3 Skills Every Product Marketer Needs to Succeed
Product Marketing is the center of any business and its core function is to craft the key message that resonates with a specific target audience. Now, the Product Marketing Manager does not work alone to reach this goal, making it one of the most cross functional roles within a marketing organization. Between sales, engineering, product, and marketing, every single day is different and new projects come up all the time. Priorities and different groups are always fighting for attention, making your job one of the most exciting. However, if you’re in Product Marketing it is likely that you already knew that. It takes a certain type of person to be in this role. Recently I joined a group called “Product Marketing Alliance” and they have a great community of people, just like us. As hard as it has been during COVID wth not being able to network in person or attend conferences, the PMA slack channel makes it easy to network with other PMMs, ask questions and uncover new resources. It is a great tool and community, I highly recommend. After being a few months into my Product Marketing role and learning more, I wanted to reflect on the some of my key learnings. There are three key skills I recommend every PMM to master.
1.Organization
You must be thinking of all the skills, how can organization be number 1? Quite a few times throughout my career I have seen many failures take place due to lack of organization. Often, things come in a day late, get finished last minute, gets pushed to the side, but when does it start to make a difference for the worst? Being able to remember the details, dates, and assignments but keeping notes, filing email and writing lists will differentiate you from the pack. Your boss and teammates will thank you. Take the time to get your head in game and learn who is working on what.
2. Tactical Persistence
As a Product Marketing Manager, you can usually find yourself having to be the one who keeps the train on the tracks when it comes to deadlines. Unfortunately, your voice may not be strong enough to beat competing priorities, so you must ask. Ask again, and again. This can be frustrating to deal with and it can also disrupt your tasks, but you must be persistent. Continue to show your value and let your voice be heard. Drive projects forward and stay true to your deadlines. However, I say tactical because that is what I mean. Don’t be annoying, be smart. Connect with key players, be clear on your intention and get it done. Someone must do it, and that’s you!
3. Relationship Building
So much of Product Marketing is requires a lot of working with people and building key relationships in your organization to successfully achieve goals in a timely manner. Some may even call this being extroverted, but really, PMMs must be ready to make the first move and initiate the conversations. When joining a new organization, this can often be one of the hardest parts. When you first join, there is so much to learn, and you must work hard to show your value. By making the first move, you will be able to show the team that you are ready to work and learn, and that is always appreciated. Enthusiasm goes quite a long way.
As Product Marketers, we are learning every single day. Now get out there and put these skills to work!
