Interview with Google Product Marketing Manager Vincent Xu

Product Marketing is the art and science of bringing a product to the right market and establishing a sustainable positioning for the product. Product marketing is becoming one of the fastest-growing fields in technology business management.

According to Richard King, Founder and CEO of Product Marketing Alliance, “Over the last few years, product marketing has had a (well-deserved!) moment. The role’s by no means new — far from it. But individuals and organizations worldwide are finally starting to understand how invaluable it is. With that raised awareness has come new levels of knowledge-sharing, which has really expanded the breadth of the role, and how far PMMs can push the limits on a personal and company-wide level.”

Consequently, there has been a growth in Product Marketing communities and certification programs worldwide. Product Marketing Alliance is the leading community with over 20,000+ members from top leading companies around the globe and industry-wide recognized certifications. In this article, I explained my experience interviewing a Product Marketing Manager and his thoughts on professional growth.

Vincent Xu is a Product Marketing Manager at Google, where he works as Android Product and Partnerships Marketing Lead for the Asia-Pacific. He started his career in Finance in Investment Banking and Equity before transitioning to Marketing four years ago when he joined Google in the San Francisco’s office on the Business and Strategy team, after which he transferred to Singapore two and half years ago to lead the Android Business in the Asia Pacific.

In this interview, Vincent talked about his career journey, shared his thoughts on product marketing, how he works and what makes doing Product Marketing at Google interesting.

What skills would you say contributed to your growth as a Product Marketing Manager?

Ans: Number one is having a strategic mindset. In marketing, a lot of times, people tend to start getting very execution by focusing on how you execute a campaign and what the offers are. In contrast, a considerable focus should be starting at a higher level by understanding your core strategy, your company strategy, how you think about customer acquisition, what are the key markets and using a top-down approach.

"Having a strategic mindset and strategy setting and eventually getting into the execution and tactical pieces."

Being able to see things from a C-level executive and identify what interests the C-level executive.

“If you imagine like a CMO or CEO looking at a plan, they don't have the time to get into every single detail. What they care about is a larger picture. Like:

• What is the overall strategy?
• What are the high-level impacts you want to make?
• What are the top two or three items they should know about a particular marketing campaign?”

Thinking from that level is very helpful as it helps you articulate your thoughts well, have a clearer picture and communicate effectively.

What are some of the technologies that will change the future of Product Marketing?

Ans: Probably 5G because having a superior network is the foundational infrastructure to using AI, VR, or cloud services. The superior network to leverage these technologies is unlocked by the 5G network.

"5G just launched globally, it's a big step up from 5G, and that will allow things like AI, VR or cloud to become more popularised and more ubiquitous."

What does a typical day as a Product Marketing Manager for you look like?

Ans: Vincent does different things daily, which cuts across research and insights, stakeholder management, and creative development. Research and insights are key because it helps him to know his customers. After all, as a Product Marketing Manager, if you don’t understand your customer and know what's going on, there's no way you can make an impact or run a successful campaign or maximize what you can do.

Cross-functional stakeholder management, because at Google, you are working with so many different teams, such as the marketing teams on the global, regional and local levels. You also get to work with product management, business development and sales teams.

“Being able to really understand each team's road map is really going to feed into what I can drive in marketing, and then the third piece is execution like creative development, talking with partners, getting the execution pieces together and making sure all the details are in place to maximize impact and make sure your execution goes well”

How do I position myself for a Product Marketing career at Google?

Ans: Google marketing is very broad, and there's nothing specific because everyone's working on different things.

Strategic problem solving and communications are the major skills required to land a role at Google, and you can develop this in many different ways by working in investment banking or consulting. Being able to demonstrate problem-solving, setting the right strategy, and stakeholder management makes you a great fit for a Product Marketing role at Google.

"Being able to work with people, manage timelines, manage projects, get alignment across different stakeholders. I think those are the two sorts of skills that are pretty critical for a role at Google."

What do you enjoy most about doing Product Marketing at Google?

Ans: Learning something new because I have a big area I can look after.

"I'm learning something new, like one day, I might be working on a 5G campaign in Korea and then the next day I am working on an entry-level smartphone campaign in India."

"The depth and width of the types of people I work with, the different things I've learned, the different country dynamics that I get to deep dive into, I think that's really exciting."

Constantly learning day in and day out stood out as what makes it interesting to do Product Marketing at Google.

What departments do you collaborate with most and why?

Ans: Business development because a lot of what I do is like working with partners, working with external partners like telecommunication carriers in other parts of the world.

To work with partners, Vincent relies on and works very closely with the business development teams.

What are some of the challenges you face as a Product Marketing Manager, and how did you overcome them?

Ans: How we properly align with our partner goals because Google might have different goals from our external partners. Aligning the company's vision to our partner's vision.

“I think taking a very empathy-driven approach is super important. So really understanding

• What are the top priorities and KPIs of the other company?
• What have they done in the past?
• What are their current projects like?

only by truly understanding other people's perspectives and where they are coming from can you be able to create a plan that is going to work for both sides and a plan that is going to maximize impact.”

The problem is aligning a partner's goal with company interest and using an empathy-driven approach has been proven to help Vincent solve this problem.

What are your top 3 destinations to learn about Product Marketing?

Ans: Product marketing alliance, talking to people and reading blogs just by randomly searching Google to see what people have to say and fact-checking the article.

“Product Marketing Alliance has like a very big repository of resources, and that's number one, number two, I think just talking to people because there's always going to be people with more experience than you so just like grabbing their time and picking their brains and like learning from their expertise is helpful in itself."

Joining a community like Product Marketing Alliance, and leveraging your networks and mentors at your company is a great way to start.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to transition to Product Marketing?

Ans:  "I think just to like know what you are getting yourself into, do everything you can to find out more about what product  marketing entails and just go beyond the surface."

Reading about what product marketing does is not enough, but you should try to apply the learning to the specific needs of the company you want to work for; an example is doing product marketing at Google versus Procter and Gamble.

"Understanding broadly what product marketing entails but also really understanding the nuances and all the differences between the company that you are looking at. One company might value strategy a lot more than another company, and other companies might value hitting KPIs and sales numbers a lot more than a third company. "

"You have to figure out where your strengths and your weaknesses lie and how you want to go from there"

Branching out into Product Marketing after the PMA Scholars Program.

Ans: Vincent shared the differences in the structure of teams and responsibilities between startups and established companies.

While Startups allow working on different things, wearing different hats and offer more growth opportunities, the established company equally offers mentorship opportunities, a process you can learn from and more standardized ways of doing things.**

Lastly, he advised talking to people who have worked with startups and those who have worked with established companies to align and find risk appetite and long-term plans. More importantly, it's good to identify where you can learn best as a significant consideration.