Most Important Skills for a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Adobe

I would say this question is one of my favorite questions to answer. One of the ways I like to answer it is by looking at the title, "product marketing manager." There's a very specific reason why the word "product" is in front of "marketing."

Even though in my company people see me as a marketer, this is because one of the best skills you need to succeed is a really good understanding of how good products are built. You need to know what makes a good product a good product.

This means using a lot of different products, both technological and non-technological. Think about a good hair dryer or vacuum cleaner. Really understand packaging, go to a retail store, pick up a box, look at how they message things, unbox it, and think about the whole experience from the moment you see it to taking it home.

It's really about having a lot of empathy. The key word is being able to put yourself in the shoes of a customer. A lot of us love to work in business-to-consumer because we are the customer, so it's easy to have empathy and work on products that you love.

That's why, going from product management to product marketing management, what made me a great PMM was starting in product. I knew all the ins and outs of how teams built products, what made them good, and why some bad products still shipped to market. There's a lot of training, and that's a very important skill.

Another is obviously having a lot of business knowledge, an acumen for understanding how financials work for a company and how money is made. Often, as a PMM, one of the biggest values you bring to an engineering team is understanding how they're going to make money from the product.

You can build a great product, solve a customer need, and sell it the right way, but if it doesn't make money and doesn't grow the business, they will just kill it. I experienced that very personally.

The Holy Grail of product marketing is when a product solves a very specific customer outcome, creates cultural resonance, and also solves a business outcome. When those things align, those are golden moments. You know you've built something that not only keeps product-market fit but also makes the company successful.

So, I would say business acumen, understanding how good products are made, and really understanding storytelling. Storytelling is something that gets overlooked sometimes. You have to write a lot of messaging as a product marketer.

You need to know your value proposition, which is how to succinctly and easily describe the value and benefits your customers can derive from your product. Then there's the positioning statement, how to position that product relative to competitors in the market.

Being able to write well, understand good storytelling and narrative, and thematically what products are trying to communicate is important. Really good products tell big stories for companies. It's not just what the product is and what it does, but how it makes people feel and empowers them.

If you have a good sense of story, writing, and creativity, in addition to understanding product and business, I think you'll be a very successful product marketer.