STEP 1: WHAT ARE PRODUCT MARKETING JOBS ALL ABOUT?
- 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 iPhone.
- 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), 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 JOBS?
For each major activity, we’ve listed the most common keywords from across dozens of job descriptions, as well as a sample resume bullet:
- Understanding the marketplace and customers
- Keywords: market research, segmentation, targeting, surveys, interviews, competitive analysis, customer needs, pain points, customer feedback
- 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
- Keywords: cross-functional, insights, roadmap, voice of the customer
- 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
- Keywords: marketing strategy, branding, messaging, go-to-market (GTM) plan, positioning, value proposition
- 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
- Keywords: channels, marketing campaigns, content marketing, collateral, social media, case studies
- 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
- Keywords: A/B test, experimentation, product usage, data, SQL
- Sample Bullet: Ran experiment on homepage funnel, increasing lead generation 30% over existing flow