Chris Koehler, CMO at Twilio: Strategic Alignment & Growth

okay welcome everyone this is Joe Martin

uh with zeit we’re talking here on

inside the workflow with Chris ker Chris

is a longtime uh colleague and friend uh

and is currently the CMO at twilio and

just recently took the role so I thought

it could be interesting to kind of dig

in on uh his perspective on such a large

company how he comes in and kind of

organizes things uh Chris why don’t you

give a little background and then we’ll

kind of get into some questions yeah

thanks Joe it’s uh great to be here um

like you said I I joined too three and a

half months ago um something like that

goes incredibly fast um PRI of that I

spent six years at box and uh five years

as CMO and then we work together at

Adobe you know uh I was at Adobe through

acquisition almost 13 years in various

different roles so yeah excited to talk

lots of change going on from an industry

perspective Lots going on in my work um

as I’m sort of reimagining

twio and and how marketing plays an

interesting role as well so lots to chat

about awesome love it yeah and I I would

consider twilio kind of one of those

upand cominging you know tier tier three

tier two tier one like upand cominging

can can make a huge impact in the future

of tech how has kind of your your time

at box your time at Adobe really helped

shape uh how you come into twio and get

started with with um your vision yeah I

mean I think if you know for those that

don’t know twio like we’re a four and a

half billion dollar Revenue uh business

we’ve been uh you know primarily focused

on developers and sort of I would

describe it as a plg Bottoms Up approach

but we have a massive portfolio of

products um that we’re you know we’re

really trying to tell a broader story of

how we drive you know better customer

engagement across um you know with

Brands but I think um you know spending

time at Adobe Adobe is is sort of the

Pinnacle of when you think about the

importance of your brand right uh Adobe

is is at the top of my mind so I think

you know that that’s just one where you

know I feel very passionately around how

do we drive our brand um and the

importance of brand I think tying that

back into Community right at Adobe I

spent a lot of time both on the creative

side but also the marketing experience

um side of the business how do you build

this community that helps you know tell

your your story and is really really

passionate about the capabilities and

the and the problems you’re solving and

really sort of inspiring this next

Generation right of whether that’s

digital marketers or creatives um was

was really fun in my time there and I

think you know as I trans transition to

box box was a a much smaller

organization um and I think what we

learned over time is how do you drive

efficient growth right really

understanding the importance of your

customer and your value proposition

right where where do we fit in the

market what is our unique position as

part of that

um and uh you know how do we play and

win there and then I think one of the

things that that we did really well at

box is I think Communications as a

capability is really an underutilized

resource at many companies to really

Drive brand and awareness and we were

really really good at that um at bucks

and I think that’s one of the things um

I think tlio has done a nice job as well

but I think there’s you know a notion of

like how do we how do we tell our story

in the marketplace and comms as a really

important piece of that as

well you were we were talking earlier uh

before we started just about um kind of

your emphasis on messaging and and

really product Market fit and and

product marketing overall what was kind

of a a pivotal moment maybe a box or

adobe or whatever along the way that you

remember um kind of hitting your sweet

spot and knowing that you could come

into basically any company and create

this type of strategy yeah I mean if

anyone had sort of followed my

background like I had I join box you the

number one question is like I was VP of

customer success and people are like huh

okay how is that you know as a marketer

like that doesn’t make any sense but if

you look at my background in Adobe like

I dealt with marketers all the time

where we talking about best practice and

everything else so as I joined I was in

the you know vpa customer success role

for I would say you know just over a

year and I talked to lots of customers

and so it it really teaches you the

importance of really having a strong

understanding of customers and their

pain points and and where we play and

what was clear when I was at you know in

that roller box is our customers didn’t

understand our value proposition and our

messaging wasn’t clear of like why do we

win why do they why do they buy us all

of that and so the first thing I did

when I moved into the into the CMO role

was really take a step back get our head

of product our CEO our head of sales um

all in a room and we’re like okay we

need to get super crisp on our value

proposition where we play how we win and

get the whole company aligned around

that and so I think that was sort of

this pivotal moment that you know you

put your customer hat on and you say

great this is uh you know this is how we

win in the marketplace and and quite

frankly I’m doing that now at twilio as

well where we’ve got a broad set of

portfolios we have lots of different

personas right that we engage in and um

getting clarity as we build an

integrated Market

organization how do we win in the

marketplace what are our key personas

why do they buy us all of that so that’s

that ends up becoming you know as

marketers often talk about whether it’s

t-shaped or what your superpower is for

me is getting super crisp on what are

the problems we’re trying to solve from

a you know from a market

perspective I love that yeah it’s it’s

so important to get people on the same

page and you know commun communication

is is definitely been more scattered

with so many different platforms and

other things and twilio’s been a key

player in really transforming that how

do you really how do you kind of get in

the weeds and

transform or approach marketing a

product that’s foundational but also can

be visible invisible since it’s a lot a

lot of it’s on the dev side yeah I mean

it is a one just internally get aligned

around what our goto Market approaches

and and I think one of the things that

um you one of the the forcing functions

that I had is is product marketing and

sales

all on the same page around what we’re

trying to solve and you know who who our

buyers and and personas are so that’s

one but it it’s interesting we have a

very complex go of Market that we’ve got

to get aligned on so we have a

self-service business Bottoms Up

developers you know millions of uh

developers sort of start and test and

learn and you know get their handson on

our products um which is fantastic um we

also have a a very strong partner

ecosystem where we have isv

that embed the too capabilities into

their you know into their platforms

whether that’s sales or marketing or

product like we’re embedded in actually

a lot of the

Technologies um that uh that people

engage with every day but maybe not know

that we’re under the you know under the

hood around that so we have a whole

notion around how do we deal with with

isvs that are that are customers but

also Partners as at the up front um and

then we have a you know we have our

Enterprise and you know S&B midm Market

business where we go direct to to

customers as well um so it is a I would

describe it as a complex go to market

but if we don’t build a marketing plan

that addresses all of those routes to

Market and understand how we win um then

it’s difficult so that’s one of the big

things that you know that I’ve come in

is just making sure we’re all aligned

you know how do we again going back to

how do we win who are we selling to um

you know is product sales and marketing

are we all aligned if not then that’s a

huge problem it’s really interesting and

it really does come back to those kind

of core principles with every business

is like talk to customers where we focus

where are we winning and really it can

be such a simple thing but sometimes we

like to make it more complicated

100% in a rapidly evolving industry um

you know I’m seeing twillo in the news

quite a bit acquiring new companies big

and small and how do you kind of wrangle

that all together and

um maintain a balance between Innovation

that can come with acquiring new

companies as well as not abandoning its

uh its Core Business yeah it’s um you

know it’s it’s an interesting one I

think maybe probably learn this in the

world you know with Adobe where we we

really have this notion of like test and

learn right and you know some of the

things and and implemented this hbox as

well where how do we iterate really

really quickly like how does Market

become an agile organization and not the

full like agile methodology but like how

are we quick to react because the the

industry and the market is changing

every day and we have to be you know we

to be part of that so you know

implementing a test and learn right we

should be data driven with everything we

do but we can’t lose sight of the art as

well right it becomes very easy to you

know to get hooked on the things that we

can

measure uh versus the things like I was

having a conversation with another

marketer this morning where it’s

incredibly hard to measure the value of

awareness and and a lot of the brand

stuff you’re doing so in a world where

marketers are being pushed to do more

with less and to get more efficient the

natural inclination is to go focus on

things that are highly measurable so you

have to balance that out where you have

to have some conviction that says hey we

have got to drive awareness as a

business it may not be as clean and

measurable as we want but we have to

have we have to have belief that there’s

importance around that so test learn as

as you know we build our approach we

celebrate both wins and losses I think

that’s really important because you’re

going to do a lot of tests that just

don’t work and you should be like great

you know we tried it didn’t work that’s

okay um as part of it so we’re we’re

constantly trying to push and and

challenge ourselves you know I really

hate this notion of like oh we tried

that but it didn’t work yeah yeah guess

what it’s a different Market we have

broader products we’ve got you know we

the industry is changing like all of

those things um so I think that’s the

other thing and then and then I think

the the important thing as well is we

don’t have all the answers and we need

to learn from our peers and so I do a

lot of conversations with peers just

trying to understand and ask questions

like what’s working for you right how

can we learn like what is a cool

Innovative thing you’re doing right that

we might be able to learn from and I’m

encouraging my teams to do that as well

because it’s just like constantly

changing and if we’re not evolving then

you know we’re falling behind one

that’s so crucial yeah I love I love

having that kind of network I know you

and I have had some conversations I’ve

talked with a lot of other former Adobe

folks and other people from my network

that have been in marketing lead roles

and just trying to figure out different

angles different things figuring things

out um what are some

like you talk about data driven

marketing what are kind of some of the

you know wildly important metrics that

you care most about uh you know mqls

pipeline Revenue what is kind of your

Jes yeah my team jokes about this a lot

right um and I ultimately think about

how do we grow the business as a

marketing

organization um and I so I I talk about

a lot around are we driving growth right

and how does marketing become a growth

driver for the business and I think too

many times as marketers we get caught in

our own head around the the things that

we optimize and we can control right a

perfect example is mqls um and I can go

hit my mql number very simply I mean

hell I could just change the way that

we’re calculating that and driving more

and more but ultimately if it doesn’t

lead to a growth opportunity Revenue

right for the business then we’re

missing the mark and so um this is this

is one of the things I feel very

strongly about mqls are important but

you shouldn’t be optimizing on mqls you

should be optimizing on those mqls

converting into whether you call them

salal SQL or whatever and is that

actually converting into Revenue because

I think what happens and this is the

challenge with a lot of digital

initiatives that we’ve had over the last

few years is everyone gets hooked

because digital is like hey creates mqls

it’s very measurable I can work through

it and I can I can justify where we’re

spending dollars but that’s gotten less

efficient over time so how do we work

through that so again um it’s not just

about the things that marketing can

measure it’s about driving growth of the

business

and I think as more and more marketers

take a step back and they say how am I

helping the business grow versus how am

I optimizing on my market marketing

metrics I think that’s just a very

different philosophy um that I think

more and more marketers need need to

think

about yeah I think that’s a good point

especially you mentioned earlier with

you know budgets being asked to do more

with less um you really have to be

pretty Scrappy and not just be focused

on on leads um and how they can be

obviously a leading metric for Revenue

yeah 100% And then obviously we think

through you know how do I how you know

from a awareness perspective what’s our

perception in the marketplace you know

how do customers perceive us as a

company as a brand our customers getting

value out of the capabilities that’s one

of the other big things it’s not just as

marketers we shouldn’t just be thinking

about how do we drive net new whether

that’s customers or opportunities but

our existing customers are they getting

value are we helping retain them

um I think that’s a critical piece

because Revenue can either grow from new

revenue or retaining more of the revenue

that you have already and so that’s

another thing we push on is you know how

do we as marketers how do we help our

existing customers get more value out of

the capabilities we have you know they

have from us how would you like let’s I

want to ask a little bit more about that

so like yeah we’re in this contraction

hell you know a B2B where everybody’s

Contracting on each other um just to

kind of what we some storms how how

would you try and measure marketing’s

Effectiveness on

retention um you know say you create a

sales deck or a

training um is it looking at upsells is

it looking at just net retention General

and how marketing affected that how do

you try and measure that or show impact

yeah I mean it’s like the agel question

around customer marketing what is

customer marketing right it kind of

falls into a couple buckets it’s you

know how do you build advocates

um around your brand and so that they’re

speaking on behalf and you build sort of

the community on that front then there’s

the customer marketing from a upsell

cross sell perspective right how do we

how do we take existing customers and

sell them more and then the third bucket

is really just around retention and like

how do we how do we ensure that that we

retain the dollars that we’ve got um the

third part the third one is probably the

the most important because your sales

team is doing the second one right they

should be looking at their base trying

to figure out how do I sell them more

and cross sell part of that um and the

Cs organization is always you know on

the hook for driving you know retention

of these customers but they don’t have

all the the dollars and knowhow and and

you know the tools to help so this is

really important where we think through

okay what’s our event strategy do we

have at risk customers coming to our

event to hear our broader broader story

are we doing digital events so that they

can understand how they get more value

out of the capabilities where it’s this

notion of adoption right get ahead of it

and see are we touching the majority of

Revenue if we’ve got customers that are

that are red in our health scores are we

engaging them we should be right um but

I think you know one of the things you

know for instance when you look at a lot

of our marketing programs we measure

that success by are we building new more

pipeline it has to be broader than that

right in this new world it should be

like are we creating new opportunities

of pipeline yes are we helping deals

accelerate faster yes are we we building

relationships that we don’t have with

customers where there may not be an

opportunity on the play yes and then are

we are we helping existing customers

understand how to drive more value out

of their Investments yeah so I think you

have to think about that holistically

across everything that we do not just be

single-threaded on are we building more

pipeline for the business totally I love

that I want to kind of shift into just

like leadership in general um you know

how as a

CMO it such a great time because you’re

you’re coming in so you’re you’ve got

like fresh perspective but you’ve also

built kind of this great strategy and

people are excited and how do you kind

of come in and Foster a culture of

creativity

collaboration um obviously also like

you’re you’re establishing your

credibility again you know that’s one of

the hard things of of leaving a company

is you’re like okay I gotta like show

people that I actually know what I’m

doing here um what’s what’s kind of your

strategy to really get people

behind you and and Foster that

collaboration especially in like remote

work you know it’s it’s a little harder

yeah 100% And I think um it is it is

incredibly difficult when you’ve

established internally your own

credibility and brand to move to a new

organization um and have to start over

again um and I think it’s natural um

it’s natural as we come in we want to

put our own stamp on like you know where

we where we should um you know where we

should play I think for me

uh the way that I always approach it is

really take a step back and listen and

appreciate of how we got here um because

I think too often it’s easy you know you

sort of um come in as a new leader and

you’re like oh this is all broken I’m

here to fix it and you know just just do

what I do what I say and like I’ll solve

it like that is you know I don’t have

any of the history and the context part

of that so I think there’s a a world

where you’ve got to create a I would say

create a culture of transparency and

Trust

but you’ve got to earn that trust um and

I think you you know as Leaders we need

to be vulnerable that we don’t have all

the answers right and so you know one of

the things when I took over both box and

in twio is establishing that leadership

getting the transparency um out on the

table what’s working what’s not working

and be clear like I’m an expert in in

one thing but as marketers like you

literally cannot be an expert across all

of the the the disciplines that we have

to you know engage in and you you got to

trust your leaders right whether they’re

existing or you bring in new um to help

you on that so I think that’s the

critical part is like start to build a

leadership team that feels empowered

trusted um appreciate the history um

before you start uh wanting to change

all of it and then get everyone’s bought

in an alignment that this is where we’re

going together um as part of that so I

think that’s that’s been my Approach and

you know a few months in and I think

we’ve got you know we’ve got a good game

plan and a good leadership team that’s

starting to you know build a future I I

love that there’s there’s a few um

Executives I know who have fizzled out

quickly after going to a company and

being like a bull in a china shop and

like losing the family right like you

know telling them how many things they

did wrong and like why haven’t you done

this why haven’t you done that and yeah

it’s such a critical thing to get people

on your side well and and I think to

you’ve got to have adaptability around

this as well where your playbook of what

you’ve used in the past may not always

work and so that’s the thing is you got

to take the time to evalue it like for

instance you know I I joined and I

inherited an orc structure that I kind

of thought it was probably not where it

was going to be but I took a few months

to really spend the time with the teams

and the people and the and the

challenges that we had to really seek to

understand like why we got here what the

history was what the what the strengths

and and weaknesses of the whole

leadership team and then a few months

later do an orchstra rure change where

based on what we need as a business

versus it would have been very easy for

me to come in on you know first week

saying hey I don’t love this like this

is a new structure we’re going to go put

people in place but then I wouldn’t have

had the buyin from the org of where

we’re headed and and beat very

thoughtful around it so you know don’t

necessarily like you’ll have you’ll have

tools in your toolbox but don’t assume

that everything’s a hammer and like I

saw it the same way in any company I’ve

ever been on well it’s such a good

opportunity to evaluate talent Talent

too right like there’s so many times

Adobe is another example just of a big

company like I had a new leader come in

they interviewed me and they actually

you know a couple of times put me in

different seats because they’re like hey

this this guy’s got some some talent I

think he could do more here than he’s

doing there and so you’re like getting

people in the right seats you’re keeping

them happy you know if they’ve been in a

role for three years four years and

they’re ready for something different it

gives you an opportunity to make those

changes and kind of fit in that’s really

cool yeah I mean 100% And I think that’s

a that’s an important one where you know

we haven’t sort of hit on it but this

balance of generalists versus

Specialists and you know how do you

become a more well-rounded marketer you

know how do you how do you make bets on

individuals that may not have the core

dis like that as their specialization

but give them an opportunity and I and I

think for me if you look at my

background I’m very much a generalist by

nature and I love the fact that you know

let’s let’s make bets on individuals

right if they’re smart they’re hardk

they’re asked lots of questions they’ll

figure the stuff out I think the natural

inclination As Leaders is we want to go

back get the best person for that

specialization to go solve that role but

in some cases it might be someone

internal in your org that may not have

that experience but they understand the

institutional you know how stuff gets

done and and I’ve got a great example

you know on my leadership team where I

put her in a new role you know a few

weeks ago and man she is doing

incredible right out of the gate that’s

awesome awesome yeah it it brings so

much uh confidence so much excitement um

and really just yeah builds

momentum um what trends do you see as as

critical for like future marketing but

also twio in general you know you’ve

been kind of noodling for 90 days on on

the messaging and other things uh where

do you see kind of twillo making its

impact um as again like one of these

rising stars in Tech um and keeping up

with Trends yeah I mean I think um it’s

amazing we haven’t really talked a about

AI yet this is might be a new record of

how

long that I was holding off as long as I

could uh you know but but if you think

about it will change everything right

and I think this is you know as an

organization like one of the things we

believe um with with twio um we believe

data is going to be critically important

right it’s why we bought segment from a

CDP perspective so we think textual data

um is going to be really really

important in the future um for us we

have all the communications channels so

you know how do you how do you engage

with customers across you know

regardless of of how they engage with a

brand and we think AI will be sort of

the glue um that that starts to tie some

of that together but I think more

broadly as marketers we really need to

figure out you how to embrace this um

and and to give us scale like one of the

things that we’ve

we’ve both been guilty of we’ve talked

about personalization for years and

years and years but as consumers you

know one of the things we’re we’re

trying to fix is how many times have you

actually had a great experience with a

brand uh that you were like wow they

really understood and they heard me um

and the reality is it’s it’s very few

and it’s shocking when it actually

happens like we’ve gotten so conditioned

I was I was telling a story the other

day where like I checked into a hotel

large chain and the the extent of the

personalization was literally like my

name on the

television and I’m like wow you know

they know they know that I’m staying in

this room but I’ve stayed hundreds of

nights in this hotel they literally know

when I check out what I want to order

for room service that I love I drink

lots of coffee and that I always run out

and I have to call back down saying hey

can you give me some more pods um as

part of that like they have all that

data on me but not actually using it to

create a better experience and and it’s

just like I think as Brands we can do a

much better job so I think the future an

AI helps enable that right whether that

is understanding the data making

predictions creating those personalized

experiences like that’s the future of

where we’re headed and I think as

marketers we just need to get our head

wrapped around like the way that we did

it in the past is going to change and I

would encourage everyone to start to get

their themselves up to speed on this new

technology of where it’s headed what

it’s good at um you know where we can

start embracing it and start using it in

our everyday life um because it’s just

going to make us such a force multiplier

in the industry that I think it’s pretty

exciting yeah it’s just like a it’s such

a scale thing to your point like yeah

these big companies hotels a great

example millions of people stay there

but you know especially if you’re

relying on business Travelers business

Travelers are having 50 nights a year

and have expectations I mean if you’re a

loyalty person you’re probably

complaining of something like something

and you’re pulling the hey I’m a

platinum member card um right but think

about the data ultimately if you really

took a step back and you understood you

know every conversation I have with you

know if I’ve got to go change a

reservation all the interactions I got

from a digital perspective what my

likelihood to order room service at what

time do I order room service is it in

the morning is it at dinner you know

what’s the in room experience like all

of those things are just contextual data

that as a brand and a marketer we could

be leveraging in a world and I think um

technically it’s just been hard to go do

that at scale um and we really believe

that like personalization at scale is

possible um and uh that’s where we’re we

we want to go solve that in the future I

love that I love that Focus cool um any

kind of parting words to future of tech

anyone in marketing that might be

interested in in your thoughts uh before

we end our conversation yeah I mean I

think I think a couple things you know

if I if I take a step back um I find the

best marketers are naturally curious and

this is a this is a craft that would

describe it as the

most uh cross disciplined because I

think if you think about the scale of of

what marketing organizations look like

be curious as ask lots of questions

Network um Network a lot and learn the

different disciplines because I think in

the future marketing will be and should

be growth drivers of the business and so

you know press yourselves to learn more

get outside your comfort zone um and and

don’t wait for someone else to give you

the enablement go go seek it yourself

and just get better I love it love it

awesome thanks for your words today

Chris appreciate it all right thanks

everyone