Request for Review: Senior Product Marketing Manager (PMM) - Promise

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Hi all! I’m a Senior Product Marketing Manager for a large software company in the US. I have been working for the same product-led company since college, 5 years ago. I am extremely passionate about moving to the UK, so I really want to put my best foot forward on this application. My company has thousands of employees, and I am pretty confident that I will be able to show innovation and impact, but I could definitely use some help!

I am applying for the Exceptional Promise route. I haven’t seen many Product Marketing Managers (PMM) in this forum, so I wanted to ask for a review on my application. Below is the evidence I have as of now, but I am open to any feedback and suggestions!

Letters of Recommendation

  1. Director of Product Marketing at my company: This is my current boss who has been with the company for 20 years.
  2. VP of Product Marketing at large EdTech company: She used to be my boss but changed companies 2 years ago.
  3. Senior Product Marketing Manager at very large tech company: He used to be my colleague but left a year ago, he has 15 years of experience in the industry.

Main Criteria

  1. Proof of Salary and Job title: I can prove that I have doubled my salary since joining my company 5 years ago, received 2 promotions, and received a high amount of stock over the years.
  2. Proof of leading marketing efforts: Proof and messaging source document I created to show led the marketing of our flagship product rebranding. I also have a reference letter from a former colleague who is now a Senior PMM for a large tech company to corroborate my evidence.
  3. Proof of speaking at a high-profile digital technology sector event: I have screenshots of the session listing, event size and demographics (over 2000 attendees), and photos of me speaking to a 60-person audience about the products I market.
  4. Proof of growing my team: I have proof of a large internal meeting I created and lead to get 200 internal stakeholders to understand product changes. My boss’s recommendation letter also confirms that I am the PMM team lead for my product.

Optional Criteria 1 (OC1)

  1. I led the marketing efforts for industry-first innovations of optimizing unified communications apps inside of our flagship product: I have the patents tied to this innovation (but I did not make the patents or technology), I have videos and blogs that I solely created showcasing these innovative features in action and the thousands of views the acquired.
  2. I co-led the marketing efforts for the first-of-its-kind virtual browser inside of our flagship product: I have the patents tied to this innovation (but I did not make the patents or technology), I worked directly with the Product Manager to ensure that the features fit with customer needs. I marketed the capability internally and externally through blogs.

Optional Criteria 3 (OC3)

  1. I have made a significant contribution by delivering industry-leading blogs: I have emails and dashboards to show that a handful of my blogs drove over 5000 prospects, the SEO keywords attached to them rank in the top 3, and my blogs drove 8% of the total conversion of all the blogs on the site.
  2. I have made a large impact with my quarterly What’s New content and launching major releases: I have proof of delivering 6 product releases and leading webinars that drove millions of dollars in pipeline.
  3. I have made a large impact by giving customer presentations on a global scale: Proof that I have participated in, or spoken at, 8 industry trade shows globally. I will show that I gave multi-day customer presentations in South America that drove thousands of dollars in Marketing Influenced Pipeline. I also have a reference letter from a former colleague who is now a Director of Customer Success for a large tech company to corroborate my evidence.

My biggest questions are about the innovation (OC1) section. Can anyone from non-technical backgrounds give me advice on the innovation section? I am still looking at my options and projects to make the section stronger, but any feedback or advice would be great.

Thank you all for the help!

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Hi @Francisca_Chiedu, tagging for your review. Do you have suggestions on how to show innovation for OC1 as an employee who is marketing innovative features? Also, do my letters of recommendation look okay as they are from different companies, but they are all in Product Marketing and used to work with me or currently work with me?

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are you a senior executive?

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No, I am not a people manager, and I do not have direct reports. My title is senior as I have gotten promoted to that individual contributor title.

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@May @alexnk @ask4jubad
Kindly tagging for your review. I would truly appreciate any of your additional comments or suggestions. Thank you!

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For evidence of innovation the guide states you must be a founder or senior executive.

As an employee you could provide evidence of working on a new digital field.

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Yes, I am an employee and planned to provide evidence of working in a new digital concept. My proof is that I marketed industry-first innovative features inside of our main product. I have blogs and videos that I created that say “industry-first innovation” and patents from my company surrounding the topic.

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Hi
Patents definitely a positive thing, are they under your name?

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Hello! The patents are not under my name, unfortunately. They are tied to different people in my company. But the blogs are published under my name, and I star in the announcement videos.

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Hi

When they verify patents online can they see atleast your name anywhere? If not, i dont advice using that instead you can put that in your cv and in rone of the points in reference letters mentioing your key contribution.
Blogs and medium might not be impactful as anyone can create it, if its in your companies website/blog(which url usually contains your office domain address) then cross reference that in your personal stmt, cv.

Long story short- my advice if its not under your verifiable name dont use it as main criteria but just as a support points in your application.

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First of all, if you have worked for more than 5 years in the field, you must apply for the Exceptional Talent route, which requires higher standards to meet.

OC1: (doc#5 and doc#6)

  • It is more important to show how you led or involve or responsible in the project under your role. So you may get some kind of email or chat snapshots which indicate your participations. This may strengthen your evidence. Like the others said, showing the patent which does not include your name, may be too weak.
  • I am afraid that the media (blog) you own may be weak in the application, as it is easy to manipulate. However if it is endorsed or been given an appraisal from a well known tech person for example from another media or an LOR, it may help.

OC3:
Doc #7: I am afraid that it may not fit in the OC3, which is meant to be the real impact to your main full-time job. The contribution to the field, may fall under OC2. And as I mentioned earlier, this is a weak evidence, but better than nothing. So you may consider to add something here.

Doc#8: I would consider breaking the 6 products down into 2-3 pieces of evidence showing the strength of your evidence toward OC3.

Doc #9: This looks fine. Just to ensure that you provide enough reference to show the legitimacy, how well known it is, number of participants and etc. You may also need to tie this to your fulltime job, adding a few notes in the LOR may help to connect these together.

To answer your question about OC1. I think OC1 is an easy option to get you around this application since you have been participating in many tech projects. You may just need to indicate your participation and how these projects are considered “INNOVATION” which is something new to the market and the industry, and not copying any other players.

All in all, I think you have a good chance, but you just need to revise your evidence to ensure that this really fits the Technation guideline. Also, consider that you will need to meet 2-3 strong evidence requirements at least in each criterion, in order to satisfy the EXCEPTIONAL TALENT route as you indicate that you have worked for more than 5 years.

I hope this helps @Monica_G

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@Connect Thank you for the feedback and advice. I will put the patents in each evidence as a reference, but they will not be the only evidence I use.

Yes, all of the blogs I am referencing throughout my application are posted on my company’s blog, not my own. I am tagged as the author, but nothing goes on the company blog without explicit company permission.

@alexnk Thank you so much for your thorough feedback. I started my career in July of 2018, so I literally just hit 5 years in the field this month. The main page for the Tech Nation visa states “If you are earlier in your career (5 years or less)” and the guide states, “Exceptional promise applicants are likely to have less than 5 years of experience in technology.” Since I am literally right at 5 years, I was thinking Promise made more sense, but I get I’m right on the line.

For OC1, I will definitely look to get more email communications and screenshots of involvement with the Product Managers to back up my involvement. As far as the blog, apologies that it was unclear in the original post, but the blog is under my company, it is not my personal blog. I am the author of the posts, but it is under my company’s blog site. I will also look for additional outside media to verify the innovations though!

For OC3, Doc 7, These blogs are on my company site, not my own. They are driving real impact for the product I market. I have screenshots from my company’s SEO manager proving the impact I made.

OC3, Doc 8: Good feedback here. The 6 launches were for 6 releases/updates of the same product. But I will explain this. I definitely have enough content over the years to break it into a few different parts.

OC3, Doc 9: Yep, I have photos from my presentations and a letter of reference to solidify my contributions. Every presentation and trade show I went to was on behalf of my company. None of them were for personal reasons.

I cannot thank you enough for your time, help, and encouragement! I will keep looking at the Tech Nation Guidelines and making my contributions as clear as possible!

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Hi @Monica_G

I received the exceptional talent visa earlier this year and have a product marketing background. I have been in product marketing for more than 10 years and am currently a director of product marketing at a large software company. When I applied, I was already living in the UK on a skilled worker visa.

I would strongly suggest replacing recommender #3 with someone who was senior to you even if they were not in the direct line of management. Make sure your recommendations, essay, and evidence capture the impact of the work you’ve done.

I would also suggest thinking of short titles for each piece of evidence, that way you can ensure that the takeaway for the application reviewers is clear. This might also help you make sure that you’re not unintentionally repeating the same work or outcomes as different pieces of evidence. For example - the way evidence 7, 8, and 9 are currently described seems to suggest that you’re highlighting “marketing activities” you led and all of them resulted in more revenue or pipeline, and they’re also sounding similar to evidence 5 and 6. I know they’re different since I have a similar background but your application reviewer might not :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t worry too much about innovation since PMM is a business role.

Sharing what I used for my application below:

My recommendations were from:

  • Chief Product Officer at a US tech start-up (was a key stakeholder in a previous role)
  • SVP of Marketing at a US tech start-up (ex-manager at my current company)
  • Head of Marketing at a large tech company (ex-manager at a different company)

The evidence I used:

  1. Approached for more than 60+ jobs within the UK within a few months of moving here
  2. Approached for consulting offers for GTM/PMM at start-ups
  3. Compensation growth in the last 5 years
  4. Promotions
  5. Presentations at leading conferences
  6. Presentations at webinars
  7. Published bylines, guest articles, and blogs
  8. Impact of work at an AI start-up I worked at (events, media coverage, and funding)
  9. Impact of work at another AI start-up I worked at (events, media coverage, and funding)
  10. Impact of work at the current company (revenue growth, analyst meetings, and the product being recognized as a leader in its category)

Hope this helps and wishing you good luck

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@awkwrd101 Congratulations on your endorsement! So great to hear from a fellow PMM about your success. Thank you so much for the feedback!

Got it on Recommender #3, I have asked a different individual who is a Marketing Executive that used to lead an adjacent team at my current company.

I love the titles suggestion. I am planning to put the titles below attached to all of my evidence. I will then put a brief summary under the title. My plan is to then use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format to explain my evidence. Do the below titles make my evidence more clear?

  1. High Compensation as a Senior Product Marketing Manager
  2. Leading Marketing and Renaming for Flagship Product
  3. Presentation at High-Profile Event
  4. Leading Team growth
  5. Innovation in Unified Communications
  6. Innovation in Securing Virtual Web Browsers
  7. Impact of Published Blogs
  8. Impact of Product Launches and Webinars
  9. Impact of Global Customer Presentations

Also, your evidence examples are super helpful. For your pieces of evidence 5-7, what Optional Criteria category did you put those under? Optional Criteria 2 for work outside your occupation?

Thank you again for your help!!

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You’re welcome, @Monica_G

The titles look good, there might be some room for further word-smithing to make these even clearer.

And yes, it was optional criteria 2 for me.

All the best!!

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Hi @Monica_G @awkwrd101 I feel so relieved to read another PM endorsed and your advices :slight_smile:
So I will tell my case, I am a digital marketer focused on growth and I had a job as a product manager. I am planning to apply using some evidences about how I made to growth some business through digital marketing strategies and how I made innovation and made incomes thanks to the products I launched. But I am not sure about the evidences. @awkwrd101, could you please tell me what exactly you put to evidence growth: emails? Do you think the panel would accept PowerPoint presentations that I did in the company where I presented the results about the growth incomes by my products and this supported by the LOR of leaders from that company that confirm that? Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

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@Monica_G I can see that @awkwrd101 used OC2 and OC3. I am usually tilted toward OC2 and OC3 too (and that was what I felt before seeing @awkwrd101 's reply). @awkwrd101 Can you kindly show how you arranged your evidences?

My gut feeling is that at certain level, one should have had significant contribution outside one’s normal work (i.e., OC2). Of course, attendance metrics and the rating of such outlet are another thing to worry about.

I have question though @Monica_G - the reference letter from the Director of Customer Success under OC3, is it related to the speaking events for 9. or about your impact within the company?

If it is the latter, I would suggest that you make it a separate evidence such as 10.