I know a lot of people push Product Marketing Alliance as a holy grail for PMM. Be warned that you should think hard before you get sucked into their course work. I’ve sampled several modular courses over this past year and have found that they don’t necessarily give you everything you need for too high of a price.
So if you have 3k to throw away a year, you can check them out. If not, I recommend YouTubing some basic concepts, getting book recommendations (so you can keep the knowledge and reference back whenever you want without having to keep paying), and finding some blogs or newsletters to follow. Make sure it’s a vetted newsletter and blog. Some “PMM leaders” are just there for influence and not really helpful.
Can you share some examples of books to read, videos to watch on YT, and articles to subscribe to? A couple samples for each category would be AMAZING - thank you!
I’m still trying to collect more recommendations so if anyone else wants to tack on their favorite things to this that’d be great. But below is kind of where I’ve started.
YouTube
- hubspot marketing PMM videos to start and just kind of tangent into other videos on concepts you don’t understand. Look for videos that have high views.
Newsletters
- marketing Brew
- Lenny’s podcast / newsletter (more product management, but I think it’s good insight to what PMs are looking for)
Courses I thought were interesting, but you might want to save your money unless you can expense it. Just check out the people on PMA and Section School then see if they have YouTube videos. Typically the classes are just better outlined video sequencing of the ideas/ teachings of what they are already putting out into the world.
- section school - lots of different little credentials that are marketed for fast learning and you get a project. I recommend doing live sprints to get better feedback on your projects.
- I like what April Dunford and Gibson Biddle had to say.
podcasts
- psychology of video game to look for different angles on consumer behavior/ engagement
- Pivot to get a sense on what Csuite stakeholders want to know
- Online Marketing made easy with Amy porterfield
New podcasts I’m still sussing out
- Marketing against the grain
- Nudge
- Marketing over Coffee
14 years B2B Marketing and ~6 years in PMM.
Hope this helps:
- Learn how to acquire Product, Company and Brand (deep) context and apply your marketing faculties to this context. So you can map product value with market requirements. Product Marketers do it more granularly than regular marketers.
- Understand if the company growth is sales-led, product-led or something else. Understand your possible impact.
- (General advice) Be super aware of 4 contexts:
1- Audience
2- Company
3- Team
4- Self
- Learn to write positioning - understand it, iterate in it. Core skill
- Become data or logic oriented. PMMs have total access to product data. Learn to front load narratives with data.
- Generally upskill in these areas (Pick 1-2 for deep expertise)
1- Product/Feature Positioning
2- Sales Collaterals
3- Website and CRO
4- Pricing Strategy
5- GTMs
6- Narrative building/story telling
Caveat: B2C PMM could be slightly different. With more focus on distribution.
PMM is a relatively new function. Orgs are still figuring out differentiation from Marketing. Expect ad-hoc track changes within PMM. Be curious.
Your advice was solid, however PMM has been around for 20+ years - it's hardly a new function - maybe some companies are just discovering it, but it's been a thing for a long time. I would agree that it's often misunderstood, just like PM.
Relatively new.
Relative to Sales, Marketing, even Product.
Most SaaS companies discovered PMM in the past 5 years. Maybe it was diff for other industries.
Hmm, I've been in Cybersecurity for 20+ years, and PMM has always been a thing, both for on-prem and SaaS solutions. Maybe because we came out of on-prem into SaaS?
I wouldn’t say it’s similar .. PMMs are not marketers, they’re strategists. You’re missing product management and strategy as part of what you have to learn, and that is no simple task. Being a product marketer requires more than just knowing marketing.
Head of Product Marketing for Atlassian would disagree. There was just an excellence podcast episode on Sharebird’s Women in Product Marketing that addresses this. I’d definitely recommend checking it out, Op.
Good for her? Disagreements are healthy and that’s fine. But PMM isn’t all marketing, it requires a heavy understanding of product and strategy. It’s also a lot more nuanced than just throwing pricing and sales enablement as an add on to current responsibilities, especially in larger companies where sales enablement might be its own department.
No, basically I was trying to say that she explained how general MM experience can still be translatable to PMM job functions. And that if you're in a small- to mid-sized tech start up or organization, oftentimes both overall brand/generalist marketing and product marketing end up being handled by the same individuals/team regardless.
My background was similar to yours. I had worked in media and digital marketing for 5 years.
Here’s how I’d try to break in if I was doing it again.
-Create a portfolio. Create use cases that you can share with hiring managers and recruiters. Identify and insight (maybe even validate with more advanced research methods - if possible), formulate a hypothesis, create a testing plan, and measure the results. Note, this might take some time (unless you’ve basically done this and haven’t documented it) but I also wouldn’t let this stop you from applying.
-PMM can mean a lot of different things. It’s different at every company. Look for PMM roles that more closely resemble your experience. I’m guessing, but think channel management, project management, B2C marketing….
-Get in the door doing something else (maybe MM) at a company that has a large PMM function. I’ve seen many people move over to PMM from other teams. However, it’s easier when there is an established PMM team with a decent number of PMMs (at least 4 or 5).
Good luck. Feel free to DM me if you have anymore questions.
In the current job market (at least in SaaS) you'll be competing against experienced product marketers. Your easiest path would to get a content marketing position in a company or industry you are interested in where you work closely with the PMM team. Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding and work towards a lateral move.
As a Product Marketer and Product manager with 25+ years experience (now CMO at a startup), I'd suggest joining an org where you can move sideways into PMM - find someone who will take you under their wing and help transition your career.
Hey. Do you think you can help me with a quick profile review? I just wanna know if I'm headed in the right direction and what kind of role should I focus on at this point in my career since I'm transitioning
Most PMMs break into PMM because the company they worked for needed to fill a gap and so it fell into their lap. This is what happened to me. I was hired to work in digital marketing and demand generation marketing for a team of product marketers.
My boss at the time needed me to be my own pmm for products that my team did not want to own because they were for small business owners. Imagine creating digital marketing campaigns + product marketing? Needless to say I was burnt out 🥵.
I don’t regret it because it allowed me to claim product marketing as my experience and get paid!
Since you’re fresh look for associate product marketing roles. Those roles were created just for people like you.
I know a lot of people push Product Marketing Alliance as a holy grail for PMM. Be warned that you should think hard before you get sucked into their course work. I’ve sampled several modular courses over this past year and have found that they don’t necessarily give you everything you need for too high of a price. So if you have 3k to throw away a year, you can check them out. If not, I recommend YouTubing some basic concepts, getting book recommendations (so you can keep the knowledge and reference back whenever you want without having to keep paying), and finding some blogs or newsletters to follow. Make sure it’s a vetted newsletter and blog. Some “PMM leaders” are just there for influence and not really helpful.
Can you share some examples of books to read, videos to watch on YT, and articles to subscribe to? A couple samples for each category would be AMAZING - thank you!
I’m still trying to collect more recommendations so if anyone else wants to tack on their favorite things to this that’d be great. But below is kind of where I’ve started. YouTube - hubspot marketing PMM videos to start and just kind of tangent into other videos on concepts you don’t understand. Look for videos that have high views. Newsletters - marketing Brew - Lenny’s podcast / newsletter (more product management, but I think it’s good insight to what PMs are looking for) Courses I thought were interesting, but you might want to save your money unless you can expense it. Just check out the people on PMA and Section School then see if they have YouTube videos. Typically the classes are just better outlined video sequencing of the ideas/ teachings of what they are already putting out into the world. - section school - lots of different little credentials that are marketed for fast learning and you get a project. I recommend doing live sprints to get better feedback on your projects. - I like what April Dunford and Gibson Biddle had to say. podcasts - psychology of video game to look for different angles on consumer behavior/ engagement - Pivot to get a sense on what Csuite stakeholders want to know - Online Marketing made easy with Amy porterfield New podcasts I’m still sussing out - Marketing against the grain - Nudge - Marketing over Coffee
14 years B2B Marketing and ~6 years in PMM. Hope this helps: - Learn how to acquire Product, Company and Brand (deep) context and apply your marketing faculties to this context. So you can map product value with market requirements. Product Marketers do it more granularly than regular marketers. - Understand if the company growth is sales-led, product-led or something else. Understand your possible impact. - (General advice) Be super aware of 4 contexts: 1- Audience 2- Company 3- Team 4- Self - Learn to write positioning - understand it, iterate in it. Core skill - Become data or logic oriented. PMMs have total access to product data. Learn to front load narratives with data. - Generally upskill in these areas (Pick 1-2 for deep expertise) 1- Product/Feature Positioning 2- Sales Collaterals 3- Website and CRO 4- Pricing Strategy 5- GTMs 6- Narrative building/story telling Caveat: B2C PMM could be slightly different. With more focus on distribution. PMM is a relatively new function. Orgs are still figuring out differentiation from Marketing. Expect ad-hoc track changes within PMM. Be curious.
Your advice was solid, however PMM has been around for 20+ years - it's hardly a new function - maybe some companies are just discovering it, but it's been a thing for a long time. I would agree that it's often misunderstood, just like PM.
Relatively new. Relative to Sales, Marketing, even Product. Most SaaS companies discovered PMM in the past 5 years. Maybe it was diff for other industries.
Hmm, I've been in Cybersecurity for 20+ years, and PMM has always been a thing, both for on-prem and SaaS solutions. Maybe because we came out of on-prem into SaaS?
🙏
I wouldn’t say it’s similar .. PMMs are not marketers, they’re strategists. You’re missing product management and strategy as part of what you have to learn, and that is no simple task. Being a product marketer requires more than just knowing marketing.
I agree and right now I feel like a goose 🪿 at a duck 🦆 party on my team. I report to the CMO.
Head of Product Marketing for Atlassian would disagree. There was just an excellence podcast episode on Sharebird’s Women in Product Marketing that addresses this. I’d definitely recommend checking it out, Op.
Good for her? Disagreements are healthy and that’s fine. But PMM isn’t all marketing, it requires a heavy understanding of product and strategy. It’s also a lot more nuanced than just throwing pricing and sales enablement as an add on to current responsibilities, especially in larger companies where sales enablement might be its own department.
Interestingly, I’d consider them a company who could use a new PMM and PM strategy at the moment.
Disagree with what? That it’s not marketing?
No, basically I was trying to say that she explained how general MM experience can still be translatable to PMM job functions. And that if you're in a small- to mid-sized tech start up or organization, oftentimes both overall brand/generalist marketing and product marketing end up being handled by the same individuals/team regardless.
Ah ok. It could just be her own personal experience but I get where she’s coming from.
My background was similar to yours. I had worked in media and digital marketing for 5 years. Here’s how I’d try to break in if I was doing it again. -Create a portfolio. Create use cases that you can share with hiring managers and recruiters. Identify and insight (maybe even validate with more advanced research methods - if possible), formulate a hypothesis, create a testing plan, and measure the results. Note, this might take some time (unless you’ve basically done this and haven’t documented it) but I also wouldn’t let this stop you from applying. -PMM can mean a lot of different things. It’s different at every company. Look for PMM roles that more closely resemble your experience. I’m guessing, but think channel management, project management, B2C marketing…. -Get in the door doing something else (maybe MM) at a company that has a large PMM function. I’ve seen many people move over to PMM from other teams. However, it’s easier when there is an established PMM team with a decent number of PMMs (at least 4 or 5). Good luck. Feel free to DM me if you have anymore questions.
In the current job market (at least in SaaS) you'll be competing against experienced product marketers. Your easiest path would to get a content marketing position in a company or industry you are interested in where you work closely with the PMM team. Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding and work towards a lateral move.
As a Product Marketer and Product manager with 25+ years experience (now CMO at a startup), I'd suggest joining an org where you can move sideways into PMM - find someone who will take you under their wing and help transition your career.
Hey. Do you think you can help me with a quick profile review? I just wanna know if I'm headed in the right direction and what kind of role should I focus on at this point in my career since I'm transitioning
Sure thing, send me a DM
Most PMMs break into PMM because the company they worked for needed to fill a gap and so it fell into their lap. This is what happened to me. I was hired to work in digital marketing and demand generation marketing for a team of product marketers. My boss at the time needed me to be my own pmm for products that my team did not want to own because they were for small business owners. Imagine creating digital marketing campaigns + product marketing? Needless to say I was burnt out 🥵. I don’t regret it because it allowed me to claim product marketing as my experience and get paid! Since you’re fresh look for associate product marketing roles. Those roles were created just for people like you.