I hosted over 50 one-to-one mentorship sessions during the last year. One of the top questions is how to break into product marketing when coming from different career backgrounds.
First: if you’re struggling to make this transition, you’re not alone! All the challenges are solvable when the right direction is there.
So, if you’re strategizing about new career endeavors now, embrace the right mindset and approach to make the journey exciting.
Having been both a hiring manager and a candidate, I’ll gladly share my insights so far. So, if you’re looking for a career change, read on.
Position yourself as a product
If you’re embarking on the path of becoming a full-time product marketer, you probably know the basics already:
- Analyze the market and competition.
- Highlight your value proposition and your assets.
- Look for an employer ideal customer profile (ICP) that’d resonate with your skills (and story).
- Create your recruitment go-to-market strategy.
- Be consistent with your launches and thoughtful about the audience getting them.
- Iterate and improve till getting the traction you need.
PMMs’ product positioning may be on point – however, that’s not always the case when it comes to positioning themselves, either inside the company or when looking for a new job.
Indeed, according to Emily Wengel, Sr Product Marketing Manager at Origami Risk for the 2024 State of Product Marketing report,
“One of the biggest difficulties in product marketing is actually getting other stakeholders to understand what product marketing is and the value you can add. It’s very important to internally educate groups on what you do as well as how you can work together. This requires proactive communication and relationship building across product, sales, and other teams.”
Analyze your skillset, identify the gaps
What helps is to adopt a mentality where the job search is just an experiment – the more iterations, the smoother the results that bring desired outcomes.
Another tactic is to treat yourself as a product that needs thoughtful research and creativity to reach the desired ICP. This is what’s recommended to complete the assessment of your skillset:
- Look for multiple job openings that resonate with you.
- Study the job descriptions, and look for keywords that highlight the needed skills and experience.
- Analyze if your previous experience matches the skills required.
Pro tip: Having the title ‘Product Marketing Manager’ on your resume isn’t a prerequisite for excelling in this role.
Many professionals possess the relevant skills and experience, even if they’ve never held that exact position. That’s why you need to analyze your experience holistically. Here are the starting points based on your previous background:
Marketing and design
No matter if you come from brand, content, or user acquisition/PPC, you’re in a good place. Think about how your work correlated with the company’s strategy and how your assets influenced results.
Tested copy in ads that resonated with ICP better and increased qualified signups? Created a collateral blog post that increased new client adoption or demos booked? Know how to deliver an engaging story to any persona?
These are all important to be effective as a PMM and think strategically about product marketing.
Sales, account executives, customer success
Your main asset is that you know everything about the customers. You know their pains and gains, why they prefer you over a competitor (or vice versa), you know what value propositions resonate with the ICP, and you’re aware of the difference between an ICP and a non-qualified lead.
You may even have used or requested collateral to help you establish a meaningful relationship with a client. So, it’s likely that you’ll be perfect not only in sales enablement but all the other responsibilities of PMMs as well!
Colin Hakeman
Product, UX writing, UX research, analytics
You may have collaborated with PMMs on the other side of the spectrum – know when their take was lacking during roadmap prioritization? Missed the customer voice when estimating the business outcomes of a new feature? Or, had an amazing collaboration with them when planning a new product launch or GTM strategy?
If you’re passionate about adding a creative side to match the product with ICP, you may have all the right skills.
Emily Pathmajeyan
Technical roles
Sometimes, switches may not be so obvious, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t happen. After all, you’re in the driver’s seat.
It’s likely that you can analyze the market and competition to the bones, know all the frameworks on how to calculate TAM, SAM, and SOM, have a deep understanding of databases, and may use it to optimize customer feedback, or have faced the moments of a new feature being used very differently from the expectation.
I assume that you may enjoy working on release notes, competitive intelligence functions, or explaining the benefits of a highly technical product to its audience – you may be a perfect fit then!
Other roles
Teacher? Store manager? Showrunner? It almost doesn’t matter which position you’ve held before. What matters is your industry knowledge and ability to gain the necessary skills and vision of a product marketer.
So, your task is to assess what you may have done already that would fit well in a product marketing world.
Get experience and/or knowledge to advance your product marketing skills and understanding. One of the greatest sources to get a foundation skillset is the Product Marketing Certified: Core course.
Practice your knowledge in a real-life experience and consider getting a mentor who will help you to progress faster.
Analyze the job market and the competition – try talking to people who work at the companies you’d like to work with, or connect with people who’ve recently taken on the role of PMM and ask about their strategy.
By taking this kind of holistic approach, you’ve already conducted a substantial research part of your GTM strategy as a candidate!
Iterate on your strategy to become a PMM
Now it’s time to move to the next stage, which may often include beta testing before the public launch date. There are several strategies based on the steps described above.
If I had to sum them up, they would be about getting more practical experience, choosing the appropriate job opening, and positioning yourself right for it – or both.
Here are some ideas on what you can do to secure the dream job:
Shadow PMMs or complete PMM-related projects
If you’re currently employed, you might want to start shadowing other PMMs or complete PMM-related projects.
This may lead to getting a part-time capacity in product marketing, or being on the list of candidates when a new PMM job opens up at your company.
Keep creating impact and value in your current role, and then discuss a transition with your manager! If you’re vocal about your ambitions and your company needs a product marketer, chances are, they’ll give you the green light.
Start your own pet project
The alternative is to start your own pet project (careful: you may want to find a team and go full-time doing that).
Or, maybe a friend of yours just founded a startup? Help them to understand the market, define an ICP, differentiate among the competition, or be smart about pricing.
Be proud of your expertise
Understanding the industry, market, competition, and clients is super important to PMMs. That’s why if you consider your previous experience irrelevant, nobody else will: you may need to rethink your unique value and refine your candidate story.
Pro tip: find a mentor. You’ll get a view from the outside, someone who’ll highlight your strengths, and help you to be smart about selecting profiles of the companies you’re applying to. As a bonus, boosting self-confidence in your story resonates with the hiring committee.
Become an intern
Do an internship – the most straightforward way to get a proven practical PMM experience!
The only concern here is availability. There are a few entry-level PMM jobs, including internships and junior product marketing roles. So, being on the lookout is always recommended, but don’t rely purely on this strategy – give the others a try too.
Analyze your fit to the current job market
The execution stage and actual job search should also involve analyzing your fit to the current job market, highlighting relevant job openings based on your search criteria and the value proposition you can deliver.
Then position yourself accordingly through a CV and cover letter, job interview practice, and potentially creating the assets as a PMM.
A great example is how Marta Puerto approached her job search:
In the video, she says that she submitted countless applications that led to nothing, but with this, she is in the driver’s seat, and getting an interview became easier. She also updated on the outcome of this – she got the job she’s excited about, 30k followers, and almost 150k likes.
Should you do the same? No, not necessarily – but being creative in your job search and applying your skills always helps to stand out in a competition.
Other approaches include but are not limited to:
- Portfolios with samples of work.
- Creating your own website.
- Public presence (blog, Linkedin, webinars, etc).
- Virtual and in-person meetups.
- Doing your own job search group and sharing the insights publicly.
Have other ideas and great examples? Please share!
Don’t stop, your perfect opportunity is looking for you too
Embrace iterative learning. Rejections are an essential part of your job search. You may choose to make them matter to you because of the learning experience, or not matter because ultimately you only need one “yes” from your dream job.
Wait for it and keep iterating! What will make this part shorter is:
- Asking the right questions: where is the highest dropoff in your funnel? Should you improve your CV, or hiring manager interview approach?
- Asking for feedback about your performance/interview perception, and then adjusting your strategy accordingly.
- Looking for a mentor who’d empower you in this experience.
- Staying positive and not questioning your self-worth.
- Potentially iterating on your search criteria.
- Having a peer or group of peers who’d support you and share new ideas on how to progress.
Also, remember that it’s okay to pause and reflect on your experience. This time to reflect adds value when understanding how you feel about the current result and how you can move further using the insights and feedback you have.
Find your community and build a network
The last sections illustrate that it’s so much easier to navigate the transition when surrounded by people. You can learn from them, get support, network, gather recommendations, and be your best and worst self.
So learn to ask for help, be open about your requests, and practice gratitude. Find, revive, and extend your network.
Seek out genuine conversations (with classmates you never thought you’d get in touch with?). Hit up networking events and conferences. Interact with your favorite influencers in the field.
Here’s the tip from Yi Lin Pey, PMM Career and Leadership Coach:
“Cultivate relationships before you need them.
“If you’re only ever asking for favors without offering help in return, you’ll find it challenging to receive assistance when needed. To increase the likelihood of a positive response, invest in relationships and consistently add value to others’ lives.
“Don’t wait until you require something to lend a hand; practice reciprocity and treat others as you wish to be treated.”
There are many ways to find great connections that may be empowering to you or be a chance for you to empower someone in the future.
(Indeed – actually, finding your community is one of the main insights from the Product Marketing Alliance Diversity series in London, well said by PMA Ambassador Amit Alagh, so passing his wisdom here!).
To sum it up
Transitioning into product marketing from another career is achievable and rewarding (but may also be challenging).
Each step is the journey alone, but when you both follow your GTM strategy and also think out of the box sometimes, you’ll get closer to securing a fulfilling role as a product marketing manager.
Remember, persistence and a proactive approach are key to unlocking your new career path. Best of luck!
Get Product Marketing Certified
Want to move into product marketing but don’t have the experience or qualifications? Already in product marketing and want to level up? We’ve got your back.
With the Product Marketing Certified: Core course, you’ll grasp the what, why, and how of every aspect of product marketing – and that’s a promise. From pricing, market research, and OKRs to personas, positioning, and go-to-market, PMMC has it all.