“PMA's courses have changed my life and completely accelerated my professional career”

Evonne Powers, Product Marketing Lead at Finexio, is originally from New Jersey and currently resides in Boca Raton, Florida – South Florida.

She’s a goal-oriented marketing visionary skilled in leading teams, developing and executing campaigns, and elevating brands through strong and unique strategies. She’s passionate about SaaS, product marketing, brand marketing, and content marketing. 

Evonne has been a product marketer for companies such as PlanHub, a construction software as a service company, as well as 24/7 Software, which helps the likes of different concert venues and sporting venues become operationally efficient. She’s also been a generalist marketer in the past and has experience in sales.

How did you find out about PMA courses? 

When I was a director of marketing for Plan Hub, my role spanned so many different aspects of marketing. I realized at the time that my strong suit was in content marketing. The company – which was a start-up – was going to be releasing our first software product. That's when I first heard about this sector of marketing called product marketing. 

To focus on the product side and launch of this product, I had to turn over some of the branding and social media work to the marketing coordinator on the team. I had a general idea of how to structure a product launch, and so I started working with the VP of product. 

At this point, I didn't have any formal certifications that would help me excel in the product marketing side of my career. Nevertheless, I went through and started documenting some of the internal processes like being able to set up campaigns for the launch. At this point, I wondered if there were any further education courses available that’d help with my venture.

I came across PMA – Product Marketing Alliance – via Google search, and I started researching the courses from there. 

Which certifications did you choose and why?

I chose to complete the Product Marketing Certified: Core course. Since completing my course, I know that PMA has added to its Core selection, but Product Marketing Certified: Core was my starting point. 

The Core course essentially stated that it was a great starting point if you want to excel in your career and move onwards and upwards within product marketing. So, the Core course was the first one that I signed up for, and it gave information into all the different sections of product marketing, like market research, pricing, messaging and positioning, go-to-market (GTM) strategies, and so on, so it worked as a great starting point.

After completing Core, I saw that PMA had Master’s courses available, so I moved on to those courses to keep improving. 

Why did these certifications stand out above market alternatives?

After searching on Google, Product Marketing Alliance seemed to stand out as the best option, as you have good market penetration and the courses involve talks and presentations from top product marketing experts from leading companies. This provides a level of trust that showed me that PMA was the leader in the industry for the certification. 

It wasn’t really on my mind to go out and further research a competitor in that aspect – after researching PMA and its courses, I just felt like the trust was there from the beginning.

Which aspects of the certifications did you find the most valuable?

I love the way the courses are laid out, with a mixture of videos with certain instructors, so you get that auditory and visual factor, particularly as you have the visual elements presented in front of you. For example, the course provides decks that PMA’s put together, and the fact that you can download the decks and use the resources is great. 

One of my favorite courses, Go-to-Market: Masters, had a checklist that you had to go through, which was super helpful for me because I can use this GTM checklist and repurpose the asset on the job.

How have you transferred the insights gained into your day-to-day practice? 

From the product launch standpoint, I've used the messaging framework by April Dunford – a positioning and messaging leader. I’ve taken some of PMA’s frameworks from the course materials to rebuild the product positioning and messaging for my current company, Finexio, from the ground up.

Finexio’s had different messaging in the past, but as companies evolve, you need to go back to the ground and rebuild as and when necessary. Because of this, I use a lot of the materials to do that at my current company and it's been very valuable from messaging to market research, product launches, personas, metrics, and so on. And now I know, there's a course specific to persona research! 

Finexio’s never had persona cards, they never had battle cards available, so I feel like not only has the core course touched on a lot of these elements, but the Master's course has enabled me to dive in even further.

This has helped me on the job, particularly with a startup company, and enabled me to find my bearings on where to start and how to sustainably progress. 

How has this experience impacted your professional growth?

The certifications show that I’m officially certified – that I not only understand product marketing, but I’ve put in so much time and effort into gaining specific credentials that are tailored to my career. I love that I can showcase my achievements on LinkedIn, as well as print out the certificates and hang them in my office, too. 

And I think as far as the job market goes, these certifications can actually position you over another candidate, just by showcasing the mixture of experience and certification. This has really helped me grow my professional career. 

I was a director of marketing previously, but more of a generalist marketer. I then took my next step as a senior product marketing manager in a venue operations company. I do see this as a lateral move, but since then, I’ve transitioned into the role of product marketing lead.

So, in my opinion, the more experience I have, the more certifications I achieve, and my positions will increase incrementally. So, realistically, my next position could be in the realm of director of product marketing.

If you hadn't signed up for the certifications, what impact do you think this would have had on your career?

Without the certifications, it’s likely that I’d only have a narrow understanding of product marketing because there's more to product marketing than just doing a product launch, for example. 

Before I became certified, my first experience in product marketing was working on a launch, which entailed getting together a knowledge base, customer emails, and so on. But there's this whole other side of product marketing that happens in a company.

The certifications opened up those doors to me and enabled me to dive into positioning and messaging, pricing, personas, customer research, and even learning about consumer psychology and segmentation, which helped me to further build out enhanced sales enablement tools.

Overall, the certifications facilitated a better understanding of product marketing. I feel like if I didn't take the courses, then I may have only just worked on that one part – the product launch – and then I also wouldn’t have been able to advance my career – and my salary – and find myself in the position I’m in.

I praise PMA up and down, the courses have changed my life and completely accelerated my professional career. I’m now doing something that I'm passionate about as well. The courses have enabled me to take everything up a level; be more strategic, work cross-functionally, and translate what the product team is doing – what they're working on, showcasing that information to the account management and sales teams, and also just help build out marketing campaigns to showcase exactly like what our value proposition is. 

It’s a wonderful feeling to be in a position where I'm making a good living, I'm able to support myself, and I’m passionate about what I'm doing and helping others in the B2B SaaS space. The certifications have also provided me with job security, too. I’m now not only building out the materials needed to help propel the company but also acting as an advisor and helping out the rest of the company, which I think is really neat. 

What would you say to fellow PMMs considering signing up for a PMA certification?

Definitely go for it. Signing up for the certification is the best thing that you can do for your professional career if you're passionate about building products – but maybe you're not as “techie” in that space – and you enjoy marketing and content.

You just have to be able to put in the time. So as long as you have that will, go-getter personality, and drive for success, then it's so worth it. You can do these courses after work, on the weekends, or even in your lunch break.

Of course, there’s a certain amount of money for the courses, but the amount of money that you're going to make back with the salary that you're going to get is exponential. Essentially, it’s worth it. Even the cost of the certification is going to have a relevant impact on the ROI that you're going to get from the increase in salary you'll achieve. 

Any final thoughts?

I just want to say, thank you again! I appreciate that PMA exists – it’s a great community to be a part of, there’s always new course materials and assets that you can take advantage of, even if you're just a general member.

I’m a PMA member but I still take steps to enhance my career, for example, I’m in the middle of my leadership course and will be finishing it up soon. It’s all super valuable information, so I would just like to say thank you.

Are you ready to join Evonne and become Product Marketing Certified?

Trusted by the world’s biggest brands, Product Marketing Certified: Core's the industry standard, the catalyst to your success, the only companion you need for personal and professional growth.

From research to optimization, Product Marketing Core explores (cliche alert!) the A to Z of product marketing, and with PMMC in your pocket, you’ll have a richer understanding of the what, why, and how of every product marketing principle. And that’s a promise.

Completing this course will help you...

🙌 Grasp every element of the cross-functional and rapidly evolving discipline that is product marketing.

🛠 Market your product through its entire lifecycle and successfully meet your product marketing key performance indicators.

👩🏽‍💼 Stand out in the job market - more and more employers request PMMC certification as a prerequisite for job seekers.

🧗🏼‍♂️ Advance up the career ladder with your newfound knowledge, skills, and product marketing network.

📦 Become the total package. Product marketing is an incredibly varied role. Our curriculum covers all the nooks and crannies.

🔖 Show off to your peers with a shiny new certificate #braggingrights.