spectrum of PMM with every move.
To fill any gaps, I strongly recommend making friends in other departments. If
other marketing teams are covering responsibilities, try to partner with them or
shadow them to stay involved and learn. If you want to buff up on your
enablement skills, grab coffee with your GTM and enablement teams to talk about
doing a "minor" project on the side. I also recommend always having a BFF in
Sales that you can do ride-alongs with and bounce questions off. That is
invaluable!
When you're not hanging out with your new cross-functional friends, go big in
online communities and courses! There are a ton of opportunities to learn the
craft so you are ready when it's time to launch.
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
Reach out to the product marketing network! Sharebird is a great place to start
:) And I find that LinkedIn is another helpful resource for connecting with
other product marketers to get insights from their experiences as well. Not only
can people share case studies from the work they’ve done, but they can also
provide guidance and feedback, and act as mentors.
There are also a lot of wonderful classes available, including via Product
Marketing Alliance. Check with your employer as you may be able to expense these
classes as a career development opportunity.
4 answers
VP, Marketing at Inscribe • November 17
This is a great question. I have a few rules that we try to live by for our
comms:
1. Make it short, sweet, and to the point!
2. You shouldn't expect your sales team to read every word, so make sure to use
bold, underline, colors for items that are most important.
3. Build a cadence - we've seen more success when our comms are predictable and
consistent.
4. Try to use the rule of 3 when you can - sending an email with 10+ things you
need sales to know about now isn't always effective.
5. Don't be afraid to try new things - we're always experimenting with our
internal and external comms. Try using GIFs or video or even switch from
email to slack instead. Every org is different but it's always good to test
different strategies!
I’d say it’s not just the sales team, but executives also. The #1 rule to
remember is that people are busy so they prioritize based on subject lines and
skim on the first pass if they do open your email.
So when it’s an extra-ordinary email that needs action, I follow the below
format because it is extremely effective. (I once had a CEO tell me that this
was one of the most clear emails he had ever received.)
1. Subject line - one thing I do if I need immediate action or input from an
exec is to write it in capital letters in the subject line. For example:
“ACTION: attend today’s client call” or “URGENT: need customer reference
immediately”. Right there, you have guaranteed that your subject line stands out
and that the reader has a pretty good idea what’s needed before even opening the
email.
2. Body - in the body, I write bold section headers and add different colors
than the rest of the body. Purple or pink are highly effective. This helps
section it off and gives the reader a sense of what to expect.
3. Label each header appropriately and don’t use more than 3 section headers.
Headers I find very useful are “Situation,” “Background,” and then either
“Action for you,” or perhaps “Recommendation”
4. Each section is 2-3 sentences max.
5. If I need to call out someone specifically, I highlight their name to make it
stand out.
6. One note of caution – only do this subject line occasionally on truly
important emails otherwise it loses its effectiveness. For the body, it’s OK to
use this format over and over.
7. Here is an example of what such an email might look like bit.ly/3pEB3eB
Product Marketing at Clari | Formerly Gong, Salesforce, GE • April 14
I tend to keep my communications short, sweet, and to the point while keeping
the mentality of "what's in it for them" at the top of my mind. Bullet points
and a TL;DR summary help with this. Make sure there is a crisp ask or offering
at the end if you are hoping for a next step And as you would with anybody you
work with, be respectful of their time!
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
Clarity is key. With both internal and external comms, I focus on being as clear
and concise as possible. And for internal communications, it’s important to make
sure your colleagues see you as a resource. I always encourage anyone with
questions or comments to reach out to me directly.
When I’m writing an internal email, I think through what I would ask about the
project I’m either proposing or reporting on. What is the purpose of this email?
Why is it important? What research has already been done? What outstanding
questions do we still have? Who does this impact? And never hesitate to ask a
colleague to give it a once-over before sending it out to the group.
Typically, these roles require 3-5 years of experience and/or an MBA. Are there roles we should target instead that will help transition into product marketing? What qualities do you want to see in young professionals that want to land in product marketing?
7 answers
Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • July 23
I believe there is no hard / fast rule about requiring an MBA. I have seen
plenty of young graduates make the transition to product marketing. The first
year or two is critical in terms of the kind of experience you gather that would
help you to position yourself in product marketing.
- pick a industry / segment where you can acquire deep domain knowledge, have an
opinion and understanding
- build a portfolio of content you can create either via your personal blog or
helping an industry group / meetup group in the segment you pick.
- Build analytical skills around market segmentation, competitive intelligence
etc. In bigger companies, these roles might be performed by other functions, in
smaller companies, this will likely be with the same person.
- learning how to go about creating a marketing plan, content strategy,
campaigns etc.
Perhaps the first job might not be in product marketing -- could be content role
or even some kind of PR/comms function. Building both the analytical skills,
cross-functional team work and being able to write well will help you very much
to transition to product marketing.
Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • August 13
I agree with a lot of Savita's points above. I see a lot of new grads who are
interested in product marketing and recommend most new grads to try to build up
general marketing skills before they try to move into product marketing roles
which are often more senior or more specialized.
I like seeing people who have expereince as marketing coordinators or marketing
specialists - it means they've got the general experience to understand how lots
of different marketing disciplines work, and probably know how to work with
those folks once they're in a more specialized role. Those types of roles are
often more available to new grads and can help you build the foundation of
skills you need to excel in product marketing. If a candidate doesn't already
have PMM experience, but they have a solid 1-2 years of general marketing
experience, they may very well be ready to move into a spot on the PMM team.
When you're looking to gain the requisite experience to be considered for PMM
work, I'd recommend looking for roles that help you build the following skills:
* Cross functional expertise: A PMM needs to be able to work with different
stakeholders and different types of personalities across the company, get
their input, and effectively rally them all around a shared plan.
* Storytelling: Product marketers connect current and prospective customers to
the value and magic of the product. It's not about specific features or
functionalities, it's about the value they provide and how they can help your
target customer. It's critical that a PMM can create strong messaging
frameworks that get to the "why" behind a feature or product - and strong
writing skills are invaluable here.
* Passion and empathy for customers: A good product marketer knows the data
around feature usage and metrics around their customer base. A great product
marketer spends time understanding customers and the needs so they don't just
know the data, they know the customer. The more you can get exposure into
meeting with customers, getting thos customer insights, and using those
insights to improve the way your business works, the better you'll be set up
to succeed in product marketing.
* Strong planning and project management skills: Lots of things go into a
product launch - I need someone who can put together a clear project plan, be
thoughtful about what needs to happen to get work over the finish line, and
can keep things organized as work gets underway.
As you get started, look for roles that help you learn a lot about the business
and the customer and give you opportunities to work cross-funcitonally. I also
find that once you get into a more general role, you may find opportunities to
step in or help out a product marketing team, which gives you some of those more
specialized skills - analytical rigor, competitve and market intelligence, etc.
that will make you a stand out PMM candidate.
Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • February 28
It is possible to start a junior product marketing role straight out of college,
but a true PMM role requires some real world skills.
As a hiring managers, these are some of the things I look for:
1. High maturity and tact: Product Marketing roles are intensely cross
functional with the need to work with about a dozen people in different teams,
on a daily basis. This is definitely a job for folks with above average
emotional intelligence.
2. Strong analytical chops: Can you break down a product to its subcomponents?
Can you think in abstractions? Can you build a half decent excel model? If you
relish in getting deep into a product and can then zoom out to make sense of how
everything works, you will be successful in the many technical companies in the
valley.
3. Deep domain expertise: As it may pertain to a specific domain such as DevOps,
Analytics, Databases, etc, people prefer hiring domain experts who bring in
credibility to their roles.
4. Understanding of how a SaaS (or similar) company works: Do you understand the
product development cycle? Do you appreciate how customer success, professional
services, sales all come together to deliver value to customers? Great! This is
also a plus.
5. A knack for positioning: Have people told you that you have a way with words?
Can you clarify something complex with ease? Can you empathize strongly with
customers?
Some ways to build these skills:
1. Associate Product Marketing roles at big companies. These generally offer
some sort of rotation amongst different groups that would allow you to learn the
product(s), customers and the business before giving you increased
responsibility.
2. A customer-centric/sales engineeting role in a high growth company. Helping
support customers as a customer success manager or as an implementations
specialist will help you truly understand how customers think, what their pains
are and how you can solve them.
3. Consulting. Generally these roles requires one to meet hard deadlines, need
for clear communication and diplomatic skills, all things that are really
helpful in PMM roles.
I would first refer you to a blog post by Ben Horowitz on the relevance of
getting an MBA:
https://a16z.com/2010/01/10/does-getting-an-mba-make-someone-a-better-entrepreneur/
Written and oral communication are probably the most important skills you can
develop, as they will help you get a foot in the door early in your career and
also will continue to be useful throughout your whole career.
Going straight into product marketing without any background in it is difficult,
but not impossible. You’d want to look for an associate product marketing
position or if you have technical skills, look for a technical product marketer.
I’ve seen others go through the content or documentation paths to product
marketing because both of these roles require writing and customer-oriented
thinking.
Head of Product Marketing, Collaboration SaaS at Cisco | Formerly Adobe, Samsung, Verifone • February 16
You should seek out product marketing specialist roles. In such a role you'll
get to help product marketing managers conduct market, customer and competitive
research, analyze data on product adoption and new customer acquisition, and
develop marketing content and sales collateral. You'll have opportunities to
learn from the PMMs the more strategic aspects of product marketing, i.e.
customer segmentation, positioning and messaging, while you deliver tactical and
tangible assets like drafting blog posts, infographics, video scripts, etc. that
can be leveraged in demand gen campaigns, lead nurture journeys and customer
success initiatives. Alternatively, you can look for roles that'll help you
build out the skillset you'll need for a product marketing career, e.g. content
marketing, sales enablement, partner marketing or sales enablement.
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
Product Marketing Specialists, Associates or General Marketing Specialist roles
are good roles to kick-off your career in Product Marketing. They all will
require you to develop Product Marketing skillsets and eventually become
proficient in them -- including areas like working with Product/Tech teams to
define product strategy, defining and understanding your target audience,
launching a new product, feature, or service, running end-to-end marketing
campaigns, etc. The difference is typically the scale - in more junior roles,
you'd be doing one or two of things above vs. all of them, and would likely be
focused on a smaller product and/or service the company provides.
When I hire junior PMM, I care about a couple of things: 1) Being exposed enough
to these areas to show high-level understanding of how they work and why they
matter, 2) Execution, Execution, Execution. Depth in a couple of these areas
above so I can assess how they execute a PMM related-project end-to-end. 3)
User-centricity. This can be shown through their day-to-day job as well as just
curiosity for how tech products work and how can they improve users' lives and
4) Interest in learning and continuing to develop their PMM skillset over time.
I highly value people who are coachable and know their strengths and weaknesses.
No PMM knows everything, and every company has new challenges, problems, and
things to figure out where people need to flex their skills.
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
I started my career in editorial, and didn’t transition over to marketing until
about six years ago. I can’t stress enough how important sharp communication and
collaboration skills are when it comes to product marketing. So I’m incredibly
grateful I first had the opportunity to focus on my writing and messaging before
I switched to product marketing because it helped me develop the core components
of communication, collaborating, and clarity. But since product marketing
incorporates skills utilized in both technical and non-technical roles, there
are numerous areas you can transition from: editorial, brand, buyer, you name
it.
In your resume, highlight when you’ve worked cross-functionally, and when you’ve
used both qualitative and quantitative data to make decisions. It’s true that
most product marketing roles incorporate data analysis and pricing optimization,
but in many entry-level product marketing roles, these can be learned on the
job. The qualities I prioritize are leadership skills, curiosity, collaboration
(I know I’ve said this a lot, but it’s true!), and a positive, ambitious
attitude.
There is often a huge emphasis on analytical skills, instead of brand marketing skills, when it comes to product marketing job descriptions.
12 answers
Head of Global Product Marketing at Airbnb • November 30
It's funny, I've been working on a deck looking at exactly this question.
It's fascinating how much it varies from company to company. We're moving to a
place where the distinctions between product marketing and brand marketing are
becoming increasingly blurry. Think of it as simply different problems to solve,
that map to different parts of the funnel.
Some product launches need broad awareness and call for high-funnel, or what
we often call brand marketing. Whereas some launches are updates to features
within existing, already known products, in which case they need more
low-funnel, iterative test-and-learn attention. Sometimes you need all of the
above! As long as you have a diverse Product Marketing team with different
strengths, you'll always be able to send in the right hitter for the right
moment in the game.
For companies of a certain DNA (Bay Area, technology), brand marketing is not a
priority compared to being able to measure the performance of your own
marketing, with a philosophy of investigating what works and what doesn't.
That's because the company likely has a demand problem, not a brand problem. So
if product marketing wants to support demand generation and growth, then the
product marketer needs to have an analytical foundation or analytical acumen.
Brand marketing comes into play with a product marketer's natural audience
intuition. How is the brand received by the audience? How are the words that are
used also being received by the audience? Product marketers with brand marketing
skills have a mastery of language and intuition of audience to be able to
convey. This is the other half of the product marketing skillset required. But
still, without analytical skills, the intuition is full of bias and can often
times be wrong without the know-how to shift gears.
For most growth-focused tech companies, if I had to pick between a demand gen
background or a brand marketing background to shoehorn into product marketing,
I'd hire the demand gen person to do a product marketer's job rather than a
brand marketing person 9 times out of 10. Outside of that, and outside the Bay
Area, I'd perhaps think a little differently.
Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • January 19
Just a feedback on the last comment, as I reacquaint myself to the "new" bay
area. I have noticed more emphasis on demand gen skills amongst many startups.
If there are stakeholders in the company already like product management and
technical marketing who are also good at writing, messaging, positioning - then
this might work. However, a good product marketer who has enough knowledge of
demand gen mechanism is probably a better fit versus demand gen being forced
into product marketing. Easier to pick up demand gen skills versus the opposite
- in my view. It offers a career growth path for product marketers, who also
make for better CMOs as messaging and positioning is critical and also drives
brand strategy downstream.
Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing at Samsara • November 19
First, you can not decouple analytical skills from brand marketing skills. They
are not mutually exclusive. You are right that there is more emphasis on
analytical skills in job description for product marketers. Primarily because
analytical skills are easier to evaluate. They are also critical because
analytical mindset helps you have a solid foundation for your marketing strategy
(including brand marketing). However, these strategies come to life with
creativity. You can not undermine creative skills and just focus on analytics
skills while hiring.
Examples of brand marketing playing a role in product marketing -
Brand campaigns - they are planned jointly between demand gen, product marketing
and brand marketing
Positioning - brand helps reinforce your product positioning. Think of ads that
support company positioning.
Non technical content marketing - producing interactive and engaging content
Customer community - Depends on what your community needs are build if it
building creative ways to engage the community, then you could play a vital
role. Salesforce did an amazing job with Trailhead.
Many B2C and B2B2C companies are seeing that these two marketing streams are
coming together. So, if you are planning to switch from brand to product
marketing, those comapnies can provide you a good platform for success.
Senior User Acquisition Manager at Hopper | Formerly Skillz, Telus Health, • January 3
100% agree with Suyog. Nothing we do exists in a vacuum and all of the
positioning and messaging we bring to market should be looked at from a brand
lens to ensure consistency. Ultimately, the consumer is not going to
differentiate what’s brand marketing and what’s product marketing. It’s all the
same to them!
CEO at AudiencePlus • January 28
I definitely appreciate this tension -- and in a perfect world you find the
right mix of both on the team. Analytical skills will benefit our understanding
of market sizing and opportunity, pricing and packaging decisions and so on. The
"brand" or creative skillset would aid in storytelling around messaging, content
efforts, etc.
I think it depends on your role within the PMM org. A Head of PMM, ideally,
would be able to balance both analytical and creative capability, and hire to
his/her weaknesses.
But an appreciation for the power of brand marketing is a superpower in product
marketing or any GTM motion. Look no further than Simon Sinek's iconic TED Talk
to break down why -- "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." A
PMM that can connect the product (the what) to the brand promise (the why) will
be a huge asset to any company.
Vice President, Product Marketing at Braze • March 10
Analytical skills tend to be the preferred skill set of a product marketer
because they are "running the business". Product Marketers own a product's P&L
and must have the business acumen to drive revenue. Important the ones trying to
size and segment the marketplace. Additionally, they'll probably be on the front
lines trying to determine what segment, region, or geo to invest their budget.
Brand marketing's closest overlap is with the Marketing Programs PMM function.
They will ensure that the outbound messaging of the product ladders up to
company's overall messaging. Additionally, they will ensure that customer facing
presentations, events, and content stay true to the company's look, feel, and
messaging hierarchy.
You've hit upon one of the reasons why marketing in tech is a neverending
challenge (and the fun part IMO). I think the best marketers have both strong
analytical skills and grasp how to build long-lasting brands based on an
emotional connection with their customer. If your goal is to one day lead
marketing more broadly, you absolutely need to demonstrate that you can build a
brand beyond the product marketing itself.
I think a strong brand requires a consistent identity and tone that emphasizes:
1. Specificity (what)
2. Resonance (why)
3. Emotional connection (how)
But the foundation of your brand can't be disconnected from your product. And
product marketing in B2B tech at least, requires that you can deeply understand
your customer's problems (based on both quantitative and qualitative data),
evaluate fast-moving industries that evolve super quickly, and get deep on
complicated products. You also need those analytical skills to understand what's
working with your output and be curious about what to improve. So I'd argue, as
a foundation for marketers, analytical skills are a requirement but brand
marketing skills are what will set you apart longer term!
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
Brand is more than just a logo or color palette or tag line. Brand is the
combination of customer touchpoints that create meaning and belonging for that
customer...Brand attracts the customer in the first place, for sure, but brand
shows up in how the product delivers on its promise, how customer support
handled your issues, how easy it was to purchase. Imagine if you had
expectations of a Nordstrom experience, but then got Wal-Mart. It's not that
Wal-Mart is bad, but the misalignm of expectations and experience creates
dissonance for the customer that can damage the relationship. Now, if you had
set Wal-Mart expectations, and got Wal-mart experiences, then the customer is
happy - they got exactly what they expected and wanted.
So to that end, I think it's important the product marketing and brand marketing
are tighly connected. Brand marketing will be setting the expectations in the
marketplace for customers, and PMM should be a big part of helping to inform
those expectations so the experiences are aligned. Then, PMM via working with
product, sales, other marketing touchpoints, can ensure there is a consistent
experience for that customer that delivers on those expectations.
VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24
Understanding how Brand Marketing works is critical to succeed in Product
Marketing as these two teams work closely together to bring any Marketing and
Product work to life.
Brand Marketing thinks about creating a long-term, strategic plan to
continuously boost a brand's recognition and reputation. It involves creating
and maintaining brand-consumer OR brand-customer relationships and marketing
brand attributes—the traits that people think of when they picture a particular
brand. I see this as the overarching umbrella of any company -- and often
categories and/or products within each company (for example -- YouTube or Google
Workspace).
In tech companies, brand marketing represent this higher-level hierarchy. They
generally invest in marketing the higher-level brand (e.g. Google) and this has
positive halo effects on the product portfolio for that specific company.
Product Marketing comes in at the second level of this hierarchy. It benefits
from brand halo effects of positive and well-done brand marketing, but it's core
is to focus on communicating the benefits of what the product delivers to its
users. It leans more into the functional and emotional aspects of a particular
product or set of products, vs. a set of high-level, aspirational attributes.
The combination of these two can yield in positive brand awareness,
consideration, and intent, as well as long-term usage and retention of products
with our core audiences. The most successful teams I've worked at have Brand +
Product working hand-in-hand to nail what exactly the user wants, how to
properly message it, and how to creatively bring this idea to life.
Vice President, Product Marketing at DigitalOcean • February 6
In my opinion, a big part of Product Marketing is storytelling - connecting the
customers' and prospects' desires and pain points to the capabilities of your
products and solutions.
Brand Marketing is not dissimilar. Just that brand is not limited to a single
product; in this case, the entire company is the "product." Understanding your
company's " story, "your reason for existence (or point of view), and your
unique differentiation in the market are essential elements of the brand. These
are important things for all PMMs to understand so they are not just building
product collateral in a vacuum.
Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 22
It depends on the role. As Head of Product Marketing at OkCupid, I rely on data
and analytics to drive product decisions. But ultimately, my priority is
ensuring that our product lives up to our brand narrative and mission.
Ultimately, a product marketer’s job is to ensure synergy between the product
and the brand. Like with any hard skill, analytical knowledge can be learned;
brand skills can be learned as well, but involve skills such as intuition and
clear communication.
7 answers
Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • November 17
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 important for a PMM to have. Almost
all hard PMM skills can be taught, but these soft skills are much more valuable
to me because they come from the PMM themselves. I can model the behavior, but
each individual is responsible for whether or not they exhibit these traits.
Cross-functional excellence: As a PMM, you have the opportunity to lead without
being a manager of people. A strong product marketer is someone who takes others
along with them, rather than telling people exactly what they want them to do.
They’re able to create strong relationships across the company, with product
managers, engineers, designers, marketers, support folks, and more. They’re
natural connectors who know who to go to in an organization to get things done
and can influence cross-functional stakeholders to support and prioritize
projects.
Executive presence and clear communication: As you get more senior, you'll spend
more and more time presenting plans, public speaking, and communicating with
executives in the company. The stronger you are at presenting and public
speaking, the easier this will be for you. Executive presence also means knowing
how best to leverage an executive’s skills to get feedback that will help your
project, manage their expectations, and ensure they feel like they’re in the
loop about work that matters to them.
A pitch in, get-it-done attitude: Being a PMM can be unglamorous at times. Sure,
you get to run the big launches, but what people don’t see are the hours you
spend writing support macros to ensure the team has what they need to answer
incoming tickets, the amount of times a day you have to field seemingly random
requests that don’t always fall neatly into your scope of work, and how often
you get looped into last-minute, urgent projects that you didn’t plan for. PMMs
that can approach this type of work ready to pitch in and help are often those
that are seen as the most dependable and trustworthy, which helps them create
strong relationships across the company. In my career, I've always made sure I'm
never above doing the grunt work that's needed to get something across the
finish line. While I don’t do it every day, I’m happy to roll up my sleeves to
take a screenshot for a help article or write a macro if it means the team will
be more successful and I reward members of my team that have the same attitude.
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
priorities.
* Great collaborators. PMMs can't drive impact if they can't collaborate.
* Can't emphasize enough the importance of empathy, especially when it comes to
XFN work!
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 internally) and develop and exercise
influence. Strong communication to me spans written skills, presentation
creation skills, public speaking skills, and executive presence.
Adaptability: The potential list of things you might work on as a product
marketer is so incredibly long and diverse! Someone who is excited by the chance
to parachute into new situations and create new deliverables they've never
encountered before is going to have a much steeper growth trajectory than
someone who is less comfortable with change and ambiguity.
Self direction: A manager cannot be in all places at once. Having a direct
report who can take a high degree of ownership of all aspects of their job --
correctly surfacing and acting on organizational/data signals to shape their
work, defining rough drafts of their quarterly and annual roadmaps, developing
preliminary problem-solving approaches, successfully managing cross-functional
relationships independently, etc. -- enables the manager and PMM to engage on a
more strategic and high impact level. This is extra important in product
marketing given the breadth of the discipline and how many things you could be
working on at any given time.
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 all” function or have multiple conflicting
stakeholder priorities. Thus, I think these additional other soft skills are
must-haves to succeed in product marketing.
Takes Initiative: Acts ahead of need/anticipates problems, proactively sees
things through, steps up to challenges even when things are not going well
Results Orientated: Focuses on and drives toward delivering on goals, documents
activities and outcomes to learn from the past, invents new approaches with
measurably better results, delivers performance improvements
Communication and Impression: Delivers messages and ideas in a way that engages
an audience and achieves buy-in; uses listening and other attending behaviors to
reach shared understanding; solicits opinions and concerns, discusses them
openly and adjusts communication; remains cool under pressure during conflict or
crisis; channels emotion into positive action
Influence without Formal Authority: Engages and works with people over whom one
has no direct control, uses tailored approaches to connect with others,
influence, and achieve results, influences a network of strategically chosen
individuals to improve collective outcomes
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
stakeholders.
2. Cross-functional influence - PMMs sit in between customers/consumers, Sales,
Marketing, Product and even more functions depending on the organization. The
ability to rally folks towards a common goal and bring everyone along is
critical.
3. Related to curiosity - that constant need to understand the end user, whether
that's consumers or customers, and continue to study their pain points, what
motivates them, their issues, etc. Being empathetic with the people you are
building for makes you a better PMM.
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 talking to users. In most
startups, personas, ICPs, value props, messaging, product features need to be
constantly improved. This is normal to search for the best users to provide
your features, with the best value prop and messaging. That's the essence of
working in startups: build, learn, iterate. And it's impossible to do without
talking to users, constantly.
* Ability to learn new products fast: Onboarding time in startups is much
shorter than in other companies. PMMs should learn about company products
very fast, so they will be able to translate complex technical ideas into
values for users and speak users' language. This also goes to learning all
tooling startup is using or rapidly adding (for example analytical products,
that could be more niche). If PMM loves trying new products, this is a
perfect match for the startup.
* Adapting to changes and bias towards speed: PMM in a startup will move very
fast. The more traction startup is having, the more launches, case-study,
sales presentations, research, re-designs, collaterals PMM will need to make
and re-make. Priorities can change, the direction can change, and almost
everything can change in a startup super fast. So the ability to adapt to new
realities and execute on them is an extremely important PMM soft skill.
* Skill to build a structure to chaos: Startups are messy. If PMM doesn't have
the soft skill to organize mess into the structure, all cross-functional
projects, like product launches will be a nightmare.
* Love for cross-functional collaboration: With a lot of moving parts and fast
team growth, it's very important to be ready to go the extra mile in your
communication. Collaboration in startups is different: you can take more
ownership (nothing is "someone else job"), you can lead & teach other
functions, and you can overcommunicate (as tasks can get lost :) PMMs in
startups must be great with communicators, empathetic leaders, and brutal
doers (even if it's not in their job spec).
I hope, it helps!
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. Hand in hand with this is
strong communication skills. Product marketers drive both internal and external
messaging, so being able to communicate succinctly and effectively is key.
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 Quantitative and Qualitative data. Most PMs are
data-informed and driven. Insufficient quantitative and qualitative data on the
impact of a feature is a sure shot way to fray the relationship.
Focusing on the how: Many PMMs are technically savvy and understand the
product’s capabilities and anyone. PMMs should leave the final ownership of how
a feature is prioritized and developed to a PM. Telling a PM on developing a
feature should only be a suggestion for the PM to consider.
Unaligned timelines and capability: Timeline mis-alignment is a common source of
disagreement. Product capability being delivered is another key area.
Having clear communication, visibility, and reasoning in either direction can
help drive alignment
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 partners to help
you arrive at the best solution
* Pushing too far with an opinion (failing to "disagree and commit")
* Overstepping boundaries and trying to do the PM's job
When influencing, it can be helpful to think about what unique value you bring
as a PMM to your product squad.
For example, PMMs can often add a lot of value by bringing the "why" behind
ideas on the roadmap, i.e. the user insights and market context.
PMMs can also bring a perspective on how to bundle features together and tie
them into an overarching narrative that solves a user problem/need.
Additionally, PMMs can help inform feasibility and timing conversations by
bringing feedback from Marketing and Creative partners about GTM campaign
timelines and resourcing.
Part of being successful with your product partners is clearly aligning up front
on the role PMMs play vs PMs and where there may be overlap (research, insights,
ideation) and where PMMs can bring unique, differentiated value to help the team
(positioning, GTM strategy, etc).
VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 8
1. 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 managers understanding the
roadmap, what's been the history, what is the vision for where the product
is headed. This is a critical first step in building a credible relationship
with product. I often "indoctrinate" new PMMs to the team by getting them on
booth duty right away, so they learn the product and get exposure to
customers early on. You can't be a thought partner to Product without
knowing the product in and out, and seeing how it lands with customers.
2. Lack of data / insights backing a holistic POV: l I used to caution folks to
not walk in like "Molly Marketing" (no offense to the Mollys out there) with
all the answers and a perspective that "the product doesn't do xyz and
that's why we're not winning." Deeply understanding the customer's needs and
pain points, where does the product deliver and it is breaking down, having
robust data points around deals lost / churn, competitive advantages , etc.
is critical in being a good, credible partner to product. It's also
important to have a holistic view of where things might not be working and
to show where you are rolling up your sleeves (e.g. maybe the product is
fine but we have an enablement issue) - you are there to make the product
successful together, not to point fingers.
3. Lack of a growth mindset: Making assumptions or starting to provide opinions
off the bat is a good way to put off your product manager partners AND it
doesn't get you to a winning, differentiated roadmap. Be curious about the
process that went into determining the roadmap - what is the approach, how
are priorities determined, what insights were leveraged, where were that
gaps that maybe you as a PMM can help fill.
4. Lack of aligned approach: Having different criteria, data inputs and
measures of success can make it pretty hard to build the relationship with
Product and successfully influence the roadmap. Following #3 and leading
with a growth mindset, you can then be in a good position to get to a
collective point of view on what data will you look at and how will you
evaluate priorities...then it becomes a lot easier (and more objective) to
start talking about what actually goes into the roadmap.
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 who you are buidling for you are likely going to provide insights
that miss the mark. More hurtful than not providing persuasive insights is the
risk that the PM / product team will not perceive you as an invested member of
the product team. This doesn't mean you have to agree with everything, you may
need to disagree and commit to some goals. But I suggest always persuading from
a shared understanding of the end goal.
(2) Not running an inclusive research process. When I first arrived at Facebook
one of the PMs I worked with asked me "how was I going to ensure that the
inbound I did was impactful when it may take months to complete." The
implication being that PMMs often disappeared from the product team to go to
research only to come back when they had polished insights. Don't be a PMM that
disappears. I suggest trying to make your research process as inclusive as
possible. Engage PMs, engineers, design in defining the questions we need to
answer / hypothesis to test, invite the team to customer interviews when
possible, and share early results. I find this is not only effective but avoids
the risk of delivering info that misses the mark and strengthens your
relationship with the rest of the product team.
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 that as a PMM you're a strategic partner to the
product management team. PMs are ultimately responsible to make the decisions
about the roadmap, our role is to help them make the right bets.
There is no way that PMs can champion all the workstreams needed to understand
competitive landscape, product usage funnels (or win/loss data if you have a
sales team), growth performance, customer insights, etc.
Ask how you can help. Better yet, find a gap and suggest that you lead the work
to bring those insights together. If you have valuable context that's your
enterance fee to have a seat at the table and build trust with your PM.
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 your Product team the space to make
the right calls. If you don't trust them why will they trust you? Be a good
partner, don't tell them what to build, just give them insights that help them.
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 (deep insights of your users
in each of these segments), where the market is heading, and how your product is
performing from a usage AND business standpoint is key in order to develop a
robust understanding of where your product stands, where you should be heading,
and what you need to build to get there. This is valuable information to bring
to Product Managers when discussing strategy and product roadmap, and a point of
view that they often don't know or have readily available.
Where I often see Product Marketers damage the relationship is when they
continue to push for items in the roadmap yet not anchor on the points above.
Some examples are basing recommendations on insights of one customer vs.
tackling both breadth and depth of your target segment, single points of data
without understanding it in the context of the bigger picture, and/or anchor too
much on opinions and become fixated on their personal point of view of a
problem.
Senior Vice President, Product Marketing at BetterUp | Formerly Klaviyo, Qualtrics, Microsoft, MckInsey • October 26
1. 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 will never have credibility
with PMs if you don’t use the product. My advice to all PMMs- please use the
product. It will help you develop better relationships with PMs, and it will
make you a better ‘Product’ marketer
2. Second - Being too prescriptive and pushy - PMs have a hard job. They have
to balance multiple inputs into the roadmap - UX research, sales/CS teams,
the CEO, their own customer interviews. You are but one input into the
roadmap. Sure , as PMM , you bring a strategic perspective and can often
help balance out competing priorities, but you won’t have the complete
perspective or the pressures that a PM incharge of a product feels. Please
show some empathy and don’t be too prescriptive
3. Third - Not establishing credibility. If PMMs truly want to have credible
inputs into the roadmap, they need to establish credibility as a source of
unique insight. It could be your ability to synthesize all features that
sales is demanding to win deals. It could be your unique perspective on
competitive blockers. It could be the time you spent gleaning at usage
(especially for PLG companies). It could be the ten customer conversations
you have every month. Or the market research you led. It could be your
industry expertise. Or something else altogether. Being a PMM often allows
you access to all these channels/sources of customer insights. But you have
to use them effectively and establish that credibility with your PM
counterparts first
In short, if you know the product well, have empathy for your PM counterpart and
establish credibility as a source of unique insight into the roadmap - you can
much better chances of influencing product roadmap
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 began my career in product marketing, many
product features I thought would be a relatively low lift were not, and vice
versa—which could lead to me not giving enough lead time on a feature, or
prioritizing projects that weren’t as impactful. Even now that I have a deep
understanding of the mechanics of our product, I confirm the required work of
any ideas we’re working on before bringing to roadmap planning. And whenever I
can, I build off of product features we already have, or have created before, to
cut down on unnecessary work.
It’s also important to give as much lead time as possible when you can. At
OkCupid, sometimes our product marketing asks are responses to moments in time
and we can’t give prior notice. For example, when the BLM movement began in
2020, we knew showing support was incredibly important to our users and we
wanted to give them that opportunity as soon as possible. Our product team
dropped everything, and we were able to deliver a BLM profile badge within four
days. And while that was certainly not advanced notice, having that be an
outlier versus the norm helped to get the team on board to drive it forward;
that, plus the fact that the entire OkCupid team felt strongly about showing our
support, and letting our users do the same.
7 answers
The ideal candidate will have both but that’s often not possible. For me
personally, I think the soft skills are far more important. Especially at the
more junior and even mid-management levels, the hard skills can be taught. The
soft skills are much more difficult to teach.
As an executive, you should really be proficient in both.
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 vitally important and shouldn't be
ignored. For soft skills, in a cross-functional role, it's virtually important
but is also an area, with the support of a good manager, can be coached and
developed.
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 strong
growth mindset and a relationship building / collaboration ethos. Be curious,
meet with your key stakeholders to really understand how PMM can be a good
partner, learn about the business and what's working / what's not (this will
lean in on data/business acumen for sure), learn the customer and the product,
and start to build a view of where the business could best use your help. (To be
clear, this type approach should be continued throughout your tenure, not just
when you start. It's easy to fall into the "heads down, get the work done" as
you get established, but continuing to connect with your stakeholders with a
growth mindset approach, and building those relationships is a core part of the
job, no matter how long in role).
Then, as you start to build an informed picture of the landscape and where PMM
can lean in and help, you can start identifying the quick wins to gain
credibility, drive impact and build momentum. And this is where maybe some of
your harder skills will come in E.g using data to help prioritize what to focus
on first (as you'll likely get lots of asks from everyone during your listening
tour!) and set goals/ KPIs for those quick wins you will pursue, so you can
measure impact.
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 hard skills will at least "sort
of" transfer, there is no gaurentee.
So, communication, flexibility, hunger, transpartnecy, honesty, curiousity, etc.
Those are the skills you'll be leaning on for a while till you figure out how to
apply your hard skills.
Also the more senior you get the more I like it flips. If you're brand new to
PMM you have to be really strong on soft skills, more sr. stronger in hard
skills.
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 they can have the most impact.
That being said, the main variable that would make me prioritize hard skills or
soft skills is the level of ambiguity that you'll have to deal with on that new
team.
Contrasting two extreme examples:
If you join a large team, with a mature product marketing function, for a highly
technical/specific product in an established category, with a clearly scoped
role, and have many resources/product experts around you that can help you
onboard - then I would say that having the right hard skills will allow you to
more quickly deliver value in your new role. You have clear sources of
information to build positioning and messaging, established data/insights to
look at, teammates that you can ask questions + get answers from, your scope is
likely narrow, etc. and can get straight to work.
If you join a 2 year-old rapid growth 150 person company, growing 400% y/y, with
a brand new product marketing function, for a new/disruptive product, the
company doesn't really know what product marketing does, and the roles &
responsibilities of different functions are hazy - then I would say soft skills
are more important. You'll need every ounce of adaptability, communication,
problem solving, and organization you have in you.
Of course roles will typically fall somewhere in the middle of these two
examples. You can also take a look at my answer for the question "What are the
required vs nice to have hard and soft skills for PMM roles in big SaaS
companies compared to hard and soft skills for PMM roles in small
start-ups/scale-ups in the tech space?" to see more of my thoughts around this.
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 areas within the PMM world. In a not
so technical area, I'd prioritize PMM skillsets over other areas. Soft skills
should be part of the package either way, aligned with the value of your team
and company.
Ultimately the goal is to find the right balance and bring different
perspectives so the team can learn from each other as well.
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 motivated to sharpen any hard skills that
may be lacking, or need improvement. In basically any role that involves
collaboration and teamwork (and which roles don’t?), the soft skills are most
important for getting internal buy-in, planning a go-to-market strategy, and
adjusting seamlessly when any issues arise. Of course basic hard skills in the
area you’re applying for are required, but I focus on a candidate’s soft skills
when assessing their fit for a role.
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 packaging words in a way that will
be accepted by a specific group of people. A PMM should write with very little
fat.
Practice writing. Test your messages with your sales team, SDRs, A/B test
marketing campaigns. Listen to how your sales team pitches. Listen to how your
customers talk.
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 proof points and differentiators because
you’ll already be aware of the competitive landscape and how they’re message.
Another approach is to try to reverse engineer the messaging for a company
you’re already following. Take their current messaging and put it into your
messaging framework to see 1) if you think it works well and 2) if they’re
missing any key components. This can always be used in conversations during
interviews as well 😉
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 customer go with them versus you?
Also, and something that often goes overlooked; we're all consumers. So, what
brand do you admire, what messaging makes you stop and think about the
product/solution/service.
Messaging can only resonate when you have the right alignment of the customer,
knowing their challenge/need and the best product/solution/service to solve for
that. Answering these is key to effective messaging, especially if you're
operating in smaller regions and/or markets with different cultures and
languages.
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 messaging — build a messaging
framework together, live, so you can get a front-row seat to watch how they
think and how they approach it in a real-life situation.
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 onboarding new
marketing folks
* Compare with PMMs at other companies. I'm grateful to have coworkers and
friends to talk shop (plus kudos to Sharebird!)
* Read fiction. Sounds corny, but it non-work related way to tap that empathy
muscle
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 that you still can't figure out what they do? See if you can
start to incorporate some of the aspects you like into your message, or prune
out some of what you didn't like. One thing I love doing here is seeing if there
are ways to be more colloquial in your messaging. Especially if you work in B2B,
see if you can incorporate some of the fun, down to earth messaging that B2C
tends to do more of.
2) Don't be afraid to have your work torn apart. It can be hard getting
feedback, especially for something you've spent a lot of time and energy on. But
try not to get defensive or tune out what you don't agreement with. Go get
feedback from the hardest critics. And don't be afraid to ask them follow up
questions (ie "Do you agree with this point directionally or you don't think
it's a main value at all?" "Do you have suggestions for alternative wordings?"
etc)
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 brand's emails, competitor emais. Read the content and think about
why it is effective/not effective.
* Before you start writing anything work with product to really understand why
you are building a product or feature. Understand the audience and the
problem you are trying to solve.
* Get involved in user research. This is the most powerful shortcut to good
messaging. Sometimes it feels like cheating, but your customers often use
words in user interviews, that you can take and put into your messaging.
* Build strong relationships with frontline teams: support, sales, CSMs. They
speak with your users the most and often have the best insights.
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 jumping straight into creating a
framework before they truly take the time to understand their target audience's
pain points, and how the product solves those pain points. As a result, the
messaging turns into that individual's view of why they think the product is
great. In an ideal world you would be able to find lots of customer
research/insights, create a persona, a clear set of problems, establish
positioning, understand the product, and then dive into messaging. The reality
is you often don't have the time/resources to do all this. In these situations,
I recommend you create a simple brief that lays out very clearly your audience
pain points, positioning, and key product info. If you have those 3 items the
messaging exercise is much more straight forward and they serve as a good
reminder of the foundation you're using to build your messaging.
Next, make sure to get feedback (ideally from your target audience, but
teammates are great as well). Repetitions and practice are important, but
getting feedback will help you better understand if messaging is resonating
before you push it live. The feedback will help you course correct and deliver
more effective in-market messaging, plus it will help you identify how you can
improve.
From a structured learning perspective, a public speaking or writing class could
also be helpful. Effective public speaking requires you to understand an idea
and communicate it clearly, which are both helpful and complementary to
improving messaging skills. I myself haven't taken a writing class before, but I
have known many PMMs (especially those in more content heavy roles) who have and
would recommend it.
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 prop) but it needs constant practice
and iteration.
As an immigrant whose first language is not English, I have also found general
writing courses and workshops very helpful.
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.
Start by putting together your message, focusing most importantly on the value,
as well as the must-knows and how-tos. What are you providing to the user (or
colleague), or trying to get them to do, and why does it benefit them? And see
how other companies approach similar topics. Just because a competitor is doing
something, it doesn’t mean to do the same—it could mean to do the exact
opposite! But it’s helpful to have some context on what else is out there.
Then, seek out feedback. Trust me, people love to give feedback on messaging ;)
Get as much feedback as possible and note the trends—were there changes most
recommended you make? Were there certain pieces that really resonated?
And finally, test and test again. At OkCupid, we’re constantly AB testing our
messaging in the app and our CRM to make sure we’re speaking clearly and
thoughtfully to our users. If the goal of a new feature is adoption, test out
different CTAs and see which ones drive the most click-throughs and use of the
feature. Also be sure to note that different demos may respond differently, too.
For example, you may find that millennials respond better to Test A whereas Gen
Z responds better to Test B. The more targeted you can be, the better.