Do you have any advice for those starting out in product marketing? Are there certain things you wish you knew before going into the field?

I'd say there are 3 things to keep in mind as a new PMM: 

1. Go easy on yourself and prioritize the things that will have the biggest impact. Product Marketers are central to a GTM strategy, but that doesn't mean you have to know everything or do everything. Think of your career less like a sprint (which leaves you quickly exhausted and solely focused on getting across the finish line!) but more as a run (in which you can manage a comfortable conversation and can keep your head up to see and embrace new opportunities

2. Prioritize ongoing learning. You're new! Taking time to prioritize and then schedule time for peer learning or to take on new experiences or stretch goals. You learn so much in your first few years that can set you up long-term for success! 

3. Work with your manager to build an Individual Growth Plan. Think about where you want to be in the next 3-5 (maybe even 7 years) and start to work back from there. The sooner you can identify the steps you need to take to reach your goals, the faster you'll be able to meet them and have the clarity and insight needed to guide the choices and decisions you'll certainly be making on your journey. 

Time spent understanding the customer is not time wasted. Period.

A lot folks tend to look at marketing as the “front page news” of flashy executions and campaigns that people outside of the company see and/or experience to help them understand what is you all do. There is so much work before the point of external outreach that makes a great PMM. My strongest marketers are supremely empathetic with our users and their challenges/needs. These marketers can describe users in depth, they know where users look for information, what users want for our product (and broader market), and they know what brings users delight.

So, if you’re starting out in Product Marketing, don’t be afraid to ride sidecar with researchers or designers on your team conducting user studies. Shadow phone calls or listen to call recordings ruthlessly. Read analyst reports (but not too much). Interview users on your own.

Time spent understanding the customer is not time wasted. It is actually your greatest priority.

When I started in Product Marketing there were very few resources - like Sharebird and PMA - where you could learn the fundamentals of Product Marketing. At that time, there was Pragmatic and a couple of blogs here and there. 

Today, there is a wealth of knowledge available online and even books on Product Marketing. I would have loved to have all of these resources available to me to learn from when I was starting out. I would have immersed myself in them and I would have used this content to help me identify the parts of Product Marketing that really sing to me faster than I did. 

Product Marketing is a vast field. It's nearly impossible to be great in all areas. It's important to identify your interests and strengths (e.g. data, storytelling, product, marketing) and to use this information to build what makes you special as a PMM. For me, it's storytelling + product evangelism. I'm really strong at both and the combination makes me unique.

The analogy I like to use for folks new to Product Marketing is that it's like archery on horseback. The role requires two very different skills sets that are hard enough to develop separately. A good PMM is an expert marketing/communicator/getter-of-stuff-done while at the same time a curious, fearless technical practitioner who's bent on learning as much about a certain customer/domain/technology as possible to be credible in the marketing work they do. So my general advice is that there's no short-cut, just keep working on both aspects of the job, emphasizing the area where you might not be as strong. If you're strong technically (maybe you have an engineering or computer science background), make sure you focus on writing, simplifying communications to "big animal pictures" and being able to influence and rally others around common work. Read the best business books (Geoffrey Moore, April Dunford, etc), do tons of writing - even if it's just for yourself or your smaller team. Write world class team status reports - every little bit helps. If you're background is the opposite, maybe you think of yourself as more of a pure marketer, dig into product. Learn how to code (YouTube is overflowing with tutorials for pretty much everything available) and learn the mechanics of how things work end-to-end in your industry (like how an insurance claim gets filed and processed or how DevOps engineers go from the first sign of an issue all the way to resolution). If there's Sales Engineering or other technical training/certification that your company offers, jump on it. You might struggle, but keep with it. You'll emerge an awesome PMM.