Podcast Interview: Why Marketing Podcast

A few months ago Rusty Pepper asked if I'd join the Why Marketing Podcast to talk about how I became a marketer, what I'm working on and much more. It was a fun experience. You can listen to the whole thing below on YouTube.

How to Make an Awesome Breakout Session at Your User Conference

As our team gears up for Zoomtopia 2018, I've been thinking a lot about what makes a great breakout session. I made a quick video of a condensed version of a training I did for our breakout speakers this year. This short video (7 min) should give you a few ideas to help you make a awesome breakout session from working on breakouts sessions at Salesforce, LinkedIn and now Zoom. Enjoy!

3 Easy Steps to Keep Your Marketing from becoming Fake News

As a marketer, I love a good stat. I think a lot of us do. That moment when you find a stat that perfectly aligns or gives credibility to some thought leadership you're creating is a magical moment.

Sadly, a lot of those magical moments quickly turn into disappointment. In an effort to find the source of many great stats, I'm led down a rabbit hole that ends in me realizing the stat is likely fake.

Below is a response I've gotten back recently from someone who wrote a great blog post with a stat that I would have liked to leverage, if it were legit. I've blurred out some details to protect this marketer's identity.

This probably happens ~75% of the time I reach out to someone trying to find the stat in their "great" piece of content marketing when the source is not clearly marked. I've even tracked down stats included an HBR article that were widely cited in our industry only to find out it was bogus.

Marketers, this can be easily prevented. If we want consumers to trust us, we need to step it up. As an industry we are a little too fast and loose when it comes to what we willingly spread. Here are a few simple steps you can take to not be the source, or even part of the problem.

1. Always link to the source
2. Don't have your source be another article with the stat, but with no source (most common issue)
3. Don't spread bad stats

Resist the urge, even if it makes a slam dunk case for your point or product. In the end it comes down to trust, while there is a large portion of the world that will blindly trust any stat out there, if we want to build trust with potential customers make sure anything you reference has a source.

How Product Marketers Can Make NPS Their Secret Weapon

Quick post here.

I recently spoke at the Product Marketing Summit on how product marketers can make NPS their secret weapon. It was published today, so I thought I'd share it on my blog.

You can see the presentation here.

How Product Marketers can Build a Competitive Intelligence Program

A big part of my job at Zoom has to build out a formal competitive intelligence program. I had done competitive work before, but this was my first time building a whole program from scratch. As I usually do, I consulted a few experts. Here are the three experts I spoke to that shared some great ideas that I was able to implement into my program. 

Ken Porter Director Competitive Intelligence at Adaptive Insights
Jason Smith CEO of Klue
Peter Mertens Product Marketing at Sprout Social

Below are a few tips for anyone else getting a program off the ground that I picked up for the people mentioned above and through my own experience.  

1. Have a one stop shop. This could be a wiki or google site, really does not matter, but what matters is consistency. Your company needs to know where to find the latest competitive information. I built a simple google site for our team at Zoom. This saves me a ton of time. Everything I create is on the wiki and everyone knows to look there first before asking me a competitive question.

2. Select your main competitors. Even if your industry is not large or competitive, it helps to focus in on the main competitors. In our industry there are literally 100's of different competitors, but only a handful really matter. It'll be hard to do a good job if you don't focus. Select main competitors you'll be up to speed on and let the team know that they'll be on their own for the rest. As you get more time and resources you can always expand your list, but it will be hard to build a good program if you're stretched to thin from the start.

3. No competitor bashing or feature wars. While a Product Marketer likely won't do this, assets you create can be used to do both. It's important that there is a training/sales enablement element to help the sales team deal with competitors. Otherwise, especially for new reps, it's too easy to go down those paths which will not help your company sell more. 

4. Automate how you stay on top of your competitors. As much as possible, try to make sure relevant information gets pushed to you about your competitors. Here is a list of my favorite methods. 

Google news alerts
Page monitor chrome extension
Klue
Feedly
Wayback machine

5. Other tools that help. Here is another list or tools/products that can help you with your competitive efforts. 

Glassdoor- When checking out the glassdoor of your competitors you might find some nuggets of good intel or at least some FUD. 

3rd Party Review Sites- Sites like G2crowd, TrustRadius and Gartner Peer Insights provide a ton of information on the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. New reviews are posted all the time. 

PointDrives- If you have LinkedIn Sales Navigator, use PointDrives to create public facing competitive assets. It will let you know who is looking at it and sending a customization web page will help prevent it from getting into the wrong hands. 

Salesforce- A few simple fields asking about which competitors were in the deal will help you do win/loss analysis and figure out where you might be able to help out your company from a competitive perspective. 

6. Tap into your company. Any Product Marketer that thinks they need to know more than anyone else about every competitor is in for a real challenge, but if you leverage the expertise in your company you're much more likely to have a successful program. Find the competitive experts on your sales, support or sales engineering team and build relationships with them. A lot of people like talking shop. Find ways to highlight their expertise to the rest of the company and they'll always be eager to work with you.
 
This is a work in progress, but hopefully give you a few ideas on how to build a competitive intelligence program as a Product Marketer.

Product Marketing Interview Case Questions

The inspiration for this post came from an answer I gave in Quora.

The most common type of case question I typically ask would involved a new product launch. I’d usually give them a few minutes to outline what they would be thinking about for a launch. This question is very helpful in gauging how much they understand our company and business. For example, at LinkedIn we have some unique ways to market and the sharpest candidates factored that into their GTM plans. It was also helpful is seeing if they have or could run a launch.

Another case question would be asking how you would figure out how to improve an existing product, or decide whether to build a new product. I'd give some parameters, a few clues about the product or market. This would be a question for a very product development product marketing role. 

What Is the Career Path for a Product Marketing Manager?

This post I wrote originally in a response to a question on Quora. 

General Manager, CMO or CEO are the most common. I’d also add that I’ve seen a fair number of Product Marketers leave the corporate world to become entrepreneurs. The kinds of people that are drawn to Product Marketing often have some of the same skills that will help them as an entrepreneur. Lastly, I’d just say it’s often such a fun, strategic and full of learning role, it can prepare you well in a lot of different career paths you choose. I know a former Product Marketer that became a press secretary for a presidential candidate! Choose your own adventure!

Product Marketing Panel: How to Prioritize When Everything Is Important

This will be a short one. Yesterday I spoke on a panel of Product Marketers trying to answer the question....How to Prioritize When Everything Is Important. It was a lot of fun, there were some great responses form the other panelists and great questions from the audience. Enjoy!

 

How to Prioritize When Everything Is Important

Why I'm Joining Zoom

I've got some big news. After 3+ years at LinkedIn I'm starting a new adventure at Zoom. I made a video to explain why I'm excited about Zoom.

A Product Marketer's Guide to Creating a Demo Video

The first of December last year my boss’s boss came up to me and said, “hey, I’d like a new demo video for our sales kick off in a few weeks, can you make one?.” I was very excited for the challenge and also terrified since the timeline was tight and included the Christmas holiday. Long story short is that I was able to pull it off and make a video that has been received well and I’m proud of. There were a few things I learned along the way that I thought I’d share.  

1. Get crystal clear goals and constraints. Know the exact timeline, exact budget and what you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t get started until it’s all mapped out. Reiterate the goals and constraints to everyone you talk to internally and externally, especially when the timelines are tight you need to reiterate over and over again to be able to move fast. Misunderstandings just slow you down.
2. Find inspiration. Look at as many example as possible. Decide which ones you like and which ones you don’t. Make stakeholders pick or rank their favorite ones out of a list you send them. An agency making your video will work best when you can give them a mashup and say something like “I want the style of this video, but the storyline of this one.”
3. Decide who gives feedback. One of the most challenging parts of the process can be managing everyone’s opinion. Decide who has the final word, then the other role people will play in the decision. Don’t have too many cooks in the kitchen.
4. Keep it short. No one watches long videos anymore. Don’t make it long, <90 seconds.
5. Let creative people be creative. If you’re using an agency, you are probably the domain expert, but lean on your agency when you need to. You don’t always have to tell them “how” to do something, but sometimes if you give them the “what”, they’ll figure out the how.
6. Show it to fresh eyes. Especially when you have your first version, show it to someone who is not involved in the process to get their reaction. If you’re too close to it, there will be so much you’ll miss. If you want your video to have broad appeal, show it to someone who is not in your industry or profession to really see if it’s simple.

Ok, let me tell you a bit about how this process went for me recently in the context of these tips.

1. The time was the big constraint, so when my executive wanted to do live action, after talking to the agency I just had to say NO. We just did not have enough time. Also, he made it clear the goal was for this to be exciting and pump up our sales team, but also to be used as a marketing asset throughout the year. He did not want a boring video. Those guidelines were our north star.

2. There were so many types of videos that I send him a few examples of the different varieties. This is the email I sent. It anchored the conversation in real world examples.

3. At LinkedIn we follow the RAPID framework and I had that mapped out and documented ahead of time. Not only that but there were some people we would usually get feedback from that we cut out of the process since they would slow it down.

4. This was hard for us. My executive kept wanted to include more and more pieces. We cut a lot and found a few creative ways to simplify the video. For example, instead of showing the Email, CRM and Mobile integrations, like he originally wanted, we just quickly mentioned they exist, which is what most people care about anyways. It saved us a ton of time.

5. There were some parts of the first draft that just did not work, but I did not have any idea, I went to the agency and they figured it out.

6. We were pretty happy with the video then we showed it to a bunch of fresh eyes and they said it was way too fast and they could not keep up. I also showed it to my wife and she said the same thing. We cut a bunch more, slowed it down until my executive’s kids got what we were trying to do.

So here it is....

Bottom line, it was a fun project and I learned a lot. A big thanks to Alchemy for helping me make the video.

Common Product Marketing Interview Questions

A few days ago someone asked me on Quora to answer the following question.

What are the typical case interview questions you get asked for a product marketing role at tech companies?

It got me thinking about some common Product Marketing Interview questions. I've interviewed a good number of product marketers during my time at LinkedIn. Here are a few common ones. 

1. Questions to see where your skill set really is within product marketing. It's hard to really understand what kind of product marketing someone has done until you start asking them questions. 

2. Questions to test your product and industry expertise. 

3. Questions to test your communication skills. I've said it often that your ability to communicate internally and externally is what makes or breaks a PMM.

4. Questions to test your strategic thinking. It's a very strategic position. If you click on the Quora link above I share one of my favorite case questions. 

Here are a few other good resources.

Product Marketing Interview Questions: 6 Questions You Need To Ask

Product Marketing Manager Interview Questions

Enjoy!

Key Skills for Successful Product Marketers

What are the key skills someone needs to be good a Product Marketer? I first asked that question when I was about 18 months into my first job out of college and was ready to figure out what my next role should be. I had started in a web analyst role, but figured out it was not for me. I was drawn to Product Marketing for a variety of reasons and started trying to figure out what it would take. I had the chance to sit down with a dozen or so Product Marketers I had worked with at my company and ask them that question. Fast forward a few years and I've now spent a number of years in Product Marketing and at a few different reputable tech companies. This is my personal take on....what it takes.

1. Strong communicator. This means you must be able to easily communicate in varied situations. You can easily switch your communication style to handle diverse groups like executives, engineers, marketers, designers etc. This includes the ability to be very diplomatic and very persuasive if the situation requires it.

2. Very collaborative. Product Marketers are often the liaison between product and the sales team, support team and maybe other groups. It's your job to make sure everyone is up to speed and the right people are involved. A collaborative mindset is a must!

3. Quick learner. One quarter you may be doing a in-depth research study, the next you might be training the sales team. Few product marketers do the same thing each quarter you must evolve as the business evolves. It's impossible to be a deep expert on all you will be asked to do, so you must learn fast.

4. See what others don't see. This could apply to seeing a feature that needs to be built, that others will need some convincing to make it happen. It might be a gap in the industry you can get your product to fill. It could be an emerging trend that you can use in your marketing. No matter what it is, you must always be looking and willing to make some bets. This includes having decent analytical chops for a marketer.

5. Presentation skills. When I first tried to get into Product Marketing through an internal transfer, I got rejected. The feedback I got was to boost my presentation skills. Product Marketers needs to be able to present in a compelling way. They are master storytellers that can get their ideas across to an executive, on stage in a keynote or to the sales team. If you dread or are a terrible presenter, it might no be the job for you.

I hope this helps, this is very slanted towards B2B software companies in the bay area, but hopefully you've found this helpful.

Book Summary: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout (Through a technology marketing perspective)

One of my favorite books is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. In the book, the main character goes on a journey and multiple times along the journey he stops and gets pretty comfortable in a certain location or job, but each time he gets comfortable he eventually proactively abandons the comfort and continues on his journey to achieve bigger and better things.

I really enjoy Product Marketing a lot. I think it’s great fit for my skill set, but I just changed roles to the LinkedIn Sales Solutions Marketing Communications team. I’m following the principles from the Alchemist, abandoning what’s comfortable in an effort to grow and challenge myself. As part of that process, I asked my new manager if she recommend any books to help me in my new role. She recommended the marketing classic Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. 

Here is a summary, notes and thoughts reading the book. My thoughts from a tech marketing perspective are in italics.

The authors make the point the society is over communicated. It’s harder than ever to change people’s mind, especially through a weak medium like advertising. The book was clearly written before the internet age, so it struck me that if it was a big problem when it was written, it’s a HUGE problem now.

Often, we look to the product for positioning, but in reality we should be thinking about what is already inside the prospect's mind. To succeed in positioning it’s got to be simple and related to what’s already in the customer’s mind or what they believe.

In positioning, there is huge first-mover advantage. In my opinion in technology, it’s not who is first, but the first to critical mass. Apple did not create the smartphone, but were the first to get critical mass. Facebook was not the first social network. Though, you might argue that MySpace had critical mass…..

It’s really hard to displace the leader who holds the number one position in the mind of the consumer. I think this is just as true in technology, it takes a long time or massively disruptive tech. Look at Microsoft. It is still the leader in so many categories, even with often inferior products.

If you’re going to do it, you must relate to the leader. The famous example is from Avis.

Typically, it’s a mistake to challenge the leader head on. Even Google with its almost infinite amount of money and brainpower could not take on Facebook head on with Google+.

Advice for market leaders
-Market leaders should not boast. This makes me think all of the chest pounding that happens after a Gartner Magic Quadrant or Forrester Wave comes out.

-Use a multi-brand strategy for new products. This is easier in a CPG company where the products are not related. At LinkedIn for example, we have products for recruiters, marketers and salespeople all built off the same social network, so it’s much harder to have a completely separate brand because they are all part of the same foundational network.
-Embrace new technologies. Duh.

Advice for followers
-Narrow your appeal. The first company that came to mind was Instagram, they only did pictures and that enabled them to not only compete, but eventually get bought by Facebook.

-Find a hole where you can be first. (Volkswagen “Think small” campaign”

Repositioning the competition
-Make people see the competitor in a different light. Salesforce did this effectively with the no-software campaign. It helped position Oracle as old and slow.

Naming
-Descriptive name is best. Zendesk is an interesting example. Alluding to a happy helpdesk.

-Names that will not limit expansion. The challenges of this I experienced first hand at Salesforce when I was marketing the Service Cloud. Company would say, I don’t need a sales product because of the name Salesforce. In hindsight we should have leaned exclusively on the product name instead of trying to leverage the company’s name.

-For non-product, names hard to oppose. “Clean Air Act”

-Don’t use initials for a name.

-Better to make a new name, then get a free ride on another brand. A brand can only occupy one position. This is challenge for us at LinkedIn.

Lastly, here are a few questions you should think about long and hard if you’re thinking of creating some new positioning.

What to our prospects already believe?

Am I a leader or follower? Be honest…

Where are the positioning gaps in our industry, what could we own?

Enjoy!

Here are two other summaries I found very helpful. One from QuickMBA and the other from Professor Mathur on Slideshare.

What Makes a Great Tech Product Marketer

A few months ago I was working on a product keynote for one of our events. I shared some of my ideas with my manager and the first thing she asked me was "What's the story?". This is not the first time she has asked me that question. In fact, I've noticed a pattern. Whether it's a product launch, an internal business case or a blog post, she pushes me and the rest of our team to incorporate a story into whatever we are doing. In my opinion, the ability to tell a compelling story is something that can make a tech Product Marketer great. This got me thinking about what else makes a great tech Product Marketer. I reached out to some leaders in tech Product Marketing to hear what they think and wanted to share their expertise with all of you. Whether you're a student considering Product Marketing as a career or a Product Marketer right now, I think you'll be inspired by what they have to say.

"A great product marketer is someone who can create a genuine “movement” around their product. Internally, they act as the product’s champion and work tirelessly to understand their market, and nail the product’s messaging, value prop and all other modalities to get stakeholder teams (product, sales, 

leadership) stoked up about going to market. 

Externally, they are the product’s ambassador—helping prospects envision a world where the product can truly make them a better version of themselves, and authentically channeling that success via the customer’s voice." 

Indy Sen, Google

“Product marketers adapt quickly and drive for results amidst ever changing tech organizations and industries. They empathize with the unique needs of their customers and address those needs throughout every stage of the customer journey.”

Kari Ann Sewell- Symantec

"A great product marketer stays close to the customer. Understanding how your customers use your product, learning their pain points, and what more they want from your offering informs great product strategy and marketing."

Corinne Roberts, Campaign Monitor

"A great product marketer is a skilled translator, synthesizer, and story-teller. Her goal in every activity - whether it's working with customers, writing content, or improving sales effectiveness - is to find the point where her product uniquely satisfies a potential customers' specific need. To do that, you must understand your product, your market, and your customers from multiple points of view.

Grant Shirk, Vera

"Great tech product marketers understand how technology can enhance the customer's life. Engineers often fall in love with their "babies" but great tech product marketers have the vision of what features will ultimately matter to the customer. They create the emotional connection between the product and the customer."

Gabriel Jaquier, Dell

"I don't know if I qualify as a great product marketer, but I do have one quality in abundance that I think any great one (tech or otherwise) should possess: Empathy. It's a product marketer's job to practice empathy, and then strategically and continually insert it into the development and GTM processes. This is equally important in cultivating a deep, nuanced understanding of customers and in applying to internal dynamics with eng, design, and product counterparts. Empathy is a key soft skill that will never let a product marketer down. (Word of caution, though: It must often be paired with data!)"

Omar Garriott, Salesforce.org

"We product marketers used to dub ourselves 'mini CEOs' of our products. While lifecycle ownership is indeed pertinent, the best product marketers position themselves as hubs, conduits and conductors. This is the only way to achieve velocity and quality at the same time. Conductors produce beautiful symphonies because they empower each section of the orchestra, not because they try and play every instrument themselves."

Justin Topliff, Infusionsoft

This post was originally published on LinkedIn

How to Make a Great Software Product Keynote

A few months ago I was tasked with putting together our product keynote for LinkedIn's Sales Connect 2015. We had a new head of product we wanted to introduce as well as highlight some brand new functionality. 

Now I must admit, as a marketer, I really like putting together keynote presentations. It's always a challenge, but very rewarding to see your work on stage. Our presentation went well, except for a potentially keynote destroying technical glitch that was overcome by supreme presentation skills by our head of product. If you want the full story on how a knock knock jokes saved the keynote check out this article.

I wish this post was a step by step guide to making a great product keynote, but that would probably be impossible. Instead, you're going to get a list of resources, a few ideas and some inspiring examples to get you going.

Here is what I recommend…. 

First find some inspiration. I searched the internet for keynotes that were awesome. Also, asked our head of product and designer to share keynotes they thought were great. Here are a few we liked. 

F8 2011 Keynote

Tesla Battery Announcement 

Why not Apple keynotes? I think at this point there has been enough talk about Apple keynotes, so I did not spend much time looking at them. 

Think about what you have to work with.  A few questions you should ask yourself.

1. What's the message I want to get across?

2. How much time can I work on this?

3. What resources do I have? (i.e. designer)

4. Who is the audience?

5. What time is it at? What state of mind will the audience be in?

Tell a story. In general, I think you should tell a story right out of the gate as well as make sure there is a strong story line through the entire presentation. The first story could help set up the pain your product is trying to solve. Then another good option is to have a story about the user of your product. Don't show a list of features, but tell a story that shows the features while highlighting what they are trying to accomplish. We attempted this in our keynote that inspired this post. It's by no means a perfect example, but you can see how we tried to weave story into it. 

Make it engaging. 

There are a lot of tricks of the trade, but if your presentation is more than a few minutes, you'll need to make an extra effort to keep the audience engaged. Half way through our presentation we presented some awards to our audience members to keep the energy high. I recommend reading "Your Perfect Presentation" by Bill Hoogterp for more ideas.  Also the own the room training by Blue Planet Training was very helpful in putting together the whole presentation. 

Practice. Practice. Practice. 

If you want it to be perfect, you need to practice it many times. In our keynote after the technical glitch our head of product picked up where he left off without skipping a beat. It was because he had done the entire presentation at least 20 times. 18 of those times was in-front of me, so I was able to provide feedback each time. Nothing gives you confidence like experience. 

I hope this posts gives you a few ideas. If you feel like I missed anything, add it in the comments!

What Does a B2B Technology Product Marketer do?

It depends.

OK, I’m going to help you out a little bit more than that, but I must clarify before you read on that every company does Product Marketing a little bit differently. In fact, within a team or group at LinkedIn Product Marketers can have drastically different responsibilities or priorities than other parts of the company. The best I can do is give you some of the key areas that Product Marketers tend to work on and some of the key tasks. Any of the areas below could be a small or large part of your job, so I recommend clarifying in your interview process. 

Product development.

• Determining if there is a market for a feature or product
• Outlining the product requirements
• Defining the messaging and positioning

Random Strategic Projects

• In my experience random important projects get thrown on the lap of Product Marketers because they are typically strategically minding and work very well cross functionally. 

Segmentation

• Work to understand your audience and customer, then implementing what you learned to improve your sales, marketing and product efforts. 

Market research

• Regular customer satisfaction surveys, like a quarterly NPS study
• One off research for new products, competitive analysis or segmentation of other strategic initiatives. 

Product/features launches

• Play quarterback to organize sales, PR, marketing, product and support for smooth and effective feature or product launches. 

Sales enablement.

• Product training at new hire orientation. 
• Answer the sales team’s product questions on going
• Training the sales team on new products or features as they come out
• Gathering product feedback from the sales team
• Communicating changes or updates to the product to the sales team

Competitive

• Understanding your competitors strengths, weaknesses and how to talk about them. 

Events

• Running or participating in customer events
• Participating in external events as a thought leader for your company or product

Thought leadership

• This could be writing all sorts of content, participating in webinars or being brought in during customer calls. 

From my anecdotal experience, Product Marketers have high job satisfaction. No day is the same. You get to be strategic, creative and analytical. If you think I missed anything, please add it to the comments.

How to Transition into Product Marketing

My first job out of college I was a online marketing web analyst. It was a great first job but after a year and a half I was ready to look for something else. At the company I worked for, internal transfers were encouraged. Naturally, I looked first at the different functions I interacted with every day. After working with Product Marketers, I always thought it seemed like a cool role. The role seemed strategic, analytical and creative. I liked the kinds of people that were in Product Marketing. Eventually, I was able to transition into a Product Marketing role, but it was no easy task. Below are a few tips I learned during my transition and from helping others make the move into Product marketing.

Make the transition at your current company. In my experience, companies are much more willing to bet on an internal employee transitioning into a new role, than an outside hire. It's no secret that recruiters are not incentivized to read between the lines. If you apply for a Product Marketing job at another company, you probably won't make it past the screeners, especially if you have no prior explicit Product Marketing experience.

Get to know every Product Marketer at your company that you can, at all levels. You want to have as many "lines in the water" as possible. Especially in large companies, the more Product Marketers you talk to, the more your name will come up when they are looking for new team members. While I do encourage you to talk to PMM hiring managers, lower level Product Marketer will often have a say in hiring decisions and even more importantly can have the ability to put in a good word that can mean the difference between getting an interview or not.

Succeed at your current job. A hiring manager I know was considering hiring an internal transfer, but after asking around about this person she learned that this person had a reputation of being hard to work with. If your reputation is not stellar or you're underperforming, you will be unsuccessful making the transition into a strategic, in demand role, because the hiring manager will always ask around.

Get your current manager to be your advocate.  This advice will help for trying to transition into any role, but it will go a long way if your manager and further up the chain think you're great and are willing to put in a good word for you.

Connect the dots on your relevant skills. In your resume, interviews, and casual chats with PMM's help them connect the dots on how your experience will help you succeed as a Product Marketer. This might mean highlighting transferable skills, spending more time talking about your work at a previous job or talking about a side project. I helped hire a Product Marketer from our sales team, that connected the dots by wisely positioning her popular food blog as an example of her marketing abilities.

Develop relevant skills. Pick up a side project at work. Help a friend's start up, or launch a blog. If you don't have any of the skills on a Product Marketing job description. Get busy!

Become a product expert. Product Marketers need to understand the product and the needs of the customers. Your position will be much stronger to make the transition if you are an expert in the product.

Be patient. The first time I tried to transition into a Product Marketing role, the hiring manager was a good friend and I was the company's expert on the product. I thought I was a shoo-in, but ended up getting beat out by someone with an MBA and more marketing experience. I was devastated. I almost quit. I called up a mentor and he told me to be patient. Sure enough, a few months later another role opened up and I got the job. Keep at it!

Hope this helps. If you are interested in other ways to get into Product Marketing other than transitioning within your company, check out my other post How to Get a Job in Product Marketing.

How to Get a Job in Product Marketing

My first job out of college was a entry level web analytics role in the online marketing group of Salesforce.com. My coworkers were amazing and the company was growing like crazy, but after a year or so I realized the role was not a great fit for me. I spent a few months shopping different roles all over the company. Through conversations with product marketers, and my own observations, it seemed that product marketing was where I wanted to be. I was drawn to it because you get to be strategic, creative, analytical and work on a variety of projects. After a few failed attempts, I was able to transfer into my dream role in product marketing.

Since I made the switch, I often get asked, "how do you get a job in product marketing?". To those of you that are thinking this might be a good fit for you in the future, I've mapped out a few of the common paths to a career in product marketing that I've observed in Silicon Valley.

Transferring within the company- It's not uncommon to get into product marketing from a different role within the company, just as I did. Most commonly this happens from within the marketing department, but I know several people that have come from roles as diverse as sales and PR.

Here is how David James, Director of Product Marketing at Lithium Technologies did it.

"My career started in the agency world of public relations and advertising. A technology client hired me to come "in-house" as a marketing generalist. Overnight, I traded working alongside creatives, account services and traffic to collaborating with engineers, product managers and database admins. And I loved it. Slowly, I discovered there was a huge need in marketing to tell a compelling story -- but still know the product inside and out. It was the perfect marriage of marketing creativity and technology know-how. 

Bottomline: If you're in product marketing (or want to get there), know your product/service inside and out. Meet with product managers. Become their friends. Have a seat at the PM table and be the voice of the customer." 

Going to business school- Product marketing is a popular post MBA job. Companies like HP, Intel, Adobe, LinkedIn and Google will take product marketing MBA interns for the summer. This can be a great way to get your foot in the door to a career in product marketing. Many of those same companies will often hire product marketing Managers right out of business school, even if they did not intern there.

Here is how Neal Armstrong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Symantec did it.

"I came into B-School from the finance industry with almost no marketing experience. To learn more about product marketing I found a class that allowed students to complete projects for local companies to earn class credits. There was a project focused on marketing with Adobe. My credits were already maxed, but I joined the project anyways. Throughout the project I found out more about how vital product marketing was to an organization. I expressed my interest in continuing my work as a summer intern. The Adobe employees I worked with on the project knew I was excited about working with Adobe and they personally recommended me. I had received other internship offers from large tech companies outside of product marketing for the summer. After our final project was presented, the team manager and I sat down and talked. At the end of our discussion, and with other offers in hand, I secured my dream internship and was able to continue my project as MBA Product Marketing intern." 

After some time in consulting- Lots of former consultants end up as Product Marketers, more often than not they had been consulting in a similar industry where they end of working. It's easier to get a product marketing job if you've established some domain expertise your future employer values.

Here is how Elizabeth Maples a Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn did it.

"I went back to get my MBA a few years ago, but I was one of those “nontraditional” applicants: I’d been working on the editorial side of book publishing, where I spent my time searching for new authors to put under contract, and then working with them to turn an early idea into a physical book (ah, the days of physical books!). Coming out of business school, I knew I eventually wanted to get into (non-physical!) media or technology, but still felt like I needed to build on the strategic and analytical skills I’d learned in school. Consulting was a phenomenal training ground—and gave me the chance to work at a number of big companies in the industry. With that experience, I was much better positioned for PMM positions (and I’m loving it now!).

Pro-tips: If you’re taking the consulting route, try to get on product strategy or marketing-related projects in your desired industry. Also look for places that have a history of hiring consultants into PMM roles; they’re most likely to see the parallels in the skill-set."

These are some of the well worn paths, but there is always the road less traveled by. I would love to hear in the comments some of the other ways people have found their way into Product Marketing.