How to Become a Product Marketing Manager with Mark Mikhail

Mark Mikhail: Hi, my name is Mark Mikhail. I’m here in Toronto, Canada, that’s where I’m based, and I’m a product marketing manager for BlueCat. And for those that don’t understand what product marketing in IT is all about, the way I usually cut it down for people is my job, why I get paid the big bucks is to attempt to make IT sexy. And I’ve been doing a pretty good job at it at BlueCat so far. So, I’m happy to be here, with Spyros, with you, and with GrowthMentor to talk about product marketing.

Spyros Tsoukalas: Mark, welcome to the GrowthMentor Podcast, what the beginning this was. So, let’s go straight to this amazing topic we will be discussing today. Could you tell us something we don’t know about product marketing managers?

Mark Mikhail: Well, to be honest, I think they’re the ultimate show men and women when it comes to taking products to market. Kind of like a magician, we help bend a buyer’s reality as to how they think about tackling problems or bring back to consciousness best practices that help them tame day-to-day complexity. So, if we do our jobs, right, if done correctly, you know, they walk away thinking about the art of the possible with the solutions that we bring to market and I think that’s an element or a way to think about product marketing that’s not traditionally thought of or explained.

Spyros Tsoukalas: Great. I love how you frame that they are different possible. So, let’s start from the basics. What is a product marketing manager?

Mark Mikhail: Well, for me, a product marketing manager is the voice of the buyer and the market within the companies we work for. We communicate in a way that resonates with buyers, talking about not just not really talking about who we are, but more about how we do it and how we do it better with our solutions. So we’re really focused on bringing products to market strategically and helping to keep them relevant in markets that are always changing. Always changing, frankly, including around the competition.

Spyros Tsoukalas: And would you like to elaborate a little more on what product marketing managers actually do?

Mark Mikhail: Sure. You know, don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I do know that a few product marketing managers are very similar. And you know, we do a lot. We’re responsible for a variety of different deliverables. We provide go-to-market planning across training, product sales, technical and partner sales, customer care, and marketing team stakeholders. And for those same stakeholders, we take customers through a learn-by-a-grow and advocate buyer’s journey. So, we help provide enablement and sales tools that highlight use cases and customer references, tools like presentations, data, sheets, blogs, reports, solution briefs, product feature demos, messaging, and positioning guides. You know, if I named a few more, I would be out of breath. But you know, we also do win-loss analysis. So analyst briefings and inquiries and competitive analysis with the likes of organizations like Gartner and IDC, help shape product market fit and influence market opinions and recommendations about our solutions at early stages of buyer consideration. So you can think of when companies are going to be putting out an RFP, you know, we want to be at the table, we want to be part of that RFP that consideration. So it’s key to get that kind of influence at that stage. So, after all that, you know, we’re also key in how we upsell and cross-sell customers into all areas of the product portfolio. So the goal here is we’re integral to help improve the lifetime value in revenue of those customers, based on the knowledge that we have around our portfolio and the market and messaging and positioning.

Spyros Tsoukalas: What a list.

Mark Mikhail: Yeah.

Spyros Tsoukalas: So, what is challenging for me to understand is where does Product Marketing sit among other departments? Because all these topics and items that you mentioned, like they have to do with other departments as well. So, how does this ecosystem work?

Mark Mikhail: That’s fair, I’d like to say that, like PMM is the peanut butter and jelly between what product managers and software engineers build and how sellers successfully sell to buyers. So that’s where we tend to gel naturally between those, those two organizations within companies. And I feel like if the relationships are strong, and there’s good communication, you get a real good go-to-market effort across the business.

Spyros Tsoukalas: And how do product marketing managers help the business and the functions? What are the outcomes that are achieved?

Mark Mikhail: So, in terms of how PMMs add value. So going back to where we sit between those two teams as we work with product managers to understand the product roadmap and use cases. And with that raw format of the information, of new releases that are coming out, we convert it into messaging and positioning that resonates with buyers. So, if done right, we make it consumable for sellers to sell successfully. But it’s more than just that in terms of value. Buyers and customers are not just sitting around waiting for you to drop something as a business, they’re busy, and they usually don’t want to be bothered. And many of them, especially technical folks hate marketing content. Because watching it or reading it sometimes feels like it’s opening the gates of hell. So, especially when they don’t understand how a new product release adds value to other investments they made in your portfolio, this can be problematic for them. So this is especially an issue for any business that makes custom releases or products just to win a single deal and then tries to sell it to the rest of the customer base without doing all that upfront work. So the holy grail of value that we unlock is going back to that showmanship and magician analogy. We find new ways of presenting information that is clear, concise, and compelling for buyers that have a short attention span. We understand all the products in the portfolio and can find patterns and common benefits that allow us to show how a new release adds value to the rest of the customer’s portfolio investment. And at the end of the day, we leave buyers and customers wanting more with a sales call. And you know, there are other elements that too. There’s before the go-to-market and after the go-to-market strategy. We participate in cabs, focus groups, community polling, and feature requests, which all have meetings around them. And it’s key that product, and marketing managers have a seat at the table, along with technical sales to ensure that the voice of the customer is there, as well as competitive roadblocks we discover in the win-loss analysis are considered in that process. Also product, you know. The product requirements documents that really define what this is and why and what this release is and why it’s important to customers are key to helping us deliver a marketing requirements document that is most appropriate for the go-to-market strategy. So holistically, that’s the kind of value we add in both the before and after and during the go-to-market strategy.

Spyros Tsoukalas: Amazing. Thanks for your extensive and actionable and clear answer. So taking it to the next step. What are the different frameworks that product marketers should be taking into account?

Mark Mikhail: Now there’s a bunch Product Marketing Association has as some product pragmatic Institute has their own, you know, stages of go to market launch, for example, that look at stakeholder alignment messaging matrix is there are sales methodologies as well that sits outside of Product Marketing and they’re usually defined by the Chief Revenue Officer, like ones built by force management that talks about, you know, how do you sell and communicate the before and after state? What are the requirements, and the metrics? And how the business does it and does it better solve a problem with the solutions they have? But uh, be frank with you Spyros, like, no one likes to say this, but every organization is different. And you may have to tweak these methodologies to fit the unique makeup of your company. And that’s where a season PMM comes in handy. One that can tailor the approach and the methodology to the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, eventually helping them bring new processes and create new go-to-market core competencies that just never existed before.

Spyros Tsoukalas: And let’s say that someone is new in the domain and he or she is interested in learning more about product marketing and getting involved. How does this happen?

Mark Mikhail: Well, you know, you can be trained to be one formally, it could be your first job that you actually started in, you could have come from, you know, a different area of the business, whether it be from demand generation, or digital marketing or from engineering or technical sales. Regardless though, I feel that people who love DIY in any form, especially in tech, any form or fashion of that can be a PMM. It’s that balance of the right brain and left brain calculated strategy and planning to execution that’s, that is surrounded by a love for technology or building things. In those people I believe exists a sleeping giant that’s perfect for Product Marketing.

Spyros Tsoukalas: And let’s say we are already involved in product marketing, and we aim to reach a position of a product marketing manager. So how do you become a product marketing manager?

Mark Mikhail: Sure. So, you know, there are a few things few categories, if you want to talk about experiences, you can look at the inputs that affect your role today and attend those calls within the organization. You know, I formerly used to be a demand generation manager. So with that role, you find messages you put into the market may not be working, start talking to portfolio or solution marketing, or product and technical sales to discover if there’s a disconnect and bring your data to the table to challenge the assumptions of those stakeholders, including product marketing, if you’re not in that role, there are some skills that you should be looking to try and build, or, or expand upon things like storytelling, technical skills that just make you dangerous enough in the industry or supporting or you’re interested in project management skills, basic project management skills, those that have been in more marketing roles have empathy, to help provide creative direction for roles, like demand generation. So, sitting in sitting at a product marketing manager role, you can help provide more creative direction and how you build content and what customers are going to see in terms of messaging, there are analytical skills, to understand what messages work, which ones don’t, segmentation analysis, and research methodologies to help you build rapport. And then you know, there are different levels of education out there, there are certificates that you can get from, for example, Product Marketing Association, or pragmatic, you can go through formal education and marketing or business. And, you know, frankly, there are so many angles from which you can enter the role. If you’re passionate about the industry, and as I had mentioned, you’re passionate about the technology or the product that you’re focused on. So there’s, there’s a variety of ways and how you become PMM to that respect.

Spyros Tsoukalas: And last question for the day, given that product marketing managers exist out there and companies are interested in hiring them. Where can a company find product marketing managers?

Mark Mikhail: So, as I mentioned, you know, Pragmatic Institute, Product Marketing Association, there are communities there specific, especially Product Market Association, there’s, you know, an open Slack community that you can join, be a part of, and you can find a lot of product marketing managers there, as well as those that are growing into the role within your organization. Or in other organizations, you might find those sleeping giants that I mentioned before. But I will say regardless, if you really want to find those sleeping giants, try and hire for diversity, that’s an additional element that you can add in, I think product marketing, and especially in mature product cycles, you need to repackage products and cut through the same old noise in the market. And we need to tap into groups that have a more daily experience at being successfully innovative and adapting to changes in physical and learning environments to succeed. So if you do some reading, like here in Canada, Holland Bloorview Canada provides insights into how those with learning and physical disabilities most often than not our heroes, in creating learning and technical innovations that we enjoy day to day, especially during the pandemic, and that that perspective can provide you some very innovative ways to cut through the noise and, and present information in new and exciting ways that haven’t been experienced. So that’s one of the ways that I think you can find a product marketing manager today.

Spyros Tsoukalas: Mark, thanks for sharing all this information in such a dense way in this podcast episode for the GrowthMentor Podcast. I really appreciate your effort.

Mark Mikhail: I’m happy to be here and looking forward to hearing some more podcasts in the future, Spyros. Thank you.

Spyros Tsoukalas: Thanks.