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Alina Fu

Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director), Microsoft

Content

What are 3 most important hard skills that a product marketing needs? Hard skills for example: coding, data analytics, communication, etc

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • January 24

If I could only pick 3, it would be: * Storytelling * Competitive insights * Customer-obsessed Telling a story isn’t just filling out a messaging and positioning framework but about being able to pitch a narrative on why status quo is broken, paint what that world would look like, and why yo......Read More

1490 Views

How do you stand out in a pool of product marketing candidates? What kinds of experiences, or which characteristics/traits, do employers care about most?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • January 24

Every company has its own system or values that they look for during candidate review. During interviews, especially at larger enterprise companies, the recruiter or hiring manager usually has a rubric that assesses how much the candidate fulfills the criteria. Here are what stands out for me in......Read More

1365 Views

What tips/suggestions do you have for someone who wants to break into product marketing?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • January 24

Like any good first meeting, ask yourself some discovery questions: 1. What do I enjoy doing the most at work? 2. Why do I want to get into product marketing? 3. What products do I think are marketed well? Why? 4. What products can be marketed better? How would I market it differently? 5. D......Read More

1225 Views

While looking at next level roles, how do you overcome hiring bias for the same domain. Your career history is what it is. Very few, if any, hiring managers are willing to look at the broad horizontal PMM skills that a candidate brings to the table.

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • January 24

I think that depends on the hiring manager. I would even go so far as to suggest maybe you haven’t found the right role or HM who is looking for that broad horizontal PMM or you may be under-leveling yourself. As you become more senior, that is when the broad horizontal PMM skills come into play.......Read More

1170 Views

What does your product marketing team do differently when executing on an account based marketing strategy compared to traditional marketing?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • November 30

ABM is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as we just announced 7 new ABM integrations and hosted a webinar about ABM strategies. Data-driven marketing has extended beyond analytics, social, SEO/SEM, and A/B testing into insights and 3rd party data on customers’ wants and needs to tailor ......Read More

1065 Views

I would like to become a people manager and a strategic leader, whatever the attached title may be, from a senior PMM that I currently hold. How can I achieve this?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • January 24

How much do you trust your manager/management chain? I’ve had direct reports who share their career aspirations with me, even if it’s a role outside of my team, and I count myself lucky that they trust me enough to share that. When they did, I would put them on projects that would expose them ......Read More

1024 Views

With respect to mergers and acquisitions, what are the steps and priorities you take to integrate the newly acquired product into your overall product marketing strategy?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • November 30

This one is challenging because I’ve witnessed year long integrations from newly acquired products into the overall strategy, and even then, it wasn’t “fully” absorbed into the main strategy. First, I would recommend looking at the reasons why this product came under the fold. What was the visio......Read More

811 Views

How does product marketing own more of the funnel strategy (acquisition, conversion, retention) rather than just support revenue growth reactively?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • November 30

I partner very closely with the VP of Rev Marketing to make sure we have a coordinated funnel strategy. We are in constant communication and alignment for acquisition, conversion and retention. In addition, product marketing measures deals influenced for attribution. Our product marketing team’s ......Read More

785 Views

Do you approach stakeholder management differently based on the team you're talking to? (Product, Marketing, Sales, Growth, Customer Success). And if so, how?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • November 30

I take a relationship-based approach when I think about stakeholder management. I prefer to tailor my style to the individual, so it doesn’t matter as much which department but what type of personality they have and their communication preferences. For instance, a leader in department X may prefe......Read More

779 Views

When coming up with positioning and messaging as part of GTM plan, which key stakeholders/teams (in addition to product and sales) should weigh in?

Alina Fu

Microsoft Head of Marketing for Viva Goals and Learning (Director) • November 30

Customer Success or Customer Marketing teams are your secret weapon when thinking about Positioning & Messaging frameworks and GTM strategy. Retention is a key metric for the business, so who better than Customer Success Managers or Customer Marketing leaders to represent the voice of the custome......Read More