Product Marketing Career Path

Good question. I am sure you have heard this statement many times - “PM and PMMs are like two sides of the same coin”. It’s absolutely true, and work wise I see the roles to have a Venn diagram. There are things each team leads and drives by themselves and then there are overlap areas. The overlap areas usually are: 1. Product strategy 2. Product roadmap 3. Target markets 4. Positioning and messaging 5. Sales enablement (includes launches) The first step to building joint KPIs is building a trusted, valued and collaborative relationship. Where each party trusts that the other ...

Good question. I am sure you have heard this statement many times - “PM and PMMs are like two sides of the same coin”. It’s absolutely true, and work wise I see the roles to have a Venn diagram. There are things each team leads and drives by themselves and then there are overlap areas. The overlap areas usually are: 1. Product strategy 2. Product roadmap 3. Target markets 4. Positioning and messaging 5. Sales enablement (includes launches) The first step to building joint KPIs is building a trusted, valued and collaborative relationship. Where each party trusts that the other ...

Good question. I am sure you have heard this statement many times - “PM and PMMs are like two sides of the same coin”. It’s absolutely true, and work wise I see the roles to have a Venn diagram. There are things each team leads and drives by themselves and then there are overlap areas. The overlap areas usually are: 1. Product strategy 2. Product roadmap 3. Target markets 4. Positioning and messaging 5. Sales enablement (includes launches) The first step to building joint KPIs is building a trusted, valued and collaborative relationship. Where each party trusts that the other ...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

My advice would be to build this into your regular team processes. If your company has an OKR setting process, this would be the right time to cross-functionally align with product partners on shared KRs or KPIs at a high level. Beyond that, I would suggest gaining this alignment at the PRD and GTM plan stages of the product lifecycle. In an ideal world, PMs, PMMs and Tech Leads collaborate on launch objectives (financial, product, marketing, risk), which make up the shared launch KPIs. Data Science or Analytics partners can use this as a guide to creating measurement and reporting plans...

Great call to have commonly shared KPIs with the product team - this is the best way to ensure mutual success. When it comes to product launches, it depends a bit on what you're launching. If your company has a "core" product and you're launching a new SKU or a product with a separate revenue stream, a great shared goal is attach rate: percentage of customers that have purchased the product. You'll want to look at the overall attach rate as well as the attach rate for new deals (out of all the deals that close after the product is launched, what percentage buy it).  For all other new ...

Great call to have commonly shared KPIs with the product team - this is the best way to ensure mutual success. When it comes to product launches, it depends a bit on what you're launching. If your company has a "core" product and you're launching a new SKU or a product with a separate revenue stream, a great shared goal is attach rate: percentage of customers that have purchased the product. You'll want to look at the overall attach rate as well as the attach rate for new deals (out of all the deals that close after the product is launched, what percentage buy it).  For all other new ...

Broadly, alignment with Product should happen in an OKR or goals planning process at some regular interval. That's the real moment to align with you product partners on what problems you're trying to solve and what success means for a number of initiatives.  More specifically, I push that Product Marketing co-owns Product goals (to ensure alignment) and that they're the responsible party for product adoption metrics. What % of the audience has tried XYZ product is a strong measure of adoption and engagement.  Product launch KPIs should ladder into an adoption target (as stated above),...

At a high level, I think it's essential for all teams involved to understand the ultimate goal of whatever product or feature they are launching - meaning what is the problem you are trying to solve and for whom? In terms of process I have found the most success from establishing formal kickoffs, consistent check-ins along the way, and retrospectives post-launch. It's all about having several touchpoints between teams and making sure people are on the same page.

I really like this question, so will dig in to our main topic about KPIs here. This idea of cross-functional KPIs is core to what makes PMM the most interesting and the most challenging function to quantify. But, you can do it! Two things I believe strongly: * Cross-functional (or shared) KPIs are the most powerful KPIs any business or team can measure, because they're qualitative and quantitative and they force alignment across teams. * Product Marketing exists to amplify the impact of other teams. If you don't have shared metrics, you're probably amplifying only yourself, and...

This idea of cross-functional KPIs is core to what makes PMM the most interesting and the most challenging function to quantify. But, you can do it! Two things I believe strongly: *  Cross-functional (or shared) KPIs are the most powerful KPIs any business or team can measure, because they're qualitative and quantitative and they force alignment across teams. *  Product Marketing exists to amplify the impact of other teams. If you don't have shared metrics, you're probably amplifying only yourself, and missing the chance to deliver on your true objectives. The best example o...

Great question! A lot of collaboration can come from shared KPIs, so it's great to align where possible. I'll divide this into two groups, on-going and launches. On-going KPIs: * These should largely be goals you can both impact over time. Things like adoption, revenue (particularly if there's a freemium, or PLG motion at your company), retention, NPS.  * For example, with adoption there are product changes that can likely be made as well as dedicated marketing done to drive success. At Iterable, we were working to drive adoption of one of our AI products and did just this...

Super important question 🙌 Cross-functional collaboration happens much easier when teams have shared KPIs, OKRs, or North Stars. To be honest, those goal-setting frameworks really work when they are adapted across all of the organization. This means that everyone is motivated to solve the company’s challenges, instead of working in silos on their individual projects.  For this setup to work, it’s important to understand the Objectives of other teams. Here is how it can work with setting up common OKRs between PMs <> PMMs: 1) Setting up strategic company-wide OKRs It’s important ...

There are always going to be a million things that you feel need to be done. PMMs by nature want to take on everything, but the fact is, even though things might seem critical, not everything needs to be done right away. Especially in the absence of a senior marketing leader who can help triage projects, this can get complicated. So it's REALLY important to first determine the most critical priorities and then phase out things, especially with a small team and low resources. Some ways to do this: * If your company has OKRs or company-wide goals, use that as your north star. Look at you...

The most straightforward way to manage this might be to divide the products between the two of you in an even way - where each of you has a clear line of ownership, end-to-end, of your skews. This will be less messy to untangle as you hire new pmms, where you can hand off speficic product areas in a clean way. As far as there only being 2 of you, and multiple/complex products - once you're clear in what you own, work to prioritize the product areas that are aligned to business impact. Which products are the most healthy for the business and how can you prioritize these areas in the short ...

I think there are a couple ways I'd think about it - and it would depend on what the PM organization looks like and the individual skills of the folks on the PMM team (if already in-seat).  Approach 1 - Make one of the PMMs Product-facing (handling predominantly new product/feature introductions or launches and product enablement) and one of them more Marketing- or Sales-facing (handling things like first-call decks, website copy, core positioning) Approach 2 - Map those PMMs to the PMs and have the teammates cover everything from launches to sales collateral for specific products or prod...

I would look at 2 vectors. * What products/features are critical in winning deals. At Honeycomb, our Sales Engineering leader looked at all closed/won deals in a given time frame and indicated which products/features were most important in successful POCs. We’re putting PMM ownership on the top products/features from that analysis. We were lucky to get this analysis handed to us. If it is not easy to get this level of information, even just surveying your sales/SE teams and asking them to stack rank product/features in terms of importance in their deals will give you ...

Fun! It sounds like you have so much potential for impact. I would recommend looking at your external and internal factors. So it'd be tempting with a "complex" feature set to say - split it into equal sets of product to become expert in. But the thing is - I may be unpopular for saying this - it's not on PMM to be the expert in the deep technical product. But to be expert in how the product intersects with key market segments. So I would say split it by looking at your core GTM motion - whether it's particular market segment, or expansion v new business, bonus if it aligns well with ...

I would recommend ruthless prioritization.  * Work with your product counterparts to figure out the most important products from a business/strategy standpoint. Then make sure you are giving these products the lion's share of your time and energy.  * Work with your business leaders to understand the most important GTM initiatives (self-serve, Sales, Field marketing, etc.). Then make sure you spend the majority of your effort on prioritized GTM. It is no use creating beautiful-looking slide decks if your Sales effort is non-existent. Maybe focus more on message optimizat...

Firstly, I'm always happy to be a resource on this subject - just ping me on LinkedIn, this is quite a meaty ask/task. I would suggest splitting product coverage between the two of you, and contract out (via consultants) anything where you need additional coverage for long-term projects i.e., partner marketing, voice of the customer work. The growing cost of an external vendor can help make the case (sooner rather than later) for internal dedicated resources.  In terms of hierachy of product prioritization, tackle the areas that will support customer activation and adoption first. Not ev...

Clear channels of ownership and a deep, relentless focus on prioritization is a must. I would have a product, product marketer on the product side in order to drive product adoption and assist in building the correct roadmap in order for customers and prospects to create stickiness and the other, on the sales and marketing side in order for a solutions marketer to help scale leads and revenue. 

Where to start? Every company has different policies for promotion criteria, but ultimately it needs to take into account 2 things: merit and business need. Business need has to come first. It means that there's a larger scope of a role that needs to be done - more responsibility and complexity within an org / team - and there's now an opportunity or need for someone to fill that. If that doesn't exist, promotions shouldn't be happening arbitrarily. I recongize that especially within startups, individual contributors want to grow and should be recognized for their efforts, but when merit su...

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become a popular way for companies to clearly define goals and measure progress against them, at the employee, team, and company level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR There's lots written about these that you can reference elsewhere, but it's a really helpful frame work that allows you to measure, quantitatively and qualitatively, how you're tracking against the "key results" that you've defined. The common expectation is that you'll hit about 70% of your OKRs - idea is that you're including stretch goals so missing 20-30% doens't mean you're perfo...

If you're on this forum as a PMM, you know that one of the biggest challenges for the PMM org is "What the hell do we measure!?" - an age-old conundrum that PMMs always struggle with. This is especially pronouned in an enterprise B2B environment vs. a fast-moving B2C environment where immediate usage/feedback may be available.  To me, the most primary thing I'm looking for is how effective the person is in relationship/ stakeholder management. In Product Marketing, you have many constituents across Sales, Product, and customer teams, as well as within Marketing itself. It's easy to get p...

This varies by company and role, but I generally think about the path to promotion on the two key vectors: ownership level and degree of autonomy.  Strong performance against OKRs or KPIs is a core underpinning to that. When considering promotion I start there and then look at how the person has demonstrated rising levels of ownership and autonomy across the following: * Strategic Direction: As an associate, I'd expect you to own a feature set fully and demonstrate the ability to bring insights into the go-to-market under direction. As you rise in the organization, I'd expect you...

The best way for a product marketer to get promoted is by demonstrating the impact of their work. To do this, I incentivize all my PMMs to befriend data and tie their deliverables to key business and customer metrics.  To me, the two most important categories of metrics are: 1) Customer insights a. Number of actionable insights that helped drive product development b. Number of actionable insights that informed a business strategy/service 2) Customer engagement a. Product adoption: This is the % of customers that adopted a new service or product launched by PMM. b. Customer lifet...

I'm not a fan of connecting metrics to promotions for a role like product marketing becuase there are so many other dependencies that can't be controlled. Rather I like to establish some expectations of responsibility for each seniority level. Seniority levels can usually be attached to the level of responsiblity you can assign someone. Can they run a launch end to end? Can they take a new offer to market? You can use success of some of those outputs to make a determination of how and when to promote.

PMMs often are measured by output, since most of what we provide are tied to other metrics. I would focus on delivering tangible assets on a regular cadence (case studies, one-pagers, pitch decks, etc) and in parallel - measuring utilization metrics like: product activation, MAUs, reactivations, attach rate, conversion velocity etc. These two streams (tangible output + metrics) cover your bases, establish influence and prove growth (worthy of promotion).

You are 100% correct that the hardest part of a PMMs job is managing without authority. Often, PMMs rely on shared resources or centralized teams to get their job done. I have found three things work really well in managing without authority. They are all hard and take time, but they are effective. First, invest the time in building a relationship with your cross functional partners. If someone knows you and likes you, they are going to be much more open to any feedback you have. They are also much more likely to prioritize your requests. Second, create a shared vision for success. Every ...

I believe that the ability to build relationships with stakeholders and influence others is key to being a successful PMM. As you've noted in your question, due to the nature of our role PMMs are often drivers of very cross-functional projects, which involves co-ordinating peers and potentially people more senior than you too.  Really, it comes down to all the classic relationship-building things: * Build trust - spend time with the people you need to influence (and not just when you need something!), be helpful and reliable, do what you say you will, ask for their input and feedb...

You’re right that as PMMs it’s often impossible for us to get our work done without work from another team, often multiple other teams. Part of my advice for doing this well is a critique of the way you’ve worded your question. I don’t see myself, or my team, as “managing” people who don’t report to me. We’re partnering with them. We should have shared goals, a shared vision for what we’re trying to accomplish, and equal motivation to get it done. If we don’t, that team is just doing a favor for the product marketing org and that work will get quickly deprioritized if something more pressin...

Product marketers often end up in the position of “dotted line” managers/stakeholders for many functions — design, writing, research (to name a few). What’s worked for me in the past is two-fold:  * Influence: For every function that feels like a “dotted line”, it’s important to build a close relationship with the leaders for those functions. This relationship enables you to freely exchange ideas, maintain alignment on priorities, operate efficiently, and set expectations between teams. If things between us go sideways, a strong relationship feels less like an escalation an...

It starts with aligning on common goals - what I find people get lost is in the "how" we get there. In business, we can all agree on goals that are like motherhood and apple pie - like revenue or cost savings. Hard to argue with those. Once you get aligned on that, then start with understanding what the recommended path is to get there. It could be what you're pitching or it could be something else. As long as you stay grounded in the shared goal, the rest is a lot easier, in my opinion. 

Like most cross-functional work, the most important thing is to build trust and establish shared goals early on. Instead of delegating work, involve them in your process, provide them with proper context, and agree on timelines where applicable. They will be much more motivated to help if they have the same context and can be part of the journey. When giving feedback, make sure to provide the why and take a step back when necessary to ground your discussions around objectives, guardrails, and who should be the decision maker for what. There are going to be scenarios where you and your count...

You will need to win their respect and trust. To do that you need to...  * know your stuff * be humble * give ample positive feedback * understand their agenda and help them advance it * take personal responsibility for everything that goes wrong, and emphasize the team contribution over your own for everything that went right * criticize in private, while using "I" instead of "You" statements but be unmistakably clear in your feedback. Don't leave room for ambiguity and always criticize the work, not the person) * don't take yourself too seriously * be ready to admit mist...

You build relationships first. We work with people, and people are driven by emotions. So the first step in achieving a smooth collaboration is gaining trust, both on personal and professional levels. It comes to: * Understanding one another's needs and goals * Transparent communication * Keeping your commitments Being a kind and reliable coworker makes it much easier to collaborate especially with those teammates who do not report to you.

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 often keep a few "canned" questions in my pocket in case of an awkward lull during an interview - this is a great question to keep in mind! 

Thanks David - would love to see some of your canned questions too! My other one is - "What will working at this company do for your resume and your career ambitions?"

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.

There’s no single career path that leads to a product marketing position. In B2B SaaS companies, I have seen successful transitions to product marketing from product management, sales engineering, consulting, corporate marketing, consumer brand management, and customer success. I have also seen failed transitions from all of these roles. Regardless of your prior work experience, I think a successful product marketer will need to exhibit all of these skills: * An interest and ability to understand the product you’re marketing. You don’t have to know how to code it; you don’t always hav...

Curiosity and a desire to be understood. These two qualities over nearly everything else. You can easily learn the frameworks--steps for a successful launch, format for a battle card, considerations for pricing... you can also improve your writing to align with brand and write high impact choppy copy. But it's not easy to teach someone how to be curious about how a user ACTUALLY feels about your product. How to dig into data to find which features aren't being touched. How to keep iterating on sales enablement until they REALLY get it. How to ship surveys to test messaging because you reall...

@Lauren - I completely agree!

This has changed a ton as my career has progressed and continues to evolve as I get better at my job. What I measure myself on today is very different than what I’ll measure myself on in 3-4 years, and the key is being able to make those mental shifts and not measuring your current role by the same standards you measured yourself on in previous roles. Today I measure myself on the following: * Team engagement: As a leader, I am only as good as my team is. Before I look at their output, I want to look at how they feel at work. I can only be successful if I’m leading a team that is f...

Success should be measured based on impact to the org, and in B2B Marketing that really means pipeline (and ultimately conversion to revenue). PMMs that take this “full stack” approach to our craft will not only maximize their ability to have meaningful impact at their company, but will also put themselves in a position to acquire skills along the way to set themselves up for leadership positions in the future (whether that’s CMO or GM of a business line). The challenging part here is that PMM tends to be defined differently in different organizations, with some companies looking at the ro...

Product Marketing is challenging because the function influences many metrics but isn't normally the owner of those metrics. Exciting new deal closed? There's usually a PMM that helped along the way although it's sales' win. Cool new product feature launched? Definitely a PMM in the mix, but it's the Product team's achievement. As a PMM, you have to be confident about your own contributions and not the type of person who needs complete ownership of a metric.  Often, for myself, I like to make sure I have measures that help me understand how i've improved or advanced my skills as well as me...

As a product marketer, especially as you grow in role and become more senior, measurement of success moves beyond tasks and deliverables to align lock-step with the other GTM functions like sales, customer success and growth/demand generation. Especially once a company has established product-market fit and developed a repeatable GTM motion to scale the business (whether it's product-led-growth (PLG) or traditional direct sales), making sure there's a clear understanding of both the top-level GTM goals (revenue growth, net retention, addressing new use cases and buying centers) and the role...

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. 

At what phase of the interview process should candidates be creating these plans. In my experience, it takes at least one interview with the hiring manager to understand the team's priorities, to understand what problems they are trying to solve and what success looks like. 

It's true, you won't be able to provide them with a detailed 30-60-90 plan during the interview but you will be able to propose a framework that lays out your thinking. As a hiring manager, I don't expect you to know the intricacies of my company or strategic plans, I do expect product marketers to have spent a lot of time thinking about how to approach the challenge from a strategic planning perspective. If you show me some insight into your strategic thinking, that will help convince me that you are able to apply that type of thinking to the job as well. I wrote an article on this very t...

Appreciate the clarification and your further thoughts on the topic. I'll check out your article.

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.

Bookmarked for myself :) 

I think it depends on what sub-function of PMM you've excelled in (or are applying for). If more technically-oriented, I'd want to learn about a product launch that you've been a part of, walk through a set of messaging you've developed, and understand how you've worked closely with the product team. If more GTM-oriented, I'd love to see a deck you've built for the sales team, how you've thought about personas and market segmentation, and understand how you've supported the sales team in hitting their targets. If you're applying for a Head of PMM role, perhaps a view into all of the abov...

Great recs! Thank you!!

I would try to highlight anything that shows you have the key skills to be an effective product marketer. That definitely includes strong writing samples and case studies like you suggested, but also: * Presentations that show you can create a compelling narrative and convince an audience of your point * Detailed GTM launch plans with how you will or did measure success * Clear, convincing and well-supported messaging and positioning, like through a messaging source document (something we use at Zendesk for all of our major products and launches) or a presentation * Thorough...

Thank you!! Great feedback- both on the portfolio and hiring process!

Absolutely, glad that helped!

Case studies and writing samples signal to me that you can do the job you are asked to do but they rarely make a candidate stand out (unless the content is really bad!) I do think long-form writing samples have their place - they should show that you can communicate well and that you can possess critical thinking skills. But what makes a great candidate stand out for me, far more than anything, is a strategic mindset and an ability to provide evidence of outcomes during the interview. I'd focus on this more than on the portfolio. I go into how to do this in more detail in other questions.

The trifecta of short-form published writing, long-form writing, and enablement materials always does the trick for me. If I can see the candidate has written a great feature-related blog post or one-pager, a positioning and differentiation narrative, and slides that cue up best practices, then I'm a happy hiring manager.

Please add the "why" behind why you chose to take on new initiatives. I often see marketer proposing solutions that are searching for a problem. So, always start with Why and how your work aligned with the company/marketing/PMM north start. Then mention the results.  Example: It's great that you wrote an e-book, but why did you do an e-book instead of a webinar? What was the outcome? How it helped the company drive certain goal.  Some guidelines on what to include:   1. Include different formats - media, writing, interactive  2. Balance long and short form - 1 pagers or inforgraphic...

Absolutely writing samples! I always ask for those. (As you can tell from my other answers, communication is something I care deeply about!)  Case studies, landing pages, pitch decks / other enablement assets, and messaging frameworks can also be great additions to a portfolio. Just make sure you can speak to the process of building those, because it's impossible to know just from looking at them how much was built by the candidate vs. a collaborator.  What really makes a candidate stand out, I've found, is a short 'about me' deck. I've seen some great decks that include:  * Work sample...

I've mentioned this framework in other answers, but I believe that great product marketers are great researchers, storytellers, and project managers. A standout product marketing portfolio would include work that helps you cover these critical bases. I've added below some examples of things that could help you stand out in each area. Research: * A summary of a research project you ran and how the insights were used * An example of a research question + interview questions you used in customer calls * An overview of a beta process you helped run, how many customers you talked ...

The great candidate stands out at every stage of the interview process, highlighting her & his value prop 😊 PMM portfolio is one more channel to show how you can help the company. Some practical things you can add to your PMM portfolio (copied from my other answer): * Messaging: key messaging on the products you worked on * GTM: links to your past launches (landing pages) * GTM: launch brief which you can share * Content: links to case studies you have prepared * Sales enablement: sales presentations, personas, sales emails * Your content (articles)

I came from a background in brand and so my natural instincts served me most well on the outbound side of product marketing. I had my fair share of imposter syndrom in the early days when I looked at my peers and realized that I'd never done the traditional inbound work of a PMM. I spent more time than I should have in those early days being afraid to ask for fear of not being able to meet the bar. It took building a relationship with a peer whose work I admired to admit that I was really learning on the fly and to my surprise, they were too!  We all have strengths and areas where we ...

I spent a lot of time in my early career worrying about getting to the next promotion and how I was progressing versus my peers. Looking back now, this was all wasted energy. I wish I had been more focused on learning and picking up as many skills and experiences as possible. I also wish I had been less worried about making mistakes. I think I would have been able to take more risks and push myself to try new things that would have ultimately helped me to build more skills. I also wish I knew how to prioritize better early in my career. I worked a lot of late nights and weekends in my earl...

One thing I wish I learned earlier is the most powerful product marketing you can do is always centered on a shared human truth. When I look back on my very early PMM GTM work, I focused primarily on communicating about the product and the benefit derived from the features themselves. But the product features, however innovative, were only half the story. Connecting the Product to the Customer Need is where the true magic lies. Find the truth we all share (an experience, an emotion) and connect that to the new experience the product provides -- that’s where your message takes on real meanin...

There is one key learning: Actively plan & manage your development. Here is what is involved: * Know the menu: Since Product Marketing is such a broad discipline, its important to understand the various functional competenices that comprise it. This way, you can assess where you have strengths and where you want to develop. These competenices span target segmentation definition, messaging & positioning, content development, sales enablement, pricing/packaging, PR/AR and more, they are quite different and require different skills. * The market will evolve: There are als...

When you're starting out your career as a PMM, it is very important to remember that your value promise is to customers and not internal stakeholders. I don't mean to say that internal alignment and buy-in isn't important but it should never take priority over serving your customers. In my early days, I spend 80% of my time trying to understand what were the needs of my internal stakeholders and ensuring I was supporting them fully, leaving little focus on the customer. The moment I started prioritizing customer needs over internal stakeholder needs, when I started to champion customers int...

* Don't box yourself, ever!  * Don't always stick to how things are always done.  * And ask questions more.  * And observe and take notes.  * And don't pretend to know it all!  Here's the thing: When you are early in your career, you are often embarrassed to ask questions or ask "why?" But asking those questions more would help you understand things wayyyyy better. Some of my best learnings have come from asking questions to understand things better. Think about it — if you can't understand a feature as a marketer, chances are that your customers won't. That's your biggest advantage; ...

As someone with a tech background and self-education in marketing, I learn everything in practice. I wish I knew more about the importance of user research and CI at the beginning of my PMM journey: - User research: back in 2015, we released our first startup product which dramatically failed. We spent one year of development without proper user research, without defining the customer journey, or even having personas. That taught me the importance of knowing your users and their needs :) - Constant competitive analysis: somewhere in 2018 a competitor copied our startup features and ad...