Product Marketing Career Path

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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

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!

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

* 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!

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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).

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. 

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.  

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. 

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. 

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. 

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

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.

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.

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. 

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.   

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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 😉

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. 

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.

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

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)

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. 

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.

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.

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.