How to become a product marketing manager reddit Traditional Marketing (TV Media Buyer) -> Digital Media Buyer (Display Ad Networks) -> Ad Operations (Pub Side) -> Social User Acquisition (Facebook) -> Digital Marketing Manager (all forms of digital media) -> Sr Digital Marketing Manager -> Growth Product Manager -> Lead PM for a startup -> Sr Product Manager (currently) However, my experience has proven me wrong. I started with a product marketing role, and fortunately for the amazing manager that I had, I got my ways into looking at product holistically—thinking about features, the UX flows, customer support (I liked handling live chats and taking support calls). If product marketing is for you… As others have said, take on more key product marketing activities in your role. Quick edit, there’s also a product marketing subreddit! After the 2 years, i was in CSM for a year, and then hired as the product manager, as I had gotten more knowledge from both the technical side and business side of our company and product. I think certifications are not needed at all. I was a business analyst at a firm that had a very strict definition of Product Manager, which was reserved for non digital ppl who oversaw specific financial products. ) but still work closely with product teams at Did that for about 3 years before I was internally recruited to come to marketing as an Associate Product Marketing Manager. The first subthread is a bulletpoint list featuring 9 lessons learned after 10 years as a product manager. Product Managers are lucky people! Because you don’t need a project or courses to start it. In about 7 years with 2 companies. Engineering has certain common lenses of analysis the same way that a liberal arts degree teaches you certain ways to think about things. A good content creator is very valuable to me. I have a varied experience in product management, product marketing and software development. I've been trying to find an opportunity to move into a product manager role since 2015. Why pay 200k to become a product manager? Someone please explain this to me. I got in through an internship with my MBA program. Weekly Review, Monthly Review, syncs with stakeholders (Design, Analytics, ML, Ops, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Eng, etc. 4. It stands out from the average Reddit subthread because it’s long, well structured (the Therefore, I encourage anyone trying to break into PM to optimize getting that first "product manager" job title. digital marketing internships for startups/small business and even a project manager job in construction industry. You may know me from such reddit posts as: The Big Marketing FAQ You Didn't Know You Needed, How To: Questions to Ask In a Marketing Job Interview, How to Get Marketing Experience Before You Graduate, Three Simple Things My First Boss Taught Me - Which Impacted My Entire Career, and of course Things I wish someone told me when I was in college. The Product Manager Career Path. Some could be disguised as general marketing managers focused on a single product because the company portfolio is so large. Account representative > account manager > product marketing manager > marketing manager > corporate marketing manager > senior marketing manager > director of marketing That’s my story anyway. I was looking for UX Research internships but don't see any. All the product roles vary between companies. It sounds like you want a marketing or sales or user research job, not a product management job. It’s not as simple as experience>education, since experience+education>experience. Also, I’d say MBAs are not needed as well if you have a technical background. ) It’s called product marketing because the role was branched out from overworked product managers. I don't necessarily hate what I do, just the company and the particular job. Operations will help you become a Subject Matter expert on your area of the company along with, possibly, some leadership, networks, and project management. Is it possible within 3-4 years to be a product manager at a large company ? Hi r/marketing. You can take any of product (app or whatever) and do decompose, roadmap, marketing and other pm thinks. Source - I’m a pmm at a series A startup. Originally hired as Head for a marketing discipline. Product Manager positions. Dec 16, 2024 · Key skills of a certified product manager. I believe both Google and Facebook have RPM programs. 3. That’s why Product Manager job is a pipe dream of many people That’s also why it’s so hard to break into product management — no startup founder wants to put the fate of a product, the very essence of their business, in the hands of a The corruption of product manager/ product owner roles leaves a strategic vacuum which many are now filling with product marketing managers. A typical product manager career path might follow this I went on to work as a customer success manager for 3 years, and now I’m currently a sales operations analyst(big mistake). Since then, I’ve spent the last 5-6 years in Product Marketing, and most recently moved to a Director of Product Marketing for a product/market vertical. Recently I got an opportunity to become a Telecom Product Manager for a smaller regional telecommunications company. Knowledge of the agile manifesto will undoubtedly help you on the way, but will not make you a product manager. Every MBA graduate who joins aims to become a Principal Product Manager within a few years. Usually a shared resource model within the corporate marketing Aug 3, 2023 · Now we know what product management is and what it takes to become a successful product manager, let’s lay out the concrete steps you can follow to break into this exciting field. I have been doing Product management involving AIMl for about 5/6 years. So far I'm applying / building skills for product management and customer success internships. Boom product marketing. A entry product at big tech after 6-12 months can be ordering or leading initiatives for multiple tenure engineering teams. I got promoted to product manager because the company went through a 'reorg' and I ended up having a new role. I am in the process of looking for Sr. Build a network within the product marketing group – connect with people in the role you want to move into, ask questions about what they do, and express Product marketing is a niche area of marketing, it is not common to get into product marketing at an entry level, straight out of college. If you're part of a huge team, maybe you're not as valuable as PMs working at smaller businesses. Product Manager. Social media, ad copy, email marketing, seo, sem, ott marketing etc. At my last company a PMM was essentially a marketing manager for a specific target audience/industry for the product (it was a tech company target multiple industries) they came up with the strategy for the year, managed the budget, briefed everything in to the different channel owners, basically oversaw and decided on I took a product management course through the Stanford Extension and found it valuable. I work 9. At that point I worked there for 6 months before getting a technical project manager role with a fintech company. I absolutely hate being an analyst. I always felt that CPG Brand Management and Tech Product Marketing were the two sweetest spots outside of some strategy LDP for a company like Corning. Within a mid-large sized org, joining teams that work intimately with product management make the transition to a product role relatively easier. Each organisation is its own beast and you just UK-based PM here. Most companies have PMM roles as the most "entry level" product marketing role which requires 3-5 years experience. What branch of marketing are you interested in? There’s demand gen/growth marketing, brand marketing, product marketing, and then sub categories like marketing automation, marketing analytics, social media marketing, paid advertising, content marketing etc. A good PM is engineering the product and the organization that produces the product. Product Management is a lot, and I repeat a lot of documentation. I'm looking to be a Product marketing manager by my mid 30's. Naw fr tho, product marketing is just growth marketing but more narrowly focused on positioning. A marketing manager may mean you're the one person doing everything for a small company. Recently, I’ve been talking to my boss about progressing to a Product Manager, and we’ve Yes the role being different from company to company is a huge one for me. How to do this: Working part time within the product marketing dept…coordinate with us to help out with certain projects or allocate a certain number of hours/week to get product marketing experience. Bang on. Every company uses the definition of Product Marketing Managers differently. As a marketing strategist, I was sometimes part of the team deciding to hire and pay people in marketing. In a previous SEO role for a low-touch SaaS, I transitioned into product marketing just when the company started reaching ~$5m ARR - but we all had no idea what product marketing actually was. About 15 hours a week in meetings. Currently work as a marketing manager at a consulting firm. PMPs are also for project management and not needed for Product. Current is ~$80mm. Been a product manager (now senior) for 4 years and When you’ve been in it for a 2-3 years and got a good base level (unless they are rubbish and you end up with a glorified admin role, which can happen, then move on fast) then you can start applying for assistant product manager roles. And just like that I ended up becoming a product manager. According to Glassdoor, the median annual salary for a product manager is around $196,000 as of 2024. Social Media Marketing: Managing and promoting brands on social media platforms to increase brand awareness, engage with the audience, and drive traffic to the website. Salaries can go from $110,847 to $175,095, with most PMMs earning between $126,033 and $159,663. 5. As a product manager, you’ll need strong analytical and technical skills. But never took like a designed product management course. Yeah I definitely recommend you work on becoming more technical, though UX / HCI is an important part of it as well. Basically you’re the expert on the customer and the landscape they exist in and buy in. There is no one path called “marketing”. A product manager is not about knowledge of IT terms and the use of existing tools. Now that we've covered what a product manager is, let's take a look at how a product manager's career path may look. So I got moved from a local group to the "Global" division as a Project Coordinator for a new product the company was building. I work with Pmms now and these are the changes in the role which i observed: 1-priority is supporting the top of the sales funnel targeting the economic buyer, 2-emphasis on content that optimizes search and social media vs technical accuracy. Hi, I'm relatively new to product management so I apologize if my question is going to come off as incredibly naive. It was about $750 at the time. e. In case anyone knows the answer to it. You could say it’s their entry level for a product manager although it’s possible to have more junior product managers. That’ll beef up your experience and test your appetite for product marketing. That’s how I discovered product design, HCI, UI/UX. That's why I don't recommend starting with books that directly write about product management (inspired, the lean startup, hooked). I managed to get a PM role as my first job out of college. Product marketing connected to demand gen Project Manager Product Marketing Manager Senior Product Marketing Manager Director Product Marketing Vice President Product Product Marketing Manager to VP Product at the same SaaS over a span of 4 years. Jumping into product marketing management as a career can be incredibly Strategy and Marketing (not passionate about these either) got asked during those interviews why I didn’t interview for product, learned to just do what feels right. Then friends started asking me to design ligos and websites for them. Too many products and features in flight; not enough people to build and keep track of them. Received a Marketing Product Manager role this week here are some of the details on the job requisition. Within two weeks I got transferred again (same position) to a different manager but he was a "Director of Product" and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. It requires dedication, continuous learning, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. I used to graphic and visual design for fun during college. ) A lot of places that post product positions are looking for product experience so I recommend that she check out some high-growth start-ups where she can transition out of teaching and into an academic role to start (like education coordinator, instructional coach, content/curriculum writer, etc. I've seen a few internships for ripple and google. Ok, first off, I'll admit our product org is a little dysfunctional. MBA graduates start at AMZN as Sr. true. I have zero tech experience but have a STEM bio degree. FWIW it’s highly dependent on the company you’re at and whether they foster your growth. I found it helpful for grounding myself in what I should be focusing on as a Product Manager. 30pm/6pm only five days a week, no weekend work, occasional short after-hours emails that can all be handled without having to bust out my laptop. This course spans the entire product management role, from ideation to project scoping, with practical exercises and expert insights to strengthen your job prospects. But, honing your leadership skills, becoming a strategic thinker, and developing a deep understanding of the market, can successfully make this transition your own and take I've recently become interested in roles like Slack's Engineering Operations Manager, Program Management, because of this. This is a growing space for Product Marketers to connect and share knowledge, resources, strategies and advice and talk through changes in our field. Becoming a marketing manager can be a rewarding career path, but the experiences can vary based on the industry, company size, and specific role. Try to create some hypothesis, try to think how you can test them. Some key technical skills that you’ll need as a product manager include: Re: someone else's comment about higher education, I started working for that small business in a strictly non-marketing capacity almost exactly 4 years ago making $14/hr (low cost of living area) before raises, and now I'm being contacted left and right on LinkedIn about digital marketing manager and ecommerce manager jobs that pay mostly Also, Google's customer service is infamously terrible. How to become a product manager: 6 actionable steps. IoT Business Development Manager and prior Technology Consultant for a Hardware Software IoT Startup. Marketing ops / marketing/sales technology is not as glamorous or fun, but it's underserved and has a big impact. According to one of my Product Manager colleagues - who identifies himself as 'pure' product management - he identifies all activities *outside* of 'requirement gathering, product spec, and engineering interactions' as diluting his product management chops. Marketing manager is very broad term. S. 1st was ~$10mm/yr revenue. ) and 1:1s mostly. As a product marketing manager (PMM), you influence most areas of the organization including product, design, sales, support, and, of course, marketing. It was helpful to walk through the fundamentals of being a product manager and required us to do a group project. To achieve this, I'm trying to figure out what internships I should work towards. If I were a Program Manager I might identify a risk within a team while aligning product strategy, the onus would be on me to correct the workflow or whatever was needed to remediate that risk. Paid media is a big one -- study and become an expert in the main ad channels (Google, Facebook, TikTok). Coursera has few good options which I explored and also interested in. Glassdoor identifies the Depends on the organization. I hate my job. New college graduates and professionals from unrelated fields increasingly want to transition into product management. Otherwise, all my work in marketing strategy, marketing analytics, and marketing research can be wasted by someone who doesn't know how to do things as they should. Jan 3, 2025 · However, with the rise of hybrid and remote work, the ability to work anywhere as a remote product manager role has become much more common. I’ve been approached for monetization strategy consulting where I would define a path towards applying a business model to an existing product with milestones and a conceptual roadmap but that’s almost ancillary to the actual product management aspect of my experience and more related to my role as a general manager of a business. It’s not a descriptive title. Meetings and presentations is expected at any job that deals with metrics of results. Gain essential skills to succeed and stand out in the fast-growing product management field. Now doing something else at a different company. For example, if something gets removed from Google Play, the developer is rarely given a specific reason and their only recourse is to file a counterclaim - which has been known to take weeks if not months to be acknowledged, let alone acted upon. Nowadays, product marketing managers are more likely to do customer discovery, market definition, pricing, business planning—tasks that previously were performed by product managers—and product Capital one Product Manager and Google Product manager recruit (still interviewing) here. I just loved design so kept doing all this for free. His advice, and something I've taken to heart, is: whenever you're working a job, make yourself indispensable to everyone around you, show up early, stay late, and show your value to your superiors. 14 votes, 26 comments. 47 votes, 25 comments. More people who you’re competing with for senior director and VP positions will have them than not and with equivalent experience (on paper), Jan 3, 2025 · Become a Product Manager (Udemy) The Become a Product Manager Course . I personally feel PMM is a much more interesting and challenging role. Self-paced online once suit me best. Yeah, this is the answer. One day my Group VP told me that I was not at all a BA and that I was actually a Digital PM. Consulting seems like a good option if you can still stay in that, personally after interviewing with a couple of firms wasn’t in love with the culture and didn’t seem like The work it's self in marketing is all behind a desk at a computer. You’ll also need to communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders and be able to work in a fast-paced environment. But in reality, they're using a basic model with 3 inputs. I feel like the bay area tends to like to hire younger. Then I read everything at Intercom and Drift within 1 month until I built a framework for what effective product marketing actually looks like. In mature companies, it's split between Product Owner, research owner, tech owner for estimations. If this is true, there is no need for a Product Owner or Business Analyst on a development team because the Product Owner, BA and Product manager roles have an 80% overlap. This might involve working at a company that your grandmother has never heard of, but it's 100% worth it for the title. If you don't have that, the HR software will reject your application in a matter of minutes. Otherwise swe-> product might be better option. Jun 18, 2019 · In this post, I’ll walk through my perspective as a product marketer across years of launching products, and as hiring manager on how you can take your first-step towards becoming a product marketing manager. If you can build product experience at startups and projects like 3-4x before you begin your entry level job search then your good shape. That said, as a low level UX Designer I am frequently encountering a challenge when getting Product Manager and Stakeholder approval. It appears the only requirement to be a product manager is five years experience as a product manager. Join a medium to large sized product company, and then internally move to a PM role. For the majority of APM programs/internships it's best to depict yourself as a software engineer with social skills - so strong projects or software engineering internships I've been in sales for 20 years as an Account Manager in telecom and developed my own web application over the course of a year plus. I’d explore things like media mix modeling, clustering, product recommendation engines, attribution measurement methodology, and sentiment analysis. Got admitted to a bba program which has pretty decent reputation in canada, my goal is to be a product manager since it seems to combine technical skills and business (i like both) If i were to do a bba i would specialize in marketing and information systems, I could also get a comp sci degree with a specialization in management information systems and data analytics. ) but a lot of the openings that I could potentially be qualified for are for a Product Manager. Sep 19, 2023 · Becoming a product marketing manager is a challenging but rewarding journey. Rotational product manager (RPM) programs tend to allow folks with less experience, but tend to be very competitive to get into. Becoming an expert in a CRM or marketing automation tool could get you far, too (Salesforce, HubSpot). Marketing science pays significantly better and gives much more autonomy. If the most senior product people were let go, the company would quickly struggle to get anything done. This is a safe and open environment dedicated to the promotion of project management methodologies, with the purpose of fostering and promoting free discussion about all things project management. Messaging and positioning, sales enablement, pitch work, etc. Email Marketing: Creating and implementing email campaigns to nurture leads, promote products, and build relationships with customers. And that most of the PM roles I have defined should be done by a Product marketing manager, Project Manager, Group product manager, or someone else. The main difference between what I've observed (so all anecdotal, no hard data in my hands) in 2013–2018 and 2018–2023 is that every PM I met at conferences, meetups, on client/partner side, etc. Then it's just a matter of time Oct 9, 2024 · Product manager salaries vary by industry but are often six figures. So, now that you know what you’re getting into, here’s how to start your journey. Thank you so much. Then they started asking me to design apps for them. Here's a general overview of what it's like to be a marketing manager, addressing some of your specific questions: Income: I won’t to add to the many good comments that are correct about senior management skills being critical to being successful in a role a chief marketing officer, but I will add that focusing on top of funnel skills and demand generation is a much more reliable path to leadership then brand marketing. From my limited experience of only 1 year on a product marketing team, most PMMs here moved into the role from somewhere else either another team in marketing such as digital marketing or Sales/CS. I have been searching for new jobs in industries/areas that I enjoy (surfing, outdoors, etc. I have completed Google certificates in regards to digital marketing and e-commerce to gain some knowledge. One common question is, “How can I become a product manager with no experience?” The good news is that becoming a product manager without a degree or relevant product experience is possible. As a product marketing manager who used to be a PM and actively recruited for both, I can confirm it was much harder to find a PMM job vs PM. She had both a project manager and product manager role open, and said that if I helped her establish a project manager role (it was the first time they were going to utilize the position) then she'd train me for a year to become a product manager. Hopefully this helps! Here is the gist of the JD, top-level requirements and day-to-day listed items:(didn't include years of experience requirements or degree requirements. learned Javascript after taking over an API product), had to help with marketing, had to help with sales. The day to day depends on what every single existing company understands/wants a product person to do/be. Nov 24, 2024 · Product Marketing Manager: The average annual salary for a Product Marketing Manager in the U. I know there's an argument about WLB. Associate Product Marketing Manager -> Product Marketing Manager -> Senior Product Marketing Manager -> Group Product Marketing Manager (Roles post-MBA might skip out on Associate PMM) Just to add to this, I’d love to know how easy it is to switch from tech PMM pre-MBA to tech PM post-MBA. The reason I said it was 99% computer work, is because the actual work is computer work. I enter the Product game almost "by accident" in 2013. 3-The technical enablement and collateral for supporting mid to late stage of the sales funnel are now Welcome to the Product Marketing community. This leads to product manager roles. I am a college student (rising junior) wanting to become a business focused product manager in the future. I had a professor who told a story about how he started working at a mall as a janitor and slowly worked his way to become the Director of Marketing. The only one! :) Ha! So I'm curious what I should expect. My advice, figure out what you want to do within marketing. If you interview, would say to ask a lot of questions to understand the role, work expected, team(is it new or established), engineering team supporting you, designer, previous person in role, stakeholders, plus the product. 30am - 5. MY QUESTION is will it be possible to start a career as a product manager with just a 4-month course with zero experience in anything else? or is it better to work as a construction project manager for a year while taking the course part-time then apply for product manager jobs? PS. I agreed and she held true to her word. Most importantly, it is unbiased and not affiliated with any 3rd party course, newsletter, blog, website or any other paid platform. Product manager is a role on the same level as SWE, without line management responsibilities. Sorry but if I don’t say something you will continue this quest only to find frustration. When there are more inexpensive and productive paths to get into tech product management like transitioning from SWE, Data science, Analytics or just getting a masters in product management, or maybe a tech MBA or kellog's MBAi. , was, just like me, walking from very random backgrounds, into Product Management, not because it was their plan but If you want to be a Product Manager I would highly recommend a role like Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Project Manager, Software Engineer, or even get into software QA. Some of the teams that fit this criterion are product analytics, growth, and project management. To get there I've work in the past with Customer success hybrid position with product. L’Oréal alum here: looks like you’re interested in big CPG companies with a large umbrella of brands! I worked as a product manager and eventually a retail and digital brand manager for some of their luxe brands in travel retail. Entry level positions are really rare, probably because the work relies very heavily on understanding the wider GTM process which includes many Jan 15, 2024 · So here are two separate Reddit product management subthreads written by veterans (a decade of experience each in product) worth taking a look at. It could be you oversee and serve as an expert in a specific area of marketing for the company, or it may mean you manage an entire marketing team. Explore growth marketing which is more about full business growth and learn how to sell a suite of products and how they’re positioned to different segments, then product marketing becomes easy with that growth expierence I kind of fell into it from digital marketing. It’s very common for them to succeed and there are plenty. Yes, networking and things matter but at the end of the day the right leadership should want to promote and grow people to take leadership roles internally who know the business, have demonstrated good soft skills and team leadership vs hire externally. becoming senior product managers, Director of Product, CPO, etc. is $142,713. the three main things are this: 1. So he put me through a bunch of product manager courses. I'm sure this is very true in ML world where the marketing of a company will say "We do X the best". I was just wondering what people do after becoming a Product Manager besides working your way up the ladder in the product field (eg. You should try to ascertain both. Actually, I remember the Corning recruiters pitching the fact that when you account how little they work and how cheap Corning, NY is compared to NYC, their equivalent hourly pay was like 2-3x Feb 1, 2023 · Wondering how to become a PMM? Product marketing is one of the newest and most impactful roles within an organization. I am looking for a good online self-paced course in product management. What is product marketing responsible for? In order to understand how to get your first job in product marketing, it’s important to Product management is not a managerial area in the same sense as an engineeringhez manager. Product management (PM) is a perfect blend of technical know-how, emotional intelligence, creativity, responsibility, leadership and a high salary. Meet with other teams for cross-org work as well. There are two things to consider here: real product differentiators and what they say is different about their product. I'm currently a project manager for a bank managing IT related projects. Hopefully a guy with a solid track record in finance, strategy, & product marketing with a Comp Sci & Eng undergrad degree will be able to make the transition @ age 35. Generally speaking a Program Manager is more strategic whereas a Product Manager is more tactical. . To expand a bit more, there’s a point where an MBA will be required or you’ll hit a ceiling. I know I don't want to stay in the technical weeds forever, and I've only been at one company where I look at the PMs and have gone, I want to be one of them. Not "Product Marketing Manager", not "Product Operations Manager"just "Product Manager". Being an introvert does not mean you can't learn presentation skills and you should not think of it as an inability holding you back. I went the opposite route and moved from Product to Sales. Welcome to the Product Marketing community. I’ve also grown a lot in contexts where I had to fill in gaps for lack of resources: had to do the work of a designer, had to become more technical (i. I want to get into marketing and eventually become a PMM. So pragmatic marketing institute has a course called The Business of Data Science which I found particularly useful. And in that case, the PM was also a co-founder. So all of our team members are stretched thin. Measuring performance: Data can be used to track the performance of a product, including sales, customer satisfaction, and other metrics, which can help product managers identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to the product or marketing strategy. I worked in it for 6 months before moving to another role as a product manager. Make sure you review the job description well. I've seen people with earth sciences degree also get onto product management. Most companies pay well for product marketing, probably even better than PMs (depends on how large both teams are). So my takeaway is, gain knowledge of the product and what is moving in the markets, be curious and seek information. I got a role as a APM in the Rotational Product Manager program at Fortune 500 company. Ask your manager or other leaders if those types of projects aren’t currently on your Can confirm - currently a PM at a large, public tech company. For product it really depends on what companies you're applying to. This is really phenomenal of you to do. You are able to make more of an impact and continuously learn. And test! The best product manager is manager who can test without anything. Often times your product is touching multiple surfaces, so you need to work together with other PMs. Marketing is usually first to go, then AMs and Sales, not Product. I currently work as a business developer ,but i am learning social media marketing on side ,because i want to break in the world of product… Some managers think they want a product manager but really need a product marketing manager or even just a project manager. Tl/dr: what are the most recognised or best product management certifications and courses for people looking to become a product manager or become a senior PM? I’ve been a Product Owner for ~4 years in software development across a couple businesses. galexki kqz vjrkq ylcy vswi ack ckqg exf qfd xgivl xkbordv wevfi egod lnpucix vdzu