There are so many facets of marketing that in order to stand out in any one of them professionals must differentiate themselves in their specific area. This includes product marketers, which differ from other types of marketing including corporate marketing, marketing communications, online marketing, and the list goes on and on. It is especially vital to differentiate yourself from product managers – also a huge facet of the business world.
While these seem like insignificant wording differences, they make a world of difference when they appear in your resume. Further, now that high tech companies are becoming more and more reliant on product marketing professionals to get their technologies to market, the distinction becomes even more relevant. There are several easy ways you can draw these distinctions on your resume.
First, it is important to remember that any marketing professional has the responsibility to market themselves effectively first and foremost to prove that they can market the company’s products. You can achieve this by viewing yourself as the product and applying basic marketing principles involving packaging, positioning, and even aspects of branding and sales, to your resume.
Speaking of packaging and positioning, as a product marketer, you certainly deal with more just the first of the seven marketing “P’s”. Using significant and even quantified evidence of your expertise in each of these areas (specifically in launching new products), you will establish your foundation of marketing knowledge, and then going beyond in product knowledge will reinforce your specific field know-how. That includes discussing product innovation, strategic planning, marketing requirements, product-specific research, etc.
Be sure to use language specific to your field, both strategic and tactical, and consider limiting your use of responsibilities that will pigeonhole you in a traditional marketing role, such as Corporate Marketing Director or Marketing Manager. If your background is in taking new technologies to market, you don’t want to get stuck writing corporate marketing plans and producing newsletters.
As mentioned, be sure to differentiate your brand from that of product management. While these roles often overlap and many companies loosely define their roles, they are not replacements for each other. The result of combining these roles is often a poorly executed product (on the management end) or a poorly executed launch (on the marketing end). Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to appeal to both.
Be sure to discuss a key skill to marketing – your ability to effectively communicate in a way that will build bridges between stakeholders. So many marketing professionals I have worked with minimize their communication skills by simply stating, “Good oral/written communicator”, but employers are eager to bring people on board who can reach across functions to inform and inspire all those involved in a new product’s development lifecycle from IT teams to executive teams.
Finally, it is crucial that you establish the specific products with which you have experience. Since so many product marketers have technical expertise in certain areas – software, hardware, industrial equipment – employers want to know where you shine.
By focusing on all of these priorities in your product marketing resume, you will definitely distinguish yourself from other marketers and stand out from the crowd!
