One of the most common questions I get is “how do I transition into product marketing”? The roles of the people asking vary; these include account managers, customer care managers, and social or performance marketing managers, to name a few.

I’ve helped make this transition happen successfully many times. It’s certainly harder in today’s climate but there are three steps you need to undertake to make this transition:

1. Learn about product marketing

2. Get experience in product marketing

3. Pursue product marketing jobs

Let’s go through each of these one at a time.

1. Learn about product marketing

The first step is to learn the fundamentals of product marketing. What is product marketing? What are the key responsibilities? What is the day-to-day like? What KPIs are you responsible for?

You can take a product marketing course — I’m obviously a big fan of the Product Marketing Bootcamp, but there are many options out there depending on your budget and how deep you want to go in your initial learning. There is also a lot of free information available in different pieces online.

Networking and talking to people who are in product marketing roles is also a great way to learn about what the job is like. Ask them for real world examples of what they’re working on as well as what skills they think are the most important. This helps you understand what types of projects you’ll be working on as a PMM as well as hone the most important skills required.

2. Get experience in product marketing

Once you’ve learned the fundamentals of product marketing, you need to build up your arsenal of experience relevant to PMM.

What does this mean?

This means taking on roles or projects that give you experience in as many of the following areas as possible:

• Market and user research

• Positioning development

• Marketing strategy creation

• Acquisition and engagement marketing execution

• Cross-functional leadership and influence

These are core product marketing functions. You may not get all of this experience from a single role, but you should work towards building a profile that shows you have done these individual components.

As you gain this experience, you are also showing that you are building key skills required to be successful as a product marketer: Analytical, Communication, Strategic, Interpersonal.

So how do you get this experience?

• Leverage your current role to take on relevant projects. For example, if you’re currently in customer care, your big asset is that you are interfacing with customers constantly. Just like PMMs need to do, you can showcase the voice of the customer and really understand and articulate their needs, motivations, and pain points. You could extend further into PMM territory by proactively summarizing customer feedback and then making suggestions or recommendations about new product features or new marketing messages that might resonate. You may also be able to do a side project with the marketing team; demonstrate interest and proactivity to gain allies who will support your growth.

• Join a startup in marketing. When working in startups, you’ll get experience in a lot of different areas — from customer research to product definition to message development to advertising to content strategy. Consider even joining a startup in a non-marketing role and then network and work to take on marketing projects from there; it’s typically easier to move around roles in startups than larger companies.

• Create and market your own product. You can create a digital product or brand in less than a day, whether it’s digital prints, e-books, or so many other things. Pick a business opportunity you’re interested in and act like a product marketing manager: assess the opportunity, conduct some market and user research, do a competitive analysis, build the product, develop the marketing strategy and launch plan, and then market it. You’ll be learning as you go and will have experiences you can draw upon for interviews and conversations.

3. Pursue product marketing jobs

Now it’s time to put it all together. Take the experiences you’ve gained in all of the key product marketing areas noted above and showcase your skills, projects, and results on your resume.

You should also be perfecting your story now. Why are you interested in being a product marketing manager? What piqued your interest? How does your past experience make you an amazing candidate for every job? Have your reasons so you can apply these in interviews as well as networking conversations.

And keep up the networking. Talk to people in companies you’re interested in and learn about what product marketing is like in each company. And look for referrals before you apply for jobs; these are especially crucial right now.

Go get ‘em

The path is not easy, but if you’re looking for a career at the intersection of product, marketing, and strategy, there’s no better place.

👋 Hello! I’m Melinda Chung, and I’ve led product marketing teams for over 10 years at companies like Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, and other startups.

I am the founder (and Chief PMM!) of the Product Marketing Bootcamp, which teaches the essentials of strategic product marketing so you can launch with confidence. Learn more.