Product marketing is the process of promoting and selling a product to an audience. When compared to product management, product marketing deals with more outbound marketing or customer-facing tasks. If you are considering a career in product marketing, this session will give you a good idea of what you're getting yourself into and how you can be a success in your role.

1. SO, YOU WANT TO BE A
PRODUCT MARKETER?
HERE'S HOW.
Carole Gunst & Rodan Zadeh for
ProductCamp

2. Carole Gunst, Product Marketer
 Education:
 B.A., Journalism
 M.A., Marketing
 Career Path:
 Started as a marketing assistant
 Volunteered for every assignment possible
 Got my own product and took it through a few
lifecycles
 Took on more responsibility and people
management
 Changed companies a few times
 Am now a marketing director at a software company

3. Rodan Zadeh, Tech Marketer
 Education:
 B.S., Electrical Engineering and IT
 M.S., Technology (from MIT!)
 Career Path:
 Worked in product marketing at Lucent
 Worked in product marketing and services
marketing at EMC
 Worked in product marketing at Attunity

4. What does product marketing
do?
 Performs market research to gain insight
into customers, the marketplace and the
competition
 Develops messaging and positioning for
products
 Runs marketing programs that drive demand
 Enables sales to sell the product
 Evangelizes the product to analysts, press,
industry experts, partners, and prospects

5. What are the requirements?
 Bachelor’s in business or marketing
 Strong written communication skills
 Willingness to travel
 People skills to interact with staff, colleagues
and cross-functional teams, and third parties
 Presentation experience
 Understanding of the product

6. Product Marketing v. Management
 Outward facing
 Aligns messaging with
market demands
 Delivers value
props/messaging to
sales, marketing and
support teams
 Closely aligned with
sales and product
management
 Inward facing
 Aligns product
requirements with
market demands
 Delivers technical
aspects of the product to
product marketing
 Closely aligned with
development team and
product marketing
Product Marketing Product Management

7. Product Marketing v. Sales
 Aligns products and
messaging with market
demands
 Delivers value
props/messaging to
sales, marketing and
support teams
 Closely aligned with
sales and product
management
 Sell what “is on the
truck”
 Develops close
relationships with
customers
 Overcomes objections
 Negotiates pricing
 Closely aligned with
product marketing and
channel
Product Marketing Sales

8. How much could you make?

9. How do you become one?
 Research job descriptions to figure out the
education and experience requirements
 Find people who already are product
marketers and look at their education,
experience and career
 Network with product marketing managers at
your office, industry events or through friends.
Ask for advice or mentoring

10. Carole Gunst
Carole “at” Gunst.com
@cgunst
Rodan Zadeh
RodanZ “at” Gmail.com
@rodanz
Any questions? Let us know.