I created this job description when we were growing our Product Marketing team from two to ten in less than a year. It scaled really well throughout all of hires.

One of the reasons we grew so quickly was that our product org was bigger and I wanted a one-to-one relationship between Product Managers and Product Marketers. Because of that we had to hire pretty fast for this role.

The one-to-one did end up breaking pretty quickly at Oyster so we ended up mimicking the product structure and assigning Product Marketers to business units. Those mapped pretty closely to the GMs. There were cases where a product line might have multiple Product Managers within it based on the size of the product line. The structure of PMM is dictated by the size of the Product org and how many layers of hierarchy you have.

I tend to think of four different areas of product marketing. Describing them as "inputs" and "outputs" might be unique to Oyster, but otherwise I think it's a standard way of looking at the role. Even throughout the interview process I looked out for people who would describe the Product Marketer role in this way.

We wanted to orient a bit less towards positioning since I was owning that as the Head of Marketing, and more towards bringing products to market, research and messaging. Here I was trying to be clear on all parts of the role while also having enough flexibility so that folks could move in any different direction as the team evolved.

What this job description is intended to do is to attract people who can flex towards number of different directions. Not because I want to move people around, but because your Product Line might ask different things of you at different times. There may be seasons where you're not launching anything, but you're focused on customer communications or doing research instead. Are you able to rebalance your priorities and your work to support that without needing us to put you somewhere else?

Being a strong writer is a really important skill. Can they create collateral? Can they create market-facing assets or communications? They are able to be so much more productive when they have a solid foundation of communication and writing skills.

I think being able to manage conflicting priorities is a really important skill. It's a must. I don't think this is unique to the companies I have been at. A Product Marketer is asked to do so many things. They're at the center of the storm most every day, with people asking them for things. Being able to balance that is really critical.

Kevan Lee

I created this job description when Oyster was growing their Product Marketing team from two to ten in less than a year.

Job Description: Product Marketing Manager

You will play a meaningful role in delivering value to our customers, actively participating in product strategy, research, positioning, and go-to-market. Product marketing works closely with product management to shape the direction of our products and the value we create for our customers and our business.

A major focus of this role is adoption, which can be measured in a number of different ways. Adoption is part of a healthy subscription business, and it influences revenue metrics like retention, churn, and MRR / ARR. Goals may differ quarter-to-quarter and are based on our product strategy and product management goals. Example goals include:

Feature adoption for both newly-released features and core, pre-existing features

Product marketers aspire to know our customer better than anyone else. To get there, we focus on these areas of input and output:

Conduct regular customer research across a variety of customer segments: new-to us, existing healthy, churn risk, switch, etc.

Analyze these customer insights and work with product teams to define our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, positioning, and messaging.

Research and track overarching market trends and patterns

Report product marketing performance and insights to the team

Support competitor research to better understand how to position [Company] in a rapidly changing market.

Own the positioning and category creation for your product solution.

Partner with brand marketing, lifecycle marketing, product management, and design to evolve our position in the market and to execute on high-impact repositioning efforts

Develop strategic, insight-driven go-to-market plans for new product initiatives Demonstrate a deep understanding of the desired marketplace and industry trends

Demonstrate a deep understanding of current marketing channels and distribution methods for our products, based on product marketing best practices and customer insight of where, when, and how people want to hear from us

Represent and advocate for the needs of users within the go-to-market plan and throughout the product lifecycle.

Launch new things well — be strategic, data-driven, and responsible for outcomes. Work cross-functionally with teammates across the company to deliver marketing launches on time and at a high quality bar

Craft the story and narrative we want to tell and the proper channels and timing for delivering that message

Work with email and in-app messaging to build recognition and awareness for the core aspects of what makes the product experience great and valuable

Dig into the data to find ways to optimize messaging and timing messaging and in order to drive product preference and customer adoption and ensure it is reflected in all our communications, including website, case studies, whitepapers and sales pitches.

A T-shaped marketer with core competencies in a handful of areas but also with baseline skills across a multitude of marketing disciplines.

Thrives in an environment where market and customer feedback is essential

 (including go-to-market materials and customer case studies)

Manages conflicting priorities from various stakeholders

 across a number of teams and communicated well with internal teams

Desires to continuously test and learn. Willing to be disciplined and precise with data-informed learnings and takeaways

Product Marketing Manager Job Description at Oyster

Job Description: Product Marketing Manager

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