Sourcing a Product Marketing Manager in the SaaS space means looking for a candidate that not only brings the technical knowledge you need, but also whose strategy approach aligns with your current sales motion. Asking the right questions during the interview will help you determine much faster if you have your right-fit unicorn or not, which is why Betts has compiled this list of key inquiries to use when seeking your unicorn product marketer:
The Role & Responsibilities of a Product Marketing Manager
Product Marketing Managers are responsible for defining and communicating the value of a solution to both internal teams and external audiences. Their role spans market research, competitive analysis, product positioning and supporting your sales team with applicable go-to-market (GTM) strategies. Hiring a PMM requires identifying someone who not only understands your product but can also bridge the gap between technical presentation and market needs.
A successful product marketer will be capable of owning product positioning, developing messaging that contributes to sales enablement, and supporting GTM strategy from launch to nurture stages. Your unicorn candidate will be someone who can align and leverage these strengths with your specific sales motion to boost awareness, lead generation and ultimately help to lock down sales in a competitive market where communicating product value is key to success.
Skills & Experience Questions
Questions about a Product Marketing Manager’s skill sets and past experience will help you better understand their background, level of expertise and let you determine if they are the right fit with what you are looking for. Your hiring managers should adjust these inquiries as needed to dive deeper into specific answers you need, such as exploring the candidate’s previous responsibilities at another tech company to make sure they have the proficiencies you need for this role. Also allow for follow-up questions and responses to ensure critical information does not get left out.
- Product Messaging Experience: Ask the candidate to describe their process for developing and refining product messaging. Have them walk you through a past example where they successfully positioned a product in a competitive market.
- Technical Knowledge Translation: Inquire about the candidate’s approach to translating complex technical features into clear value propositions for non-technical audiences. Ask them to provide a previous example of when they did this effectively.
- Market Analysis Proficiency: Have the candidate describe their experience with market research and competitive analysis. Ask how they’ve used these insights to inform product positioning in the past.
- Sales Enablement Tactics: Ask about the types of sales enablement materials the candidate has created, and to describe some that had the biggest impact on closing deals. Inquire how they measured the effectiveness of these assets.
- Product Launch Strategy: Request details about the most successful product launch the candidate has managed. Ask about the key components of their strategy and how they measured its success.
- Content Creation Portfolio: Inquire about the types of content the candidate has created for different stages of the customer journey. Ask which formats they have found most effective for product marketing.
- Product-Market Fit Assessment: Have the candidate describe their process for evaluating product-market fit and adjusting marketing strategy accordingly. Ask for specific examples from their experience.
- Stakeholder Management: Ask the candidate about their experience managing relationships between Product, Sales, and Customer Success teams. Request specific examples of how they have worked to align these teams on product messaging in previous roles.
Situational Questions
Situational questions are needed to explore challenges and opportunities that may not be cut-and-dry, allowing your hiring manager to see how capable the candidate for your Product Marketing Manager position thinks outside of the box. Leverage scenarios and other hypothetical avenues to let them show off their level of strategic thinking, decision-making, and adaptability when faced with roadblocks.
- New Market Entry Scenario: Present a scenario where your company is planning to enter a new market segment. Ask how the candidate would approach researching this market and developing a tailored product marketing strategy.
- Competitive Response: Describe a situation where a major competitor has just launched a product with similar features to yours in the same industry space. Ask the candidate how they would adjust your product marketing strategy to maintain your competitive edge.
- Product Rebranding Challenge: Propose a scenario where you are considering rebranding a core product in your portfolio. Ask the candidate to walk you through how they would approach this process from a product marketing perspective.
- Feature Launch Planning: Present a scenario about launching a new AI-powered feature. Ask the candidate to outline their launch strategy, including timeline, channels, and success metrics.
- Customer Feedback Integration: Describe a scenario where you have received mixed feedback about a recent product update. Ask how the candidate would incorporate this into your product marketing strategy and messaging.
- Marketing-Sales Alignment: Describe a situation where there has been misalignment between marketing messages and sales conversations. Ask how the candidate would address this disconnect and what steps would they take to ensure messaging alignment going forward.
- Feature Adoption Campaign: Present a situation where you are facing low adoption rates among your user base for a new feature. Ask the candidate to outline a product marketing campaign to increase awareness and drive adoption among existing customers.
- Brand Perception Management: Present a scenario where technical issues have affected product perception. Ask how the candidate would rebuild trust and in your product among your user base and address the issues in future communications.
Find Your Right-fit Product Marketing Manager with Betts
The right Product Marketing Manager can revolutionize your go-to-market strategy, but sourcing your unicorn marketer should not derail your momentum. Let Betts Recruiting connect you with pre-vetted PMM candidates who match your needs and sales motion, and without breaking your hiring budget.
Contact Betts here to learn how we can transform your hiring process and help you find your unicorn Product Marketing Manager faster.