Jamie Wallis

15 September 2017

Product marketing, the Redgate way

On your first day at Redgate you get a packet of Jammie Dodgers. Although I was never told exactly what to do with them, the implied meaning was that they were to help me get to know my colleagues. If I shared them around the office over a cup of coffee, it might help me break the ice.

That’s an incredibly important quality Redgate employees have – working well with other people. The nature of Agile working, which is practiced by every team in the company including marketing, means the lines of communication and flow of information need to stay open.

Fortunately, Redgaters are very good at doing this and it rubs off on you. As a naturally quiet person, the fact that everyone around me was making efforts to be friendly and helpful really enabled me to do the same.

There isn’t really a typical day for a Product Marketing Manager at Redgate, especially when, like me, you have two products to look after (SQL Prompt and SQL Compare). But there are some common themes you’ll get used to.

The Product Marketing team have a daily standup meeting of around 15 minutes, where we discuss what tasks we completed yesterday and what’s on our plate today.

If you’ve not previously worked in a place that uses Agile processes (and in my experience not many marketing teams do), getting used to standups, sprints, retrospectives and more can be a bit tricky. The pace and focus on your tasks can be a bit daunting, but now I’m used to it I’ve found it to be a really useful process and a positive way of working.

By breaking down my tasks into manageable jobs, I’m able to better structure my workload. I also have lots of chances to gain advice and ideas from my colleagues, either through structured meetings, or informally on Slack, or at the coffee machines (in case you haven’t noticed, the coffee machines are another essential part of life at Redgate).

But as a Product Marketing Manager, I don’t just work with the marketing department. I attend the standups and other meetings held by the teams who develop my products. I also have a hotdesk and sit with each team for at least one day a week.

This ensures I have an in-depth knowledge of what they’re working on and what their priorities are, so my marketing campaigns fit their development plans. It also gives me the opportunity to influence decisions and provide my expertise to help the direction of features and timing of releases.

I take part in product testing, sprint planning and quarterly reviews with the development teams. This helps them get an outside (non-technical) perspective on their work, and it helps me understand the products a lot better.

As well as the development teams, Product Marketing Managers also need to work closely with our sales teams, based both in our Cambridge and US offices, and our Support teams to ensure a consistency of message and customer experience.

It hasn’t taken me very long to get used to the Redgate way of working and, now that I have I feel I’m a more efficient and knowledgeable marketer because of it.

If you want to work this way too (and get your hands on your very own packet of Jammie Dodgers), we’re looking for people who want to be a Product Marketing Manager right now. Check out the job description and get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.