Become a Product Marketing Wizard.

If you say you’re a product marketer, you are.

The end.

Fine, I can elaborate.

What I mean by this is that if you want to be a product marketer, you can be! The skills are fairly universal and translate well from previous work experience. Chances are that you’ve already used them in one of your jobs, in your course work, or you’ve got an interest in them.

I know it’s tough to land that first product marketing job, especially if you’ve never had that title. And it’s also tough to try and move up in your product marketing career if you’re not sure about how to take the next step.

It’s all about positioning.

The Top Skills a Product Marketer Needs

The first step to positioning yourself as a product marketer is to identify the skills in your work history that align to the top product marketing skills. Be sure to highlight these skills in your resume and cover letter.

1. Customer Focus

2. Storytelling / Communication

3. Messaging and Positioning

4. Cross-functional Collaboration

5. Sales Enablement

6. Strategic Planning

7. Competitive Intelligence

8. Market Research

Re-Positioning Your Career History

Let’s look at an example of this studious Wizard’s resume, and how he utilizes his skillset to position himself in a new way.

Now Wiz has not held a product marketing title. However, he has a solid work history and has gained experience working with customers, sales, and go-to-market strategy.

⚡ Customer-centricity is a huge part of product marketing. He’s doing a great job of highlighting his skills working with customers and sales

⚡ I would recommend that he re-position some of the bullet points in his employment history to align with product marketing. Show how he “Improved customer retention by 40%” through messaging, strategic and tactical work, cross-team collaboration, etc.

⚡ Notice Mr. Zard’s focus on the customer as well as his emphasis on campaign work and market research. I would recommend that he add a few more of the key product marketing skills to this mix to help himself stand out.

⚡ Getting a Product Marketing Certification shows commitment to the goal of landing a PMM job, but it’s not required. There are tons of free and low-cost product marketing courses and resources available to beef up your resume.

⚡ A portfolio of work positioned as Go-to-Market strategies, campaigns, and product marketing work can make a huge difference! Assemble your portfolio as though you’ve had a product marketing career the whole time.

Remember: you have the power to take control of your own career narrative. Use that power to your advantage!