Building Customer Empathy Through Storytelling and Creativity with MailChimp

Please welcome ann marie alicantra, tech reporter at adweek, and tom klein, cmo at mailchimp.

Hello. Welcome, everyone. This is very official, so let's start this off.

All righty.

Tell us about yourself, where you work, your title.

Yeah, I'm Tom Klein. I am the chief marketing officer of mailchimp, and that means that I'm responsible for both marketing and for partnerships across the company.

Great. Any fun fact to share about yourself?

I have an identical twin brother.

That's cool.

And so that's. If anybody. I often find that people will either encounter me or my brother and, of course, confuse us for each other, and so you never really know which one you're going to get.

Great. Well, tell us about your background in marketing and what you've done. Any cool campaigns?

Yeah, I think one of the interesting things in terms of recently people might have seen the. The did you mean? Campaign@mailchimp. And I think some of what I thought might be interesting for everyone to learn about was just, where does that come from? When we start talking about connecting with customers? That was a pretty weird campaign, and I wanted to sort of explain a little bit, like, where the heck did that come from? Right. Yeah. And so probably maybe four or five months before we launched that campaign, we. We sort of bottled up what we thought is sort of our message of how do we. What do we think is actually good for customers when it comes to building a brand? And that was, you know, being yourself makes all the difference. And it's really kind of a. It's a differentiation message around. Hey, the way that you kind of connect with people is you kind of open up and you're. You're vulnerable, you're different. And part of being yourself is the way that you kind of connect with other people. And ultimately, if you're building a brand, it's how you connect with your customer. And you can be just as weird or funny or whatever that is, and that's the way you kind of connect with people. And so because we had done that in. That was the. Whenever that was sort of before the campaign, we thought, hey, for. Did you mean let's create. Let's be ourselves as sort of weird as it is, and also at the same time, pay homage to the big cereal, the Mailcamp cereal ad that everybody knows so well.

And can you dive into that a little bit more? Like, what does it mean for mailchimp to be itself?

Yeah. So it's very hard to kind of boil things down into something that makes sense, that doesn't sort of Turn into marketing speak. Right. So I'm gonna, you know, given where we are, I'm gonna get into a little bit more marketing speak. You know, essentially everything you need to know about marketing is basically wrapped up into two terms, differentiation and segmentation. Right. And what we see with our customers is often that the point of differentiation doesn't really take hold a lot of times when small businesses will tend to look at other businesses and just say, I should just copy that. So the being yourself is basically a way to kind of capture in a term, hey, you don't have to copy other people. And the way that you kind of connect with customers is you do have a kernel or a concept that you want to bring to life, and it's got all of your background in it and your crazy ideas or whatever they are, and being explicit about it and whether that's being a little bit more personal is absolutely fine. And so that's what the being yourself is all about, is kind of feeling free to just when we say be yourself, it's the marketing version of that is please deliver a differentiated message to a segmented target. But that's not a way where we can speak to our customers.

And can you actually backtrack a little bit and tell us what brought you to mailchimp in the first place?

Oh, yeah. So I met Ben Chestnut probably 10 years ago, and I think even before that, I was a mailchimp customer. And I've worked a lot of different companies, and I have always sort of admired mailchimp because of its just the tone of voice, how thoughtful everything seems. And it was an opportunity for me to kind of continue what has been a lifelong passion of connecting, sort of living at the intersection of marketing and technology. You know, when I was at Nabisco implementing Windows 93, no one could dream of what's going on here today. Now. I mean, it was a very different world then, but my interest has stayed the same. And so when I actually caught up with Ben and got a sense of where the company is now and the trajectory, it was very interesting for me. So that was the clincher, was the ability to continue my interest in marketing and technology.

And in your time at mailchimp so far, how have you connected with customers? Have you built a sort of romance with them?

Yeah, so I. I like the fact that you use the word romance because it's my. I like because it's sort of old fashioned, but I spent some time working for Chanel, and that is a brand where, you know, it's perfectly okay to Talk about romance. And. And I think the one example would be we created. In the middle of 2016, we decided that we wanted to focus on the e commerce segment as a business, and our values as a company are humility, creativity, and independence. And the humility part really kind of said, hey, do we really know what we're doing? And so we thought, as a marketing group, why don't we create an e commerce store? It's called Freddie and Company. And I found what I thought was probably the funniest person I'd encountered at mailchimp and said, it's your lucky job to run the store and chronicle what happens. And instead of chronicling all of the successes, this isn't about your successes. I want to hear about all of your failures. And it was really quite a success. And so she managed the store and then built a newsletter that talked about. It was a very meta thing. Everything we do is super meta, but called what's In Store. And what's in Store now has about a million subscribers in it. But the point is people want to hear about failure and they want to understand that, yes, not everything is. You know, These are the 10 follow these 10 steps to success in e commerce. And so what I wanted to do is try to avoid that on our part and just say, hey, we're going to learn our way into figuring this stuff out.

And how has that translated into the digital age?

So, I mean, the notion of romance is really, really storytelling, right? And that's some of what I wanted to address today, which is largely, you know, we're all really looking for meaning behind everything. Almost everything that we buy is, you know, we want meaning out of it. And whether it's a connection with the people that work somewhere or the people that make your yogurt or whatever that is, you know, we want to feel good about ourselves. And the romance part is largely telling stories give people the meaning that they're craving and don't always, especially in a lot of times. What we see across millions of customers is a lot of times people put on a marketing hat and they go, oh, I just say, buy, buy, buy, buy my stuff. And what we're really trying to get them to do is the romance part is tell the story behind the product. Why is it this way? Is this your grandmother's recipe? I went to a restaurant recently in Brooklyn and we sat down and had a wonderful meal. And it turns out that we were eating the meatballs were the recipe of the guy that I was sitting across from. And it was just. It Was, you know, that's the kind of thing that adds meaning to what are really just little moments of life. And I think that's what people really want.

And do you have any examples of like that have worked that you found in mailchimp like that?

Yeah, you know, it's sort of our ethos. I mean it's sort of at the middle of everything. And I would say what we can see is that they're little things, like little nuggets of like, okay, what does this mean? So if I said, hey, you know what, if you put, we always call like we run these contests in the marketing group at mailchimp and because we're always wondering like, okay, which, which email will work or which ad will more people click on or which one is going to win. And you know, the, the, the best bet is bet on the weird one. Right? Bet on the one that you don't expect to win. Bet on the, you know, we, we can see that if you put an emoji in your subject line, people will open it more often. And it's emoji. Right. It's not like this is not a, a state secret. Yeah. So the same thing goes for click throughs if you put a animated GIF in it. And so we see it in the marketing of our customers and we certainly try to practice it ourselves.

Are there any particular emoji or GIFs that really work?

I think it's seasonal. I think people are partial to different ones and I think we've seen certainly in different industries. Whether you're, it depends if you're, you're in the apparel business or what kind of business you're in. People like, like to use ones that are kind of specific to their vertical.

So would a red heart be seasonal right now since it's Valentine's Day?

Exactly right. I'm sure we'll see a lot of hearts and lots of, you know, probably all sorts of funny stuff. And I think the message is almost always, you know, it's Romancing Romance, which is like everybody should feel have complete license to kind of go crazy. And I think that's a. The message there is, you know, sort of be true to your heart and sort of put yourself out there regardless of whether you're a founder or if really just if you're a brand builder at all, you know, kind of put your heart into it. That would be a good theme for today.

And on this note about brand building, what's it like, you know, building a B2B brand versus like a B2C brand.

I tend to not think that there's much difference. I think the challenge is probably, what is the role of the sales team? You know, I think the lessons are kind of the same. One way to think about it is, I think, you know, if you're a B2C brand, the rules are the same. You're really trying to create an emotional connection with your customer so that they kind of are open to your message. Right. Assuming that they trust you, they think that you're. They have confidence in your product, they think you're a competent company, and they think you're sort of looking out for them. And so that's a trusting relationship. And you could probably talk to anybody who's in and sales and find the same thing, which is if your prospect doesn't like you, they're not likely to buy anything from you. So it's kind of the same message, like an emotional connection, a positive one is like a window that opens that then says, hey, I can communicate with you, and it's likely to be a positive experience for everyone involved.

And you mentioned that the lessons are the same between B2B and B2C. Can you share some of those, what you think those lessons are?

Yeah. So if I said from. If I just said from a storytelling perspective, honestly, I think on a B2C perspective, I think I mentioned I used to work at Chanel, and they were sort of the. The masters of storytelling. There's so much meaning in everything. And I always wondered, why does that brand have sort of a mythical sway on women and simultaneously not being well known at all by men? Right. And some of it has to do with its sort of entrepreneurial history. But there's a. You know, there's a story behind every thing. Thing that comes out of Chanel. Whether it's a. If it's a camellia on a shoe, people know that there's a reason why it's the camellia, why it's a symbol and it's iconography that's existed for over 100 years. And so there's symbols. And it's not always just a story like I'm telling a story. It's. I have symbols of a story that when you see them, you know, like, oh, the reason why the camellia is there is because Coco Chanel thought this about floral arrangements or what have you. So I think the store, you know, that is really kind of clear for B2C businesses. But for B2B, it's mostly. It comes down to a more. A more personal level, and I think the same things apply. But it's what can tend to happen is on a very sort of B2B business, functional benefits tend to weigh a lot higher. So if you said, what do I do if I'm trying to sell software to a cio, I've got security software, I can say either it works well or I can also say it'll keep you out of trouble. And they're sort of different messages. But I think the thinking and the way to structure a combination of features and functional benefits and, and emotional benefits is essentially the same.

The storytelling is still there.

Yes, absolutely.

And can you speak to some of mailchimp's most creative campaigns? You can talk more about the one you mentioned earlier, perhaps.

Yeah. So we have, I mean, we're running a campaign now that's about the brain and some of our challenges when we're trying to take what are kind of complicated word salad technology stuff that nobody understands. You know, I think we have to worry about do our customers even understand what marketing is? Much less marketing automation. And so we have a, we have a very sort of functional, benefit oriented campaign that's, hey, you know, marketing automation is like your second brain. It does the stuff that you don't have time to do, don't want to do, don't know how to do. Right. And the message there is largely, hey, how do I sort of leverage technology? So what we're trying to say to our customers, let's just do smart business stuff so that you can focus on connecting with your customers. Because ultimately building your brand isn't about the technologies that send stuff and trigger things. It's what is the message. Right. The story. Right. The story is, was what flows through the system, not the system itself. And so that's kind of the message. And that's been, we've actually seen a lot of positive response like, oh, I get it and I don't need to be intimidated. So that's been effective at both a weird level and a business level.

Can you talk more about that, the customer response towards this campaign?

Yeah. So largely we see we're the, you know, at some level, we're the world's largest marketing automation company in terms of just the number of people that use our marketing automations. We have multiple channels, we have landing pages, we have all the parts and pieces. But you know, we're still perceived in many areas as people remember us as, hey, you know, you guys were emailed three years ago and they might not have, might not know. Right. And so the success comes from talking about A bigger thing, but also demystifying it so it doesn't feel intimidating. And so that's been, it's been effective because I can see how many people make automations, right? Do they just get in and say, oh, I just want to turn these on and I'm going to send a welcome automation. And one of the ones that we like to talk about are just. They're really basic ones that are. So if I said somebody signed up, subscribe to something. One of my favorites is just send a beautiful welcome email that describes it's pure romance. Just get romance back out there. It's pure romance about your brand and your story and where you came from. It's just pure. That's all it is. Don't sell anything. Just tell your story right there in that first email and try to connect with another human being and it'll pay dividends.

And. Excuse me, give me a second. And are there any other campaigns you can speak to of mailchimp, especially post serial, that have been really successful?

Yeah, I think we've got. We have another campaign that ran, which was, again, about. This one was about the black hole. And you'll see that we're actually. The black hole is probably a better example of trying to identify what is kind of an emotional space, you know, because the black hole is kind of this menacing thing. And in the marketing world, a lot of people just feel like marketing's a black hole. I don't know what's going to work and what's not. And there's also a lot of, you know, there's kind of a razor's edge for entrepreneurs. There's like, exhilaration and then there's terror. And everybody's kind of, you know, back and forth between the two. And so the black hole is kind of the. I'm an imposter. I don't know what I'm doing. You know, there are a lot of kind of negative things there for small businesses. And so we wanted to acknowledge it, but also say, hey, we're working hard to try to simplify things, give you new technologies and give you marketing automation and give you other sort of things that actually, like Instagram ads or things that are easy. So you don't. So you can kind of, you know, make, make the black hole go away, if you will. Or at least I think probably in that instance, we were focused on, hey, you know, we've added a bunch of channels inside of mailchimp. If you, if you run an ad or if you do a bunch of things in One system, we can tell you if they worked or not. As opposed to currently. You know, you're usually trying to say like, well, my email did this, my. My ads did that, you know, whatever. My organic traffic generated whatever. So being able to see everything in one picture is a really important thing for our customers.

And has it been difficult at all for mailchimp to adjust to really fast changes? Like you mentioned Instagram ads and telling that story to your customers and how to reach their consumers that way?

I still think we have a lot of work to do. You know, we have a ton of work to do. I mean, I think we've got a big enough base of customers that we kind of have to do both. I mean, it's an easier story to tell to our current customers. And I think we're definitely thinking about how do we make it easy to. I always. The way I describe mailchimp a lot of times to folks is, hey, we're kind of like a big bucket of Legos, and people need to come and sort of piece them together and say, this Lego goes together. And now I've got a whatever, a tie fighter or whatever, like a Star wars thing. Right. So I've got it put together and it's going to do what I need it to do. And so we're focused on helping our customers figure that out because I think they don't always show up and realize I need a promo code and a landing page and a remarketing ad and a subscription form. We're sort of a kid of parts at this point.

And are there any other takeaways you've learned being in this industry, working with Chanel and mailchimp now that you can share with the audience?

Yeah, I mean, I think probably you know, back to the. The storytelling. The way I think about it is kind of this sandwich of, hey, I've got a lot of features to talk about, and it's very easy to sort of succumb to. Let me tell you about my new feature. And that's a lot of what you see and feel when you're looking for it. And the features keep coming. Right? That's the. The nature of this business is everything is additive and incremental. So there's a story to be done about features. And then on top of the features, there's the land of functional benefits. And I think there's a lot of that. Right. So people are focused on the functional benefit of, hey, because of this feature, you make more money, you're faster, you're more competitive, you're something like that. And then on top of it is, I'd say probably the area that I've learned is the most compelling is that emotional benefit level of, hey, I'm going to connect with people. And that drives my philosophy behind storytelling and how to build empathy with people. Because ultimately, especially in this business, if your focus is the feature of the month, anybody out there can make the feature again. Right. But it's very hard to come between someone who's in an emotional relationship. If you have a connection with people and customers, that's not a feature of the month club. And the nice thing is that when you create that connection and you focus on the product and sort of serving those customers, they'll tell you what they want. And in many ways you are. By focusing on those customers that want a deep and emotional connection with your brand, you're also kind of saying, no, I'm not serving the feature of the month folks that are the equivalent of like, I got this Visa card this month, or like, hey, I'm going to do my rollover minutes from this one to that. Right. You know, there's all these sort of the switchers. You sort of opt out of the switchers.

Excuse me again. Is it hard to convince your customers, you know, that emotional storytelling is still so vital, even though they might see otherwise and think, no, I gotta push my features.

It's hard, right? It's definitely hard. And what I feel like our job is. Our job is to model that behavior. Right. So we were a startup. I mean, it's been a long time. Right. But we were a startup. And, you know, what we see is our responsibility is to actually model the behavior that we describe to our customers so that we're, you know, it's not just, we need to walk the talk. Yeah, that one. And I think that's. That drives a lot of what we're doing.

And what do you have to say to this crowd? Any words of advice? You've shared a lot of lessons and stories about your career, but any simple advice that's worked for you, no matter what?

I probably have all sorts of advice. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's any good, though, you know. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that I was interested in. This is a very different subject from, you know, for, you know, this is not a necessarily. This is not a B2C audience. Right. And so the notion of brand building is kind of. It's hard to know where that fits. Right. I'd still say there's probably some skepticism And I think one of the things that's been effective for me has been, hey, let's apply metrics to it. And so, for example, you know, almost everybody who's in the software business is. Is coming from somewhere and going somewhere else, right? Because the business changes so fast. And I'm on the, hey, we. We were email marketing. Now we're marketing automation. And I have a story to tell about that, and I'm interested in understanding where do I fit in the category? And also how do people feel about us? And so ultimately, it's talk to your customer, Right? And so one of the things that I've worked on is trying to understand both customers and influencers, like, how do they feel about our brand? Do I have permission to go there? Right? Do I fit? Right? And what are my shortcomings? I think ultimately the being humble and asking your customers, you know, a lot of people love mailchimp, which is great, right? I love that. But when people say that they love mailchimp, I say, okay, thank you. Okay, but tell me, what could we really be doing better? Right? Where do we suck? You know, and so I think that's the way that you kind of open yourself to kind of listening.

Ooh, sorry. And is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience about mailchimp and maybe what's happening in the future for you guys?

Oh, hey, the future. I mean, you can look, I think the. The main message I have is, yes, we're a marketing automation platform, and our view of things is, hey, what we're trying to do is help customers take work out of their day. Right? But that's not the objective. The objective is, hey, take work out of your day, do things efficiently, buy the ads that work for you or use the stuff that works for you, but ultimately try to make room in your marketing world to communicate. Right? And so everything is about brand building and, yes, measure everything like crazy. But I think that's probably the. If I could say, hey, that's what my thought would be is, hey, we've got lots of great technologies in there, but remember to talk to your customer and be as weird or funny or whatever the heck it is to kind of connect with them. Because life is short, and people really love to feel like the things that they're buying have real people behind them. And I think that's the. Whether you're selling software or socks or whatever the heck it is, I think that's largely the message. And some of that is probably for founders or for other people in the room to be a little patient and give folks some room to say, hey, I'm going to build a brand over here. Yes, I'm going to drive my ARPU in one direction or another, all that good stuff. But at the same time, I'm going to create an emotional connection with my customers. And so the next time something bad happens, they'll trust me. Right. Or the next time something great happens, they'll listen. So, I mean, I think it's really worth the effort.

Great.

Well.

Thank you for taking the time today to chat with us.

It's my pleasure.

All of you guys learned something today and took a lot with you. Thanks again, Tom.

All right.