RJ Gazarek

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 and narrative for the product is backed by the needs of the market and the customer, literal data that I can point to, that says the messaging we have is accurate and correct. So that was one that REALLY caught me off guard at the time - but I know how to answer it now :) 

For me, it was primarily just based on experience, and having done a number of launches, GTM planning, messaging, buyer/market analysis, etc - that I know what to look out for, and don't need a lot of hand holding. You can read about how to do our work, but until you are in the trenches and learn what really works, what doesn't, and what to look out for, it's hard to understand what really goes into it. As a PMM I can hit the ground running in nearly any company, because I know what's expected, I know what has the highest impact the quickest, and I need very little guidance/direction. I've also learned what "red flags" to look for, having gone through the growing pains, and how to spot/correct them or avoid them all together.

My work is probably less scrutinized than a PMM who may be just getting started (or thinking back to when I first started). I'm not learning as much about PMM itself, as much as I'm perfecting my craft and skills in the field. I'm still learning of course, but it's how to go deeper, and how to scale the work that I do.  

I'm not sure it's really any MORE responsibility, in terms of tactically doing different things. I don't do anything more than a non-senior PMM does, I just may be more efficient at them and need very little direction on a path forward. I also know what things to focus on, track, measure, etc - those I think are really tough for people to grasp early on. If you have an eye on how the work you're doing is influencing the product's success throughout the year, then you're ready. 

I was lucky at the beginning of my PMM career, because I got into a pretty solid group that understood exactly what PMM did and didn't do. But I think my advice to people would be to really understand and grasp the craft of product marketing. We're not just writers - if we wanted to do that, we would have been writiers. Be a product marketer! This is someone who understands the target market (segments, buyers, changes, competitors), understands how people purchase your product in that market (all of the departments involved, people, time frames, purchase processes), understands the product technically (what does it do and what does it not do, be able to actually demo the product), have a solid go to market strategy, know how to launch different product types, and then be able to wrap all of that into cohesive messaging that positions that product, to the right buyer, in the right market, at the right time. Too often PMMs tend to focus in on just ONE of those areas, like writing messaging that they "think" sounds right, without having done any work to back it up.

For me right now - it's that the craft of Product Marketing isn't fully realized by both people in Product Marketing and companies. There is a pretty stark difference between someone who markets products and someone who is a product marketer. I find that people who market products are heavily focused on the top of the funnel only, which comes with a lot of content/headline writing, while product marketers are looking at the entire buying process from end to end. And while I write and produce a lot of content, it's still a small portion of my overall responsibilities. In fact, the most scalable model of PMM is to not have to write everything yourself - we should be able to hand messaging briefs/guides/docs to any content writer/agency, and they can produce a smooth narrative and campaign without our review. Our value is understanding everything that goes into that content (market, buying centers, personas, buying processes, segments, verticals, etc), while also leveraging that information to help PMs make informed roadmap decisions and Sales carry the conversation throughout the sales process.

And the reason that is a frustration is in hiring/finding good talent like Marie pointed out, but also in getting other departments to see the true value that our role brings to a company. Also when talking to other PMMs from other companies, I have found it difficult to find a lot of people that really get it.

I agree with everything Dave has written, another role I would look for is someone in Content Marketing who has worked with Product Marketing, and wants to get into how the sausage is made. Understanding what the otherside of that world looks like, can be valuable coming into PMM, because when you create your messaging briefs/docs, you will have an eye on making them usable to a content writer/marketer.  

PMM can be a pretty heavy role, which is why it can be hard to hire someone with no experience, however, any PMM hiring manager worth their weight can spot strong talent that is eager to learn. I can teach anyone how to do Product Marketing, what I can't teach are things like "taking initiative", "being a self starter", and "learning quickly". A lot of PMM requires you to do that, because you have to learn the product on a pretty technical level, be comfortable enough to talk to customers and prospects, and be able to lead cross-functional teams during product launches. There is a lot of weight riding on PMM, so keep applying! If you would like me to take a look at your resume, reach out to me on here or LinkedIn, and I'll be happy to do that for you. I mentor other people new to Product Marketing through LinkedIn as well, so happy to take a look and give you advice on what to pull out and make shine a bit more.

Depending how you work your career, you could easily aim for a CPO role (Chief Product Officer). You may have to spend a few years as a product manager - but as a PMM, you and your PM should be two hands of the same body. Everything my PMs do and know, I know as a PMM - I don't get into the engineering side, but I can. My PM can step into my shoes if they need to cover for me, and I could step into my PM's shoes if I had to cover for them - that relationship is extremely important to me.  

So if you're interested in that, continue on the PMM path, make sure you're doing true Product Marketing (and not just marketing products), get a few years of PM experieince, and you could easily make a CPO case.

Another avenue that some companies take, is the TYPE of PMM you are. So you can be a product marketer, a solution marketing, a segment marketer, a vertical marketer - these all still fall under the role of Product Marketing, but rather than focusing specifically on tacitical to strategy, they're also segmented more granularly on their individual focus. So a vertical PMM, may focus on everything across the portfolio, that relates to the banking industry, and tailors messaging, GTM motions, and enablement for that specific vertical. 

More towards being data driven and on the strategic side. I love Product Marketing because it is a very "scientific" craft, you don't really have to guess at anything. You get out there, understand your target market, talk to buyers/users/champions/decision makers, understand their pains, and then map those pains to your products solutions - and get that message into the market. Where you get to "experiment" is which of the 15 needs you uncovered is the primary one, but you can leverage your demand generation engine to help test those. So a lot more towards the data side of the house, conducting tests, analyzing the outcomes, making shifts, and going again.

We do this in our team at Veracode! So we actually operate in a SCRUM/Agile fashion, with 2 week sprints. We point all of our work, and plan for an 80% capacity. This ensure we have time to drive ad-hoc requests and return immediate value to the business when they come up. In the event that we don't get ad-hoc requests for this sprint, and we find efficiencies, we bring in stories/work from the next sprint!

Mike makes a good point - in that it can be hard to help people see the value that PMM brings to the table. When I'm looking to take on a job in a new company, it's one of the first things I try to sniff out is what the company's view is on Product Marketing (e.g. do they just view product marketing as glorified content writers - which by the way, we're not... we're messaging, market, and buyer experts - not copywriters).  

In terms of showing ROI beyond that, treat Product Marketing more like a data science than an art. So, for example, what is PMM job? it's to essentially accelerate sales and help drive revenue. Really, that's a lot of our end goal for the business. So, you should know your numbers through and through. How much revenue is the product bringing in every quarter? What's the growth rate? how long is the sales cycle? How are different ads/content/assets performing that use your messaging?  

Now that you have all of those numbers (and more, that's not an exhaustive list), then it's time to put into action a plan that accelerates those numbers. How do you turn that growth from 10% to 20%. Why is the sales cycle for X product Y long, but the cycle for A product is B long? How do you shorten that window? Why do some customers hate your product, and others love your product (a clear sign of incorrect messaging/positioning/targeting)?

Then once you make changes, keep tracking the numbers - does the new ad copy with the revised messaging bring in more clicks/trials/customers? then there is your ROI. Rinse and repeat for everything else. Did the new audience your targeting result in shorter sales cycles? great, double down, there's more ROI.

Luckily for us, a lot of our work can be directly attributed to a return on the investment, but it's really up to you to make sure that you're the one tracking your numbers and the work that goes into it.