Appetizers

Starting with some basics.

Fun Starters

Getting to know the human side.

 Main Course

A quick deep dive into the day-to-day job.

Tell us about yourself and your job.

My most recent hobby has been fishing, though I'm also an avid hiker and just generally like to be outdoors.

The product marketing function varies from company to company; in some cases, the position will be involved in the entire product lifecycle from market research to fill a specified gap to go-to-market activities to support the launch and beyond. However, in my current role, I'm primarily focused on go-to-market motions. In short, product marketing is responsible for knowing the space, including what the market and user needs are, and helping to direct other supporting marketing roles towards promoting your product line or feature.

How did you end up in your field? What do you like about it?

As I got closer to graduating in electrical engineering, I realized that I was an absolutely terrible engineer, and likely wouldn't get far in the field as a result. My first job out of college was as a "technical consultant", which just meant that I installed that company's software onto client environments and helped them figure out how to use it. It was really pretty similar to glorified IT.

From there, I jumped into sales as a sales engineer/solutions engineer who is responsible for the technical validation of the sale. At my current company, a position opened up for product marketing and I used my knowledge of customers and market problems to transition over. It's a little early to say, but for a variety of reasons including being able to work with interesting problems with no clear solutions, I think this is the career path I want to go on.

These job experiences happened over the course of 5 years - if there's anything you take away from this blurb, it's that (in my experience), so many people nowadays say "I don't know what I want to do", and then sit around and do the same thing or do nothing. It took me 5 years AFTER college to come even REMOTELY close to figuring out what career path I want, but I never stopped trying new things and taking chances. You have to keep moving forward.

What does a typical day look like on the job?

Mornings involve coffee.

My days vary quite a bit. Very generally speaking, I spend a mix of time between meetings (usually status updates or strategy meetings) and content creation (messaging documents, slide decks, 1 pagers, sometimes blog posts). I also joke a lot that I spent a lot of time being a philosopher because I spend a good amount of time thinking about whether one word or a sentence could be phrased differently to draw in more prospective customers. That's part of the fun to me; whether I can convince someone to buy our product (or at least check us out) in a handful of words.

Who do you collaborate with in meetings and projects? Cross-functional teams? What's it like?

I work most closely with Product + Sales, but also work with Customer Success (Support), Sales Operations, Design, and Sales Enablement. I'd say the team I work with the least are probably developers. Mentioned briefly above - I collaborate pretty heavily with other marketing functions like demand generation and content to coordinate product announcements/use cases/relaunches/launches.

If you're looking for a cross-functional role, product marketing managers and product managers seem to have the most overlap across departments.

 Dessert

Now for some juicy insights in the tea room.

What's the most challenging thing about your job?

The most challenging part about my job is also the part that's the most exciting - I have pretty vague goals with no clear path for how to get there. My goals right now are literally: "Grow customer base for this product line to X%" and "Support x% revenue growth for this product line".

Because there's no clear way to get there, I get the chance to test new things to figure out what works and doesn't - it also helps that I'm working on a pretty active product line and I love the excitement of feeling like I'm responsible for a good chunk of company success

What are some characteristics that can help someone succeed in your role?

In my role specifically - market knowledge + doing research in absence of marketing knowledge (both internal + external).

In every single role in a start-up - don't be afraid to make decisions and don't be afraid to be wrong. Most people out there have questions. A lot fewer people have the answers. Make the call.

Any advice on how to stand out and get hired for those just starting off?

Ping people on LinkedIn - likely hiring managers in the department or otherwise. Don't come in hot asking for a job; do a bit of research about the role and figure out what your competitive differentiator is as a candidate.

What's something that surprised you about your job?

How different it varies from company to company surprised me a bit when talking to others with similar roles in the industry.

Another thing that surprised me was how much I enjoyed it.

Any last thoughts, advice, or recommendations for someone who wants to do what you do?

You can most commonly get into product marketing via other marketing roles, sales engineering, or product management.

If you're reading this as an early grad in the first half of 2021, you're facing tremendous odds - it's a down economy that's just starting to open back up, and as a result, jobs are scarce. There's only one thing that's certain - you can't just make excuses. you have to always try to move forward.

 Drinks

Chat more over coffee or tea?