On Product Marketing
Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) are in demand, particularly at technical startups. This wasn’t always the case—for the past decade everyone was obsessed with finding a “growth hacker.” But now founders are reaching out to ask: Where do I find a good PMM? How technical do they need to be? How do I measure their work?
Here’s a recent query from an investor:
“One of our portfolio companies is hiring their first Product Marketer — they are a series A startup building blockchain infrastructure. They are very keen on hiring a technical PMM who has marketed to developers before. Obviously the pool there is not that big so it’s a trade-off. ... [S]hould they be flex[ible] and look at people with an enterprise background as well?”
Before getting into recommendations for finding the right PMM(s), I tell founders and investors they first need to understand how culture impacts the role.
How do companies define product marketing differently?
Marc Benioff has been known to say that “your biggest customers own your product roadmap.” Most of the (technical) founders I’ve worked for agreed more with Steve Jobs, who said, “Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”
The difference in philosophies impacts the role of the product marketing manager perhaps more than any other because marketing lies upstream of so many other external activities like PR and sales.
A company will experience all sorts of negative impacts downstream if a product is not well positioned, or sales materials are wrong, or website content lacks a compelling narrative, or the product and sales teams are reading from different scripts. Because of this, the product marketing role can be a single point of failure. So getting the right culture fit where trust is high among technical counterparts and information flows is extremely important.
A PMM at a sales-led company may be familiar with the world of technology, but they’re going to be an odd fit for a technical startup with an engineering-first culture. For example, a Salesforce PMM would probably be a great fit for a company like Box, but not for Dropbox.
It comes down to who they answered to and what they spent their time on: Did they spend most of their time creating sales materials and answering to the business team (as one would do at a sales-led company like Salesforce)? Or did they work with both sales and product teams to ensure a smooth flow of information across the organization (as one would at a product-led company like Dropbox)? If they were aligned to overall business goals rather than the specific goals of one department, that’s a sign that product marketing was an important function.
A product marketing manager should be technically minded enough to give developers confidence they can understand the product. And they should be excellent writers and storytellers, giving the sales team confidence that the company’s messages will resonate with customers.
Above all, they should understand the unique role of marketing in a product-led organization.
Where should startups look for product marketing talent?
I advise founders to start by looking at similarly sized startups in their specific sector and to see if they can poach someone. These candidates will have the best day-to-day experience for the role, and they’re likely to fit well in an engineering-first culture. This pool of candidates is incredibly shallow, though, while demand for them is only increasing.
Failing that, technical founders have three possible avenues.
First, they can train a technical person to take on a marketing role. This works well when coupled with a mentor who is a strong marketing leader.
Second, they can find a strong generalist—perhaps someone with a few years of consulting or investment banking experience who is familiar with the market and dying to get their foot in the door in Silicon Valley. If a generalist has some industry experience, a passion for your company’s mission, strong writing skills, and a desire to tell stories, chances are they’ll make a pretty good product marketing manager.
Third, founders can poach a marketer from an adjacent industry. Marketing managers of enterprise SaaS companies are in greater supply than other sectors—but be careful about finding the right culture fit.
What qualities should I look for when assessing product marketing candidates?
I have sourced and interviewed hundreds of product marketers, and hired and managed over a dozen PMMs at high-growth, product-centric startups. This is what I prioritize:
Intellectual horsepower—They need to ramp fast and can’t struggle with ambiguity. They need to have enough context and drive to work independently and also work well alongside the brightest in your org today.
Impeccable writing skills—“He codes, she sells… wtf do you bring to the table?” This person must raise the bar for messaging and positioning for the company. Their writing must be clean and error-free. This is critical for earning respect and credibility across the company.
Genuine interest in solving business problems—It’s OK if this person doesn’t see themselves as a marketer long term. But they must enjoy problem-solving and wearing many hats. They should be willing to jump in and do some demand gen-like things here, some content things there, and help onboard new marketing hires.
How should founders measure a product marketer’s performance?
Ultimately, founders should measure a product marketer by their ability to work effectively with product management. That is the key to a successful PMM, though it’s admittedly hard to measure (and technologists hate these types of immeasurable goals). The PMM needs to do whatever they can to get information flowing between the product team and the rest of the company, so the team can apply hard metrics on everything else.
I recommend assessing PMMs in two areas: 1) How are their relationships with technical counterparts? 2) Is information flowing? Are teams getting what they need to do their jobs? Are things running smoothly?
Beyond that, I advise startups to hold their head of marketing accountable to their main business metrics. When a company ties a PMM to narrow metrics like adoption rate, downloads, webinar attendees, or email open rates, the PMM tends to obsess over meeting those goals to the detriment of relationships with product managers who have their own competing priorities.
Eventually you’ll want to hire specialized marketing talent that you can hold to narrower marketing goals. Your product marketing manager won’t be an expert in paid acquisition or demand generation—you’ll hire for those roles later, if you need them.