Product Marketing Career Path

Become the go to expert on something - quickly. Generally, as a PMM, you want to be the expert on the buyer. Shadow as many sales calls as you possibly can. Develop relationships with customers. Call them, show up at their office, take them out for drinks. Compile a library of stories, personas, facts and figures.  Then, when you speak, don't give opinions - give facts and stories. "Connie from AT&T had that same problem, she told me that she..." "Yeah, that's definitely true with our SMB customers, but I know when I speak with enterprise customers they tell me..." You will become imposs...

Your best play is to show up with an insight backed by data. I think many product marketers over-index on the product and not the market and you have an opportunity to bring market insight into the organization. Being new is actually an advantage because you won't be skewed by the history of the company. You'll know what insights will be most impactful to your organization but a few ideas: 1. Market trends - what is happening in the market overall? How is your company proactively making sure they'll be competitive in the future? 2. Market players - who is your top competitor? What h...

With every new job, you have a period during which you need to prove yourself. As PMMs, we gain influence and prove ourselves by knowing the customer, market, business, and product better than others in the company. Figure out which one of those matters most to your company and your leadership, become an expert, and drop it anecdotally in your conversations. Also, align yourself with the people who have influence and power and make sure your contributions are valuable to them.

My top recommendation is to immerse yourself in the prospect/customer experience, document your learnings, and surface insights that are helpful to those around you in discussion. The credibility of a relevant customer quote or anecdote stands on its own and demonstrates your ability (and commitment) to customer centricity. Another is to seek to understand, not to prove—what I mean is it's good to ask genuine questions to speed up your onboarding or ramping; while it may be uncomfortable to "expose" that you don't know something, it shows you're engaged and have a growth mindset. If you ...

Know your ARR/Pipegen numbers and analytics tools: Get comfortable with building reports and dashboards. Know how to run reports and play around with that data. You will start uncovering interesting things - ex: we are weak in a certain market segment or we tend to have higher win rate for certain industries or deal cycles are longer for certain regions - Each of these insights can lead you to move from being tactical to being strategic. Learn, experiment and gain new skills: So, am I suggesting you to do project management product launches? Yes. It is ok to do that if that is the business...

That's an interesting question. I see the PMM role as the GTM strategy which includes a success launch. And I see PMMs as the owner of product messaging. Not sure I can help here. Now if you're looking to move beyond those tasks and elevate your role then that's different question with a different answer.

Does not matter if you are a junior PMM or a seasoned PMM leader - owning/coordinating launches and copywriting will always be part of your job in one way or another so embrace those, be the best at it, and use the experience to hone your craft. But you also don’t want to be pigeonholed into JUST being a project manager or copywriter - that’s when you need to make sure that you are working on a variety of projects in your role, and there are multiple ways to make that happen. * Have an open discussion with your manager and make sure that you have at least 1 big strategic initiative to ...

Having consulted for PMM teams, and built/run one from scratch, it's safe to say the areas of responsibility for any PMM is on an ever-evolving continuum. However, I see a difference between a junior PMM vs a first PMM hire... in that the first PMM hire should NOT be junior. That's not a knock on the junior role. In fact, I'm urging early stage Founders/CEOs/VP Marketing to have some semblance of a career path for PMM if your natural inclination is to maximize value from a high performing yet low cost junior PMM unicorn. It's possible, but unless that individual is truly exceptional the ...

Being a launch project manager is part of the job – PMMs own product launches, the creation, strategy and management of it. Being a strong copywriter for releases is also part of the job. We write a lot of content or partner with writers and clean up their content so we can use these for our product launches. If you don’t like writing, then being a PMM may not be for you, it’s a core skill set and PMM leaders pass on candidates that tell us they don't like to write. Both these skills are needed in a full stack PMM. If you are asking how to be more strategic and be seen as more strategic,...

Build relationships with your stakeholders in Product Management, Sales and other Marketing teams (Content, Digital, DG, Integrated, etc.). Ask them to invite you to meetings and listen intently to identify areas where they need help, and volunteer to help with with those areas - e.g. market trends analysis, customer segmentation, competitive analysis, content creation, sales enablement collateral, etc. In short, take the initiative to rise above your title and rank and prove to your stakeholders that you have what it takes to deliver meaningful impact on the business.

My advice is to work on building relationship with the Product org. Proactively find ways you can bring them value - whether it be through market or competitive insights, product teardowns, industry knowledge, customer insights, etc. Find out what information they wish they had more of, and figure out how you can bring that to them.  This partnership is so important for PMMs - and will help break down the metaphorical wall that stands between product and marketing, that products are tossed over to be shipped. This relationship should be bi-lateral. 

Product Marketers should always be thinking of ways to contribute directly to revenue. In my mind, if it doesn't move the needle, its not meant to be worked on. Prioritization needs to be ruthlessly put into check. Product Marketers should always key in on: * Driving pipeline and top-line revenue growth, inclusive of new logo and cross-sell / up-sell (land & expand growth) * Partner with Enablement to ensure quota-carrying teams know what to say to whom and when * Develop strategic sales plays

I don't believe that any technical skills are required in product marketing. However there are a few caveats to that blanket statement. * You should be as technically proficient as your target customer. So if you sell to developers, then you should have enough technical background to speak intelligently to those professionals. This doesn't mean you actually need to be a great developer, just that you understand the needs of great developers. * If your company is highly data-driven and does not have visual reporting software, you may need to know basic SQL or another databas...

I’m a huge proponent of Jobs To Be Done, both for building products and for marketing products – in product marketing, though, you don’t necessarily have to be able to do the job of your audience, but you most definitely have to get it. I often joke that I’m just a good enough programmer to know I shouldn’t be one. What this really means (aside from being a really bad joke) is that I can write about *it* and hold a conversation about *it*, so I can be an effective marketer to those who do *it*. Now *it* has changed for me over the years – I’ve worked on dev tools products, cloud infrastruc...

As a product marketer, you should strive to have the same degree of functional understanding and empathy as a product manager and the same ability to contextualy step through/use the product as any technical pre-sales role (like an SE). This, in my experience, is necessary (but not sufficient) to thrive as a product marketer. Especially when you're new to the role, put the time in to do both formal training, like Sales Engineer (SE) certification, and to use your product (and ideally, competitor products) to do the things/jobs your customers need to do be successful. Once you gain fluency h...

For tenured PMM roles (e.g. team leads/directors or senior/principal PMMs who may not be team leads), I do ask for an assignment We usually give an open question that mimics a real business situation (often a challenge we are facing). It could be around marketing to a new audience, or launching a new product, or some change in positioning and messaging we’d like to effect. The final presentation is usually a 30-60 min 1:many presentation where you (the candidate) has the freedom to decide how they want to use the time I am looking for both functional PMM skills (e.g. messaging, buildi...

Differentiators Good messaging smartly incorporates differentiators. Yes messaging is about the outcomes and benefits, it is about the category and the disruptions , it is about value pillars but great messaging smartly incorporates differentiators in that work When you describe your product with adjectives like easy to use, flexible, integrated, intelligent, automated, enterprise-grade, accessible, secure, powerful, unified, all-in-one etc - you are indirectly conveying why your product is different/better than others. When done well, this is the key area you demonstrate how you are ...

Personally, I don't consider those two examples as being "above and beyond" - I consider them as a baseline for any marketing candidate. Ironically, I recently spoke with a former colleague about this very topic and he was in full agreement.  If you want to prove to the prospective employer that you can add value, then you should be prepared to cover these things without even hesitating if it comes up during your interview. 

These days, most Product Marketing interviews will have a task element outlined in the first or second interview. These may include a 30-60-90 day plan, a SWOT, a presentation, a launch plan, or other typical PMM tasks.  At some point in the process, whether on application submission or in your first interview, you will be asked directly or indirectly why you want the role / want to join the company, so researching SWOT information will stand you in good stead to answer this question but I would not go overboard prepping until you've gained an understanding of the interview process for a...

Short answer, yes. If it's a job you really want, go above and beyond. Now, if a company says they want you to prepare a 5 slide presentation on something, I wouldn't simply decide that 10 slides is fine, because they might want to see whether or not you can create a concise deck. So if you plan to go above and beyond, and you have questions around it, just ask the hiring manager or recruiter. When I ask candidates to prepare an excercise, some candidates proactively request time with me prior, which is really smart, and puts them at an advantage. But many don't. I also just had a candida...

It is really hard to get these types of big deliverables right, as you won’t really have enough information as an interviewee to nail them. Unless I specifically ask for this type of deliverable, it can actually work against you. Instead, I prefer that candidates show how they think throughout the interview process. For example, prior to the hiring manager interview, spend a large chunk of time on the website and come prepared to talk about your observations re: what parts of their messaging you like (and why), and what parts need some work, offering a suggestion or two. Look at competito...

I love when candidates go above and beyond! I always do when I interview for my next role. A 30-60-90 is extremely helpful for the hiring manager to know how you prioritize and candidly, will also help you decide if the role is the right one for you. I'd almost always have a deck with my 30-60-90, SWOT of the product, the target persona analysis for any role you are applying for.

As a hiring manager, I often ask candidates for these exercises if I feel like I need to better understand their thought process. This comes in the form of question prompts where I may ask them to develop a POV on a particular GTM problem and their approach to it. It covers elements of what you describe (e.g. SWOT analysis, or their thoughts on company/product) I personally don’t ask candidates to prepare 30-60-90 day plans, or reports on the company/product as I don’t believe they have the entire context. I also think it is the manager’s role to co-build a strong 30-60-90 day plan. If ...

The ‘product marketing skills’ question has been answered really well by a lot of others on Sharebird already so I will focus my answer specifically to the interview itself:  I always look for candidates who have a strategic mindset and who can articulate what success in their current role looks like. I interviewed one candidate once who really impressed me with her ability to paint ‘before and after’ pictures. It’s less common than you would expect and she completely differentiated herself because of it.

I love this question because in my experience I have hired PMMs from a variety of backgrounds, including people that have had no direct PMM experience, but they all had the right aptitude for the role. Depends on the level of seniority you are looking for OR the kind of product you have, you might have specific technical skills you require. In my opinion, technical skills can often be learned on the job, but there are a few more “softer skills” that cannot. Here is what I always look for: * The ability to think strategically. Be able to see the bigger picture, and the long-term vision....

My answer spans the top hard + soft skills: * Hard: Well-rounded across words and numbers. You often hear that PMMs have to be strong storytellers (framing, positioning, mesaging, writing), but the highest-performing and highest-potential PMMs I've worked with are also very analytical and comfortable with some number crunching. In the B2B space, in particular, backing up any story with inspiring message, facts, and data will do wonders.  * Soft: Empathy and stakeholder management. Someone who can put others first and put him/herself in another's shoes. You often hear th...

I think the best product marketing candidates — and product marketers — have one thing in common: empathy. Empathy helps you understand where others are coming from, and that is the foundation of great messaging & positioning as well as great collaboration.  If you can put yourselves in your customers' and prospects' shoes — what they care about, their needs and pain points, what success looks like to them, their emotional state at different phases of the customer journey, etc. — you are halfway to creating great messaging.  And if you can put yourselves in the shoes of your cross-functio...

I've done a lot of interviews and hiring over the years and I'm constantly impressed by how smart and driven Product Marketers are! It's one of the things that makes interviewing so much fun - you get an opportunity to talk to and learn from the best of the best. That said, I think there are a few things that really stand out for me, and they are: * Curiosity - Most candidates are well-educated and skilled, so it's the folks with humility and a curiosity to learn that really shine during the interview process and on my team * Customer-First - Candidates with deep empathy for the cu...

From my hiring experience there are typically there are a few key characteristics and examples I look out for * Has to be a great storyteller - go beyond writing copy, and able to craft narratives * Ability to take complex topics and translate them into value * Customer-centric  * Cross-functional / team players  * Organized, ability to prioirtize and pull together disperate workstreams 

I have some data here. For years, I used "candidate fit tests" (offered by Pittari.io). It's like Myers-Briggs but focused on workplace style & drivers. For successful PMMs, I noticed a pattern. When it comes to workplace style, PMMs scored highly for "commanding" and "outgoing", favoring an "easygoing" style more than "exactlng". In other words, they like to enage with people and push conversations forward, but they're still flexible in groups. Then, across 7 possible drivers, PMMs scored highest on creativity and altruism. This makes a lot of sense for positioning work, and "atruism" echo...

I don't care about the candidate's background when interviewing for my team. I've hired folks from engineering, solution engineering, sales, and customer success teams and they've become successful PMMs. That being said, most of them have this in common:  * Can-do and flexible attitude - Ready to take on any challenge. Open to solving it creatively and however long it takes to wrap it up.  * Connecting the dots - Instead of being siloed as just a PMM, thinking about the adjacent functions like campaigns / content / GTM teams and how to involve them. * Good copywriting skills - ...

In my mind, the best performing product marketers exhibit three must-have skills: 1. Research 2. Storytelling 3. Project management To expand on each: 1. The instinct and ability to research, talk to customers, and analyze data to find new insights 2. The ability to combine insights + product features into stories that resonate with your audience 3. The drive and cross-functional skills to work across any internal scenario to drive external results In my experience, folks with (1) and (2) but not (3) tend to be really thoughtful and analytical, but have a harder time c...

I’m always wary of painting with too broad a brushstroke when it comes to hiring. Your job as a hiring manager is to spend time understand the super powers of the people you meet as part of your interview process, and to evaluate if those super powers have a place at your company. With that in mind and the current context of our work at Coda, I can share some commonalities in some of our recent all-star hires: 1. Curiosity with the intrinsic motivation to go find answers (vs. letting questions persist indefinitely or waiting for an answer to be handed on a silver platter) 2. A...

I think the best product marketing candidates have three things in common * They are strong on the core requirements for the role. In most cases, it involves a degree of comfort with developing or activating messaging/positioning/value propositions for products/solutions/audiences/segments. They can simplify complex ideas, convey it in different media types and can explain the process behind it confidently * They are natural collaboators and very very strong at working with others. Could be product, sales, CS, other folks in marketing. Best PMM candidates, even th...

Any interviews with me will involve a case - real world, but sanitized case questions like "you are the PMM for xyz product and your subscriber growth has slowed down [insert whatever metrics, scenarios] in the last 2 quarters. You need to get it back on track. What would you do to tackle this?" I look for ability to break down a problem, identify hypotheses, look for right data/ fact base to validate hypotheses and creative ideas to solve a problem. My best tip is to not jump into answering the question right away. Take 30-60s to structure your thinking first.

Here are a few of the questions that I like to ask:  - Tell me about a time that you influenced the product direction. - How do you define the role of product marketing? - What is the one thing that we can help you with, that you can take away from working here? I also agree with Carrie that case studies are the best. I like to ask about a specific project from the resume and then go into great deal about that particular experience. I look for self-awareness and ability for the individual to describe success in terms of results as well as acknowledge learnings and areas to improve.

Here are some of my favorites: * Open-ended / ice-breaker: "Can you tell me about yourself / your experience?" * Motivation / Research: "Why are you interested in the company and this position?" If the answer is too generic / short, follow-up with "What do you know about the company?" * Behavioral / Change management and initiative: "Can you tell me about a time when you realized that your company or team needed to change something in the way you did things? How did you come to that conclusion and how did you convince others?" * Behavioral / Data analysis and technical s...

Let me give you the one interview question, out of every interview I've ever been to, that literally stumped me. "Give me a time that you were the most creative".    It stumped me at the time because I approach my role in PMM from a very systematic, repeatable, scalable, and data driven approach. There have been plenty of times where I've had to be creative, but at the time all I could think about were things like "ad messages" and "campaigns" and "graphic design" and I don't participate in much of that. And in terms of my messaging, I don't pull it out of thin air. All of my messaging a...

I often like to ask, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” as well as, “In your last performance review, what were your opportunities to improve and how have you worked to address them?” I like the question “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” because it often helps me understand what really motivates a candidate and what type of worker they are. The best answer I’ve heard to that question was a candidate who talked about overcoming some very challenging obstacles for a new product launch and the launch actually turning out to not be nearly as successful as they or the compan...

I have product marketing candidates give me the Who Cares and Why Is That Important pitch for their current product. Walk me through the positioning and messaging development, what resonates and why, stuff like that. Another key question I ask all candidates is what kind of non-profit or volunteer things they do outside of work. That gives me a gauge of how team/other they are oriented. Great PMMers have a strong element of empathy and their volunteer work lets me know how well developed that empathy is.

I have started to ask "What is the biggest trade-off decision you had to make?"  Most people go straight to themselves and a trade-off that they've had to make about a job or career path, not a company decision. One interviewee floored me when he talked about hard decisions on needing to lay-off members of his team, but then described how he worked through his network to get every person on that team a job at another company. Not only did he show he could make tough calls, but he was trying to be a good person too in a rough situation. 

I am going to provide a highly opinionated answer. Please forgive the strong tone, but I hope it will be more helpful for you than a generic response:  For any question I ask, I want a short, succinct, and direct answer that tells me within the first 3-5 sentences what outcomes you achieved. If you can do that, you’ve already impressed me so just stop right there. Any additional info I need, I will follow up with more questions and then we can dig into the details. If I’m interviewing you, I want to know - what was your goal, and how did you make progress to that goal? I am not looking ...

What is the role of product marketing, and why do you want to do the job. I care about not just what the answer is but also how candidates deliver it. Are they giving me a textbook answer or telling me a story about their proudest PMM experience or a project that significantly impacted the business or a day in their life as a PMM.

What is your superpower?! This one is great because it gives you insight into how a candidate perceives themselves. There's a self-awareness that comes through with the responses that allows for you to getting a sense of who they are an individuals and how they work in a team. The best example of this was someone who told me their super power was being able to make silos disappear. 

My favorite question to ask is something along the lines of "Here's a big initiative we're planning to roll out, and whoever gets this job will own at least part of the planning and execution. How would you go about making the initiative successful?" A great answer always includes something like "Before I get into the tactical details, let me just first check that I understand why this initiative is so important. Please tell me where I'm mistaken, but I assume the objectives are..." And the best answer also includes something that sounds like "Wow, this is really interesting. We faced...

Well, the question of "What is Product Marketing" Could mean different things at different companies, but my answer is that we provide the voice of the market and the voice of the customer internally to the product manager so we can build products that resonate with our audience, and we are the voice of the product externally providing the appropriate messaging and positioning to go to market.

I'd have to go with this classic: "Describe your process for launching a new product." Why? A product launch is the quintessential act of product marketing. It places the product marketer as the orchestrator between product, sales, customer success, and core marketing. If you understand how to successfully launch a product, you understand how to be a successful product marketer.  The best answers to this question don't start with a laundry list of channels and assets--they start with the "why". Why are we launching the product? What do we hope to gain? Is the goal primarily to generate le...

My favorite question is "What would be your positioning statement for yourself as a product marketer?"  I love that question because it shows me how comfortable they are with the basics of positioning, and it tells me a lot about the aspects of product marketing that they care most about. For example, they may highlight their strength in messaging and positioning, or their customer-centricity, or their ability to partner with teams across the company. It's also another opportunity to see how they communciate complex concepts in a clear, concise, and compelling way. I've heard a lot of gre...

I like to ask PMM candidates to deliver their company's pitch. I'm not grading their pitch but rather the empathy and insight they display for and about their customers' challenges, the way they deliver it, and the storytelling ability of the candidate. There's no one answer to this that's stood out but it's the delivery that makes the difference. People who can clearly explain what pain point their customer feels and succintly how their company solves it (and can throw in some proof) are always the stand outs. The best answers are from the few people who aren't afraid to role play and pret...

It's hard to pick a favorite because most of my interviews look different from candidate to candidate. Often, my questions are focused on deeply understanding their past experience and asking for relevant examples that demonstrate the skills and compentencies that will be unqiue to the role and business need. Or, we unpack a case study together. I also go beyond the resume when I'm interviewing. One question that I typically ask is where the candidates want to learn and grow. The best answers to those also demonstrate steps they've taken recently and proactively to grow in a specific area.

Walk me through a product launch of yours that went really well and one that may not have done as well. What were the differences in retrospect? Now that you've had a chance to review our website and other marketing materials, what's something you think we could be doing better or an opportunity we may have missed that you'd love to dive into in this role?

I like using: "Product marketing covers a wide range of skills and tasks. Nobody on my team is an expert at everything. We're all growing some aspect of the job. Where do you really shine, and what areas would you like some professional development in?" It shows self-awareness, forces the candidate to mention what they believe is included in product marketing, and gives them a safe way to admit which skills are weaker. If they're honest about the weaknesses and position them as areas they'd like to improve on in the next 12 months, I give extra points for confidence.

My favorite question is very simple I ask them “Can you pitch me your product?” (if they come from any marketing role) It allows me to understand their storytelling skills. It helps me understand if they are truly comfortable with the idea of messaging and positioning (which I think is fundamental for any PMM to be successful. They have to understand it - even if they aren’t developing it). It helps me understand their oral communication skills. Sometimes, it also demonstrates a bit of flair and creativity. And this is often the jumping off point into other questions The best answe...

I think it’s hard to showcase messaging in an interview unless you’re specifically bringing up documented work. At HubSpot, we like to give candidates an exercise before an interview that typically ties into positioning and messaging. Oftentimes this exercise will tie back to a recently released product or feature, and we’ll ask the candidate how they would position the product and bring that positioning to life through a launch campaign. This approach has actually worked really well and taught us some new ways of approaching messaging that we hadn’t considered before. Once a new PMM comes ...

Love this question!  Obviously, always protect your employer’s confidential information. However, if you have done your work correctly, your messaging will inform all of the material and content you’ve developed. It would be reflected on your website, on your datasheets, on other public-facing content (press releases, blogs, etc.) But far more important than showing what you have produced is proving the impact that it had. Showing success metrics for messaging is one of the most difficult challenges for product marketers. One problem is that messaging success depends on the collective a...

The success is positioning is about proving that your work made your employer known for something in the market.  One of the most common ways PMMs do this is by showing how they get the company a top quadrant or wave leader spot with Gartner of Forrester respectively. Nowadays, G2 reviews and or even reviews by influential developers can help - as long as they buttress your product's differentiators.  You can also demonstrate by showing how your work let do growth in a certain business segment. For example, did your repositioning help the company move from a nice tool to more of a pla...

When I am looking for messaging and positioning validation from outside the org, I find that people engage more with a story than with a static framework. And as far as stories go, everyone much prefers pictures to reading dense Powerpoint slides! To that end, putting together a solid "marketecture" is a great place to start. This allows you to paint the picture of not just your product, features and functions, but you can also start assigning value and differentiated messaging to each of them. I find this especially helpful with current users/customers. They know the technical details (i....

There is a process to messaging and I think many folks are overly focused on the last step which is the final translation to words. I actually think this piece is the simplest of all the steps so I don't spend a lot of time looking at documented work when I interview product marketers. What's really important to me is understanding how a candidate thinks about and navigates the process itself. How does someone internalize the needs of the customer and market dynamics. In many ways, this is more about understanding how someone synthesizes data (both qualitative and quantitative) and builds e...

Make sure you talk about the process! That includes:  * What was the existing state when you started (i.e. messaging didn't exist, it did exist but it was falling flat / was outdated, etc.)?  * How did you go about developing the messaging (i.e. what inputs did you use)?  * How did you test and/or validate it with customers / prospects? * How did you socialize it and get buy-in internally? How did you roll it out?  * How was it received in the market? (Can be anecdotal if needed, but of course ideal to have actual quantified impact)  * What was the most difficult aspect of i...

This is a great one! It's also something few people do well in an interview setting. It's a bit challenging to do verbally, but if you think it through in advance, you can be prepared when the opportunity presents itself. The first thing - the success of your positioning in an interview setting is best shown through anecdotes and specific details. Just like in real life, it's very hard to say "my positioning increased our pipeline by 15%." That's a complex calculus, and not easily justifiable. Instead, tie it to a story. For example, "we made this adjustment to the message for this audie...

This is such a good question There are many ways to demonstrate success of messaging/positioning work 1. Talk through the process - Explain your approach to developing messaging and positioning. Talk about the customer interviews you did, the drafts you wrote, the messaging pillars you discarded and why, the frameworks you followed, the internal sales validation you did, the product deep dives you sat through, the brainstorming sessions and workshops you led, the customer testing you observed and the internal roadshows you led. Talk about how your brought stakehol...

Perhaps this is controversial, but I would say there are zero pros and many, many cons.   MBAs can be useful if you're looking to switch fields. Otherwise, I'd much rather see two additional years of work experience. I've hired MBAs from top 15 schools and from a PMM perspective, I was basically starting from the same place as someone without a degree. 

MBAs are definitely great if you are switching fields. They are also great from a networking perspective.     There are plenty of people who studied business or marketing as an undergrad who have gone on to have successful PMM careers.

It really depends on your goals and the current situation. In my humble opinion, the value of an MBA is likely to be higher if one or a few of the following things are true about you: 1. You're trying to change your role/function (and having a hard time doing it without a degree) 2. You're trying to change the industry (and having a hard time doing it without a degree) 3. You're trying to change the geo, e.g. move to the US or to the EU (and having a hard time doing it without a degree) 4. Your undergrad major wasn't business or econ 5. You want to learn more about other business functions,...

If you are literally looking to stay in product marketing or marketing (and already have a job in the field) then I would agree with the other posters that an MBA is not going to get you much. However, if you have designs to move into (strategic) product management, start your own company, or something else adjacent to where you currently are, then an MBA can be useful, particularly if you don't have an undergraduate business degree. That said, if you plan to move into product, I would actually say that the ability to work with a delivery team (e.g. engineering) and having the domain exp...

Most of my career has been spent in Marketing and I used my MBA to transition industries (from CPG to Tech) and location (from Latin America/regional teams to the United States/global teams).  While I had practical experience as a Marketer, what I learned through my MBA is the strategic and analytical side of marketing - focusing on understanding what frameworks are best to solve different problems, what data and insights I need to inform my decisioning process, and how to measure success of different aspects of the business. During the early stage of my career, the Marketing work I did ...

The MBA is a classic example of selection bias. The type of person likely to get an MBA tends to be more motivated and talented than average. Thus if you take a pool of MBAs vs. non-MBAs with equal experience you will get a more successful group from the MBA pool. This does not mean the MBA curriculum made them better, but it is a useful shortcut when recruiting. Hiring managers frequently lean on this. Obviously there are many exceptions to this generality. 

MBA certainly provides access to a network and usually a world-class quality education and introduction to marketing frameworks which are useful in any marketing job. But it also comes with a huge opportunity, and often, financial cost My personal take is that MBA can help in functional transitions but may not be required if you are already in marketing/ product marketing. I am a fan of learning on the job which MBA cannot provide