Madeline Ng

This is a hard question because I've found that even the nature of product marketing and the title "PMM" means different things at different companies. Generally, however, I'd look at the framework for seniority against the following dimensions:  Product coverage: Early in your career you may manage a few products, with "few" defined relative to your company's portfolio. As seniority grows, you'll stop owning products but start owning categories of products. The idea here is that at a more senio ...Read More

The most important KPIs to track are the ones that align closely to the business. Are you in a new product area? The KPI might be the number of customers you close and the number of references you can provide publicly or to your sales team. Are you in a competitive consumer product, but an incumbent? The KPI might be monthly active users and retention.  Start with the business goal and then back into the product marketing goal that you have control over. For example, if there is a revenue goal f ...Read More

"It depends" is the most infuriating answer but this is an "it depends" moment. This is all dependent on where you are in your career, what you want in your career, and also what your propensity is.  In terms of pure marketability, the broad strokes I'd make (and your mileage may vary) is:  Generalist >> you will have the most flexibility in the companies you work at but you may not rise as rapidly or command the most senior roles upfront. But you'll never be pigeonholed. This is really us ...Read More

My first question would be to determine if this person would thrive as a people manager. Often in product marketing, the trajectory up is through individual contributor to people manager, but it's not necessarily the best path for everyone.   Good reasons to want to be a people manager:  You like helping people grow in their career, and you've shown that through mentoring others (even when it wasn't your job) You have shown that you are a "giver" and not a "taker" in the larger organization You ...Read More

The great thing about being in product marketing is that it's a discipline that, by nature, is quite broad in strategic thinking and interacts with the key go-to-market functions in a business. This gives you a huge advantage if you can craft your story to be a VP of marketing!  Broadly speaking, I think this reflects any kind of process for making a job change.  Understand the VP Marketing role: Are you looking to go to a smaller company and be their first hire? or perhaps the first leadership ...Read More

You're actually in a good position if you are moving from a B2B account management role into a B2B product marketing role because you have knowledge of the audience you're serving and a deep understanding of the product. This is a chance to turn a bug into a feature. This whole pivot is actually a chance to practice your product marketing skills, except you are your product. Focus on what the interview question is getting at - what is the core need of the audience? - and then speak to how you ar ...Read More

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

At my current company, these roles are different and lean on the different skills that you mention! That said, at smaller organizations, or even smaller marketing organizations, you may not have the luxury of having different individuals occupy each role.  If you are in a spot where you aren't able to add dedicated headcount to partner with product or creative separately, I'd suggest having a conversation about priorities with your leadership and using that to guide not only the talent you bring ...Read More

In well run marketing teams, the metrics for the business are assessed holistically instead of piecemeal among each marketing function.  The contribution of Product Marketing to a growth result is setting up the strategic positioning, messaging, and core assets that can be used by your demand generation teams. The contribution of demand generation teams is taking that understanding of the audience, problem, and markets and selecting channels that best reach and resonate with those audiences and ...Read More

In my personal ideal launch world, PMM would develop the core messaging, positioning, and Bill of Materials that would then be handed to Sales Enablement to transform into compelling trainings. PMM may end up guest starring in some trainings as presenters, and Sales Enablement would be a critical feedback mechanism to fine-tune the launch assets. This would allow each organization to demonstrate their expertise and skills - PMM with placing the launch most advantageously for the business, Enable ...Read More