Product Marketing Skills

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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 “comp

I find that interviewers very often focus on the hard skills, but I think it’s the soft skills that can make/break a candidate. So my question is- how do you recommend working in my soft skills and their importance in the job interview when not directly asked? I usually try to highlight within the context of my “STAR” stories.

5 answers

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

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

65 Saves

Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 12

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 ST

Eric Chang

Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 21

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

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VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24

I'd weave these topics in as you answer the hard skill questions. Depending on your examples, theu could be easier to be included. Things to touch upon: 1. Leadership + Influencing without authority

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Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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

How do product marketers make sure they're learning enough varied skills to be a well-rounded professional when scope is an issue?

i.e. working at a large company with minimal scope, focusing on sales enablement but knowing you need experience on the product launch side, other marketing teams covering responsibilities, etc.

7 answers

Christy Roach

Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • October 9

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

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Hila Segal

VP Product & Customer Marketing at Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • January 28

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 expan

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Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 12

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 influ

32 Saves

Leandro Margulis

Head of Product at Prove • September 8

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

Vidya Drego

VP of Product and Solutions Marketing at HubSpot • January 20

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 special

13 Saves

Ryane Bohm

Product Marketing at Clari | Formerly Gong, Salesforce, GE • April 15

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. T

9 Saves

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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

What are some helpful tips for writing email communications to the sales team?

4 answers

Lauren Barraco

VP, Marketing at Inscribe • November 18

This is a great question. I have a few rules that we try to live by for our comms: Make it short, sweet, and to the point! You shouldn't expect your sales team to read every word, so make sure to u

11 Saves

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

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 ema

32 Saves

Ryane Bohm

Product Marketing at Clari | Formerly Gong, Salesforce, GE • April 15

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 su

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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 reso

What advice do you have for recent graduates that want to go straight into product marketing?

Typically, these roles require 3-5 years of experience and/or an MBA. Are there roles we should target instead that will help transition into product marketing? What qualities do you want to see in young professionals that want to land in product marketing?

7 answers

Savita Kini

Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • July 24

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

Christy Roach

Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • August 14

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 t

39 Saves

Ajit Ghuman

Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • February 28

It is possible to start a junior product marketing role straight out of college, but a true PMM role requires some real world skills. As a hiring managers, these are some of the things I look for: 1

19 Saves

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

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

32 Saves

Manav Tandon

Head of Product Marketing, Collaboration SaaS at Cisco | Formerly Adobe, Samsung, Verifone • February 16

You should seek out product marketing specialist roles. In such a role you'll get to help product marketing managers conduct market, customer and competitive research, analyze data on product adoption

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

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 skil

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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

How important are brand marketing skills for product marketers compared to analytical skills?

There is often a huge emphasis on analytical skills, instead of brand marketing skills, when it comes to product marketing job descriptions.

12 answers

John Gargiulo

Head of Global Product Marketing at Airbnb • December 1

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 ma

252 Saves

2 Replies

Feng Hong

Global Product Marketing Manager at TikTok • December 22

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 wha

Savita Kini

Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI at Cisco • January 20

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 alr

47 Saves

Suyog Deshpande

Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing at Samsara • November 20

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 produc

151 Saves

Felix Huang

Senior User Acquisition Manager at Hopper | Formerly Skillz, Telus Health, • January 3

100% agree with Suyog. Nothing we do exists in a vacuum and all of the positioning and messaging we bring to market should be looked at from a brand lens to ensure consistency. Ultimately, the consume

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Anthony Kennada

CEO at AudiencePlus • January 29

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 an

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Jason Perocho

Vice President, Product Marketing at Braze • March 11

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

95 Saves

Elain Szu

VP Marketing at Sentry • April 9

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-la

23 Saves

Liz Tassey (she/her)

VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 9

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 f

9 Saves

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

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 ab

11 Saves

Raman Sharma

Vice President, Product Marketing at DigitalOcean • February 7

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

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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

What soft skills are must-haves for product marketers in your experience apart from diplomacy, curiosity, and empathy?

7 answers

Christy Roach

Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable • November 18

I'm going to admit upfront that I answered this in a previous AMA, so I'll copy and paste that same answer here. A year later, I can truly say that these continue to be the things I think are most imp

80 Saves

Stacey Wang

Director of Product Marketing at Ironclad • July 2

High growth mindset / hunger to continuously improve. Great negotiators. We sit at the intersection of a lot of teams and needs! PMMs need to be skilled not just at bringing value, but negotiating pr

Gregg Miller

VP of Product Marketing at Oyster® • September 30

Communication: You simply must be a good communicator to be a stellar product marketer. So much of our discipline requires strong communication in order to provide clarity (both externally and interna

12 Saves

Alina Fu

Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) at Microsoft • December 1

Because Product Marketing is at the cross-section between Marketing, Product and Sales, there are times when they are barely treading water to keep up with all the product launches, become a “catch al

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24

A couple of others that come to mind: 1. Excellent communication skills and the ability to adapt these to the right audience - whether that's for consumers at scale, customers, or internal stakeholde

12 Saves

Lisa Dziuba

Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • July 23

As I spend a decade working in product marketing at high-growth startups, I'll focus on must-have soft skills for PMM in a fast-growing startup: Hight user empathy: PMM should absolutely love talkin

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

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.

What are mistakes product marketers make when trying to influence the roadmap that end up damaging their relationship with product managers?

9 answers

Swaroop Sham

Group Product Marketing Manager - (CIAM / API Products) at Wiz • April 30

With so much at stake, a lot can go wrong when trying to influence the product roadmap. When tensions run high, PMMs might risk their most important relationship by: Not providing Sufficient Quantit

26 Saves

Marissa Hastings

Group Product Marketing Manager at Codecademy • June 22

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

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Liz Tassey (she/her)

VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 9

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

10 Saves

Alex Lobert

Associate Director Product Marketing, Creator Promotion at Spotify • August 27

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

18 Saves

Shezana Manji

VP of Marketing at BenchSci • October 13

A wise mentor once told me, there is a very big difference between being respected and being liked. You don't need your PM to like you, you need them to respect you. With that being said, remember th

14 Saves

Marcus Andrews

Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Pendo.io • December 16

The big one is thinking they are smarter or better equiped to make roadmap decsions than the product team. Don't do that. Don't make it your crusade to get something on the roadmap. You have to give y

15 Saves

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 25

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 (

16 Saves

Sahil Sethi

Senior Vice President, Product Marketing at BetterUp | Formerly Klaviyo, Qualtrics, Microsoft, MckInsey • October 26

First - Not knowing the product. It doesn’t matter how many customers you talk to, how many insights you can glean from user analytics, or how many sales deals you can unlock with your ideas- you wi

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

It’s so important to understand the lift of the project you’re petitioning to add to the roadmap when approaching the team. If you’re not sure, speak with the stakeholders beforehand. When I first beg

When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job or vice versa?

7 answers

GTM Leader | Marketing Author | Career Coach at • November 20

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 h

Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 12

A lot depends on the type of role. In general hard skills is where a lot of hiring managers would edge towards as it ensures the technicality of the role can be carried out. Soft skills are also vital

21 Saves

Liz Tassey (she/her)

VP of Marketing at Blueocean.ai • July 9

I think it's a balance, but if I had to choose, leaning in to those soft skills is a great strategy when you are starting out. It's really important to go into a new team / company with a really st

Marcus Andrews

Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Pendo.io • December 16

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

14 Saves

Eric Chang

Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 21

If I had to choose one I would (slightly) lean towards soft skills. Having the right soft skills is what I believe enables a PMM to find the biggest opportunities and drive buy-in/alignment so that th

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24

I think it depends ultimately on what the team needs. In a highly technical area, I'd value industry and product knowledge highly, as long as the person is then coachable and open to learn on other ar

6 Saves

Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid • March 23

I find that people with strong soft skills often have the ability to pick up the hard skills quickly. People who’ve honed their soft skills are proactive about asking the right questions, and are moti

How would you recommend Product Marketing Managers improve their messaging skills?

10 answers

April Rassa

Product Marketing at Cohere | Formerly Adobe, Box, Google • September 29

Messaging is the ability to communicate pains and solutions for a specific persona using the written word. PMM writing is unique because it’s all about distilling a message down to it’s essence and pa

50 Saves

Sarah Lambert

Head of Product Marketing at Symphony Talent • October 20

I would suggest practicing by creating your own messaging frameworks for some of your favorite products or companies be they B2C or B2B. This should help you to start to think through the different pr

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Vice President Global Marketing at CalypsoAI • May 12

Research, and come with a growth mindset! Look and listen to what competitors in your market are doing. How does their messaging make you feel, how does it relate to your own organisation's. Why do cu

43 Saves

Jenna Crane

Head of Product Marketing at Klaviyo | Formerly Drift, Dropbox, Upwork • July 16

Practice, practice, practice! Get as many reps in as you can, and have a marketer you admire give you very candid feedback. Bonus points if you can do a working session with someone who’s skilled in m

12 Saves

Frances Liu

Head of Marketing at Instawork • September 1

As others have mentioned, practice. It's hard to find the extra time, so here are some ideas: Try different frameworks to refresh on basics Find reasons to tag-team a refresh. I've used it as part of

9 Saves

Alexandra Gutow

Director of Product Marketing at Snowflake • November 5

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

22 Saves

Julia Szatar

Director of Product Marketing & Lifecycle Marketing at Loom • December 3

This is mostly just practice, start writing, and keep writing. However, some specific things you could do include: Actively consume other marketing content. For example subscribe to your favorite bra

17 Saves

Eric Chang

Director, Product Marketing at 1Password • January 21

I'd recommend making sure to spend enough time on the planning and information gathering phase that is necessary prior to creating messaging. The most common issue I've seen with messaging is PMMs jum

20 Saves

VP of Product Marketing at Howl | Formerly Google • May 24

Messaging for me is both an art and a science. I've seen very good narrative building frameworks and courses around that can you help you nail basic concepts (e.g how to structure a well written value

8 Saves