Step 1: What Are Product Marketing Manager Jobs All About?
Email marketing
AKA: Product Marketing Management (PMM)
Overview: Marketing solves the Field of Dreams problem: Wrongly assuming that if we just build it, they will come. By bringing the product directly to the market, marketers make sure that customers are actually aware of the latest and greatest.
Example project: Develop a go-to-market campaign to launch the iPad.
What you do all day: Research your audience, plan campaigns, execute campaigns, measure results
Roles: Product Marketing Manager (manages how a product is brought to market), Copywriter/Voice + Tone (generates copy for marketing campaign), Marketing Operations (executes marketing campaigns via email and advertising), PR/Communications (engages press to get the word out)
What they look for: Candidates with a mix of creative and analytical skills
Example job: Product Marketing Manager, Uber
Step 2: Would You Be a Good Fit for Product Marketing?
Ask yourself if you'd love doing these kinds of things all day:
Understanding the marketplace and customers
Partnering with the product team to develop features that serve the audience well
Positioning products to appeal to those customers
Working cross-functionally with designers and copy-writers to develop campaigns
Analyzing campaign results and optimizing based on the data
If your answer is "Yes" to the majority of activities, you'd likely be a good fit for Product Marketing jobs.
Step 3: What Skills Do You Need for Product Marketing Manager Jobs?
For each major activity, I've listed the most common keywords from across dozens of job descriptions, as well as a sample resume bullet:
· Understanding the marketplace and customers
o Keywords: market research, segmentation, targeting, surveys, interviews, competitive analysis, customer needs, pain points, customer feedback
o Sample Bullet: Segmented smartphone marketplace and identified the two segments that would drive 90% of our revenue
· Partnering with the product team to develop features that serve the audience well
o Keywords: cross-functional, insights, roadmap, voice of the customer
o Sample Bullet: Collaborated with the product and engineering teams to incorporate additional privacy controls based on customer feedback
· Positioning products to appeal to those customers
o Keywords: marketing strategy, branding, messaging, go-to-market (GTM) plan, positioning, value proposition
o Sample Bullet: Developed a go-to-market plan for new SaaS offering, leading to a 75% life in subscriptions within the first six months
· Working cross-functionally with designers and copy-writers to develop campaigns
o Keywords: channels, marketing campaigns, content marketing, collateral, social media, case studies
o Sample Bullet: Oversaw the production of 20 case studies for sales website, generating 300 new leads
· Analyzing campaign results and optimizing based on the data
o Keywords: A/B test, experimentation, product usage, data, SQL
o Sample Bullet: Ran experiment on homepage funnel, increasing lead generation 30% over existing flow
Step 4: What Product Marketing Manager Training Do You Recommend?
Option 1: Lightweight Skills Training
If you want to brush up on any of these skills, check out Lucas Weber’s Product Marketing for Technology Companies course on Udemy. I like two things about this course in particular:
It covers all the key marketing skills - from positioning and messaging all the way to funnel optimization and sales enablement.
But it also puts product marketing in a cross-functional context - so that way you truly understand how product marketers work with product managers, sales teams, and more.
Option 2: In-Depth Skills Training
If you want to dive deeper into the world of product marketing, check out the Product Marketing Alliance’s Product Marketing Core. Although more expensive than the Udemy course, it has a couple of key advantages:
You get a more personalized experience - from live workshops to a marketing mentor, you’ll get a significant amount of support along the way.
You also get certified - so you may be able to pitch the course to your current employer and get reimbursed for your investment.
Option 3: Interview Training
If you want to specifically focus on PMM interview skills, check out Exponent’s Ace Your Product Marketing Management Interview course. Led by top-notch product marketers, here’s why it’s my recommendation:
Seeing > Listening. While anyone can tell you how to be a better interviewee, Exponent actually shows you - through hours of mock interviews where you see real hiring managers and candidates go through the same exact questions you’re about to face!
Interviewing Requires Emotional Support. To do your best in the interview room, you need to know more than frameworks - you need to know you’ve got the support to face down this daunting challenge. And so the fact that Exponent’s course grants you access to a Slack community full of folks in the same boat who can empathize with the challenge and help you prep with mock interviews is a big advantage.
Live Coaching When You Need It. Sometimes you need more than a course to make it to the promised land. So that’s why I like that Exponent scales from an inexpensive online course to offer full coaching packages, complete with a roster of coaches from Google, Amazon, Etsy, etc. Plus you can always request a coaching session a la carte!
Disclosure: I’m an affiliate for some of the 3rd party courses listed on the site, which means I may earn a small fee if you choose to enroll (which I use to keep Break into Tech running).
Step 5: How Do You Actually Get a Product Marketing Manager Job?
To help you convert your passion and skills into an actual job, I've put together a step-by-step course that covers how to:
Design a resume that will mark you as an insider to tech recruiters
Make sure you find every single great tech job across multiple sites
Get a referral at just about any tech company - even if you don't know anyone directly
Prepare for every kind of tech interview question with point-by-point formulas