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Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders.
Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth.
We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth.
For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).
B2B CMO - 009 - Chris Koehler - Full Episode
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[00:00:00]
Jon Miller: [00:00:05] [00:00:10] [00:00:15] [00:00:20] Hello and welcome to today's [00:00:25] episode of the B2B CMO Project Podcast. [00:00:30] My guest today has spent more than 25 years figuring out how marketing [00:00:35] actually works, not just in theory, but inside companies like E-Trade, Adobe in Box. [00:00:40] He came up through the analytics and product side, and today he's the Chief [00:00:45] Marketing Officer at Twilio, the platform for conversations in the AI era. [00:00:50] And lately he's been chasing a question I happen to care a lot about what happens to [00:00:55] discovery, to personalization, and to the CMOs mandate itself in the [00:01:00] age of ai.
Jon Miller: Chris Koehler, welcome to the show. I.
Chris Koehler: Jon, great to [00:01:05] be here and I don't think I've figured out marketing. It seems like it keeps changing, uh, constantly [00:01:10] for us, but I am doing my best.
Jon Miller: Huh, that is a really good point. I thought I had it figured [00:01:15] out. Uh, I wrote the playbook a couple years ago, but it turns out apparently that doesn't work anymore either. [00:01:20] So, uh, perhaps the key is just staying on our toes.
Chris Koehler: I, I [00:01:25] think that is, uh, you know, staying nimble is really, really important in this day and age for sure.
Jon Miller: [00:01:30] Well, let's begin just by getting to know you a little bit. Um, every good, uh, [00:01:35] superhero story has an origin, uh, and I wanna know like, what's, so what's your [00:01:40] origin? How did you, you know, become Chris Koehler of the CMO of Twilio? [00:01:45] I.
Chris Koehler: Man, that's probably a long story. But, [00:01:50] um, you know, I, I've always sort of liked the, the craft of [00:01:55] marketing, but I probably. I probably thought about it when I was younger, more around sort of the human [00:02:00] psychology and, and. Uh, just brands in general. And, [00:02:05] um, I grew up, we talked a little bit about this. I grew up in, uh, in both [00:02:10] Florida when I was very young.
Chris Koehler: Um, I, I was lucky enough to live in [00:02:15] Orlando and watch a lot of the space shuttles. We could talk about wanting to be an astronaut and know that's, that was one [00:02:20] of your childhood dreams as well. Um, and then I grew up in rural New Hampshire. [00:02:25] And, uh, you know, I never thought, you know, quite frankly, I was gonna be working in tech.
Chris Koehler: [00:02:30] Um, I, I thought, well, if I am, you know, I, I like sort of fun and [00:02:35] adventure. I should be an astronaut or I should be a fighter pilot and, you know, [00:02:40] but as I went to school and learned over time, sort of gravitated towards this [00:02:45] notion of consumer behavior. And, uh, it always sort of fast [00:02:50] fascinated me why people do certain things, why people buy certain things, why brands are, you know, [00:02:55] more valuable than others.
Chris Koehler: That's probably why I ended up marrying a psychologist. Uh, you [00:03:00] know, we can, we can geek out on sort of human behavior on that front. Um, but, you [00:03:05] know, I spent sort of my, my career back and forth on. Different [00:03:10] aspects of date, be it data driven to understanding, [00:03:15] uh, the craft of marketing to being on the vendor side for many, many years.
Chris Koehler: You know, spent [00:03:20] many years at Adobe, you know, helping build out, um, sort of the art and science, what we talked [00:03:25] about for a long time of marketing. Um, and my first like [00:03:30] real, I would say, operator role. At any, at any scale, I'd done it at [00:03:35] a startup was at Box. And, um, you know, I was lucky enough to, to step [00:03:40] into the CMO shoes.
Chris Koehler: I know Tricia was on this, uh, on this podcast, um, a little [00:03:45] while ago and she was one of my calls when I was leaving, uh, saying, Hey, you know, I think you'd be [00:03:50] great at Box. Um, and, um. You know, I've been lucky enough to [00:03:55] sort of play in the, you know, on the customer side and the product side, a bit of a [00:04:00] generalist at heart, but always coming back to the notion of like, how, what, what are [00:04:05] the, what are the facets of human behavior and how can I shape our story, our brand, our [00:04:10] narrative, uh, to ensure that, uh, we're, we're helping drive the most value, right?
Chris Koehler: [00:04:15] For the company.
Jon Miller: Cool.
Chris Koehler: I'm not sure that's superhero worthy, but you know, I, [00:04:20] Hey, life's pretty good.
Jon Miller: understanding the customer should be a superpower. so yeah. [00:04:25] as you said, I wanted to be a astronaut too. I was in the Silvera patrol, thought I [00:04:30] might go get my pilot's license and all that kind of stuff. For me, the, the, the, [00:04:35] the fatal flaw was I had terrible vision and I realized that I would never be able [00:04:40] to sort of actually retrieve those genes with the, with the eyesight that I had.
Jon Miller: So.
Chris Koehler: Yeah, [00:04:45] I mean, I, my, my dad, uh, was in the FA, a, growing, you know, so I grew up around a lot [00:04:50] of airplanes and, uh. But I guess maybe I never had enough money [00:04:55] to get my pilot's license and move down that path. So, you know, that was probably killed my dream [00:05:00] and, and quite frankly, I wasn't ready to go into the military to learn that way.
Chris Koehler: So I. ended up in marketing, [00:05:05] you
Jon Miller: I was saving up for, you know, money to get my own pilot's license and all that kind of [00:05:10] stuff. And, and when I, when I didn't do that, I put all the money and bought a really high-end Macintosh, [00:05:15] uh, and got into design and things like that instead. So we all have our [00:05:20] crazy path to where we, where we get to.
Chris Koehler: I think it served you well, um, at the end of the day.
Jon Miller: [00:05:25] Yep. Um, okay, so, so last just question, trying to get to know you. I'd like to, you know, [00:05:30] talk about, you know, what's your five to nine IE you know, what's your passion outside of [00:05:35] work?
Chris Koehler: uh, for anyone that knows me, like I'm pretty crazy, [00:05:40] like active, you know, individual in our family, like we. We like to do a [00:05:45] lot of things. Um, we are big skiers, golfers, hikers, uh, [00:05:50] travel. We love to travel. Um, and so for me, anything getting out, being [00:05:55] outdoors, being active, learning and, and digging into new things, like that's, [00:06:00] that's ultimately, you know, what my family sort of prides ourself on.
Chris Koehler: Uh, so I [00:06:05] think that's a big one. And then. Just learning, right? We, we have this motto of like, always [00:06:10] keep learning in our family, and so always trying to figure stuff out and learn and, and just get, [00:06:15] you know, 1% better, um, all the time.
Jon Miller: All right. That sounds good. [00:06:20] So, you know, as a, as a segue, you know, this is the B2B CMO project [00:06:25] podcast. Um, you know, I'll, I'll let you in on something. You know, when you and I [00:06:30] talked, gosh, like. More than a year ago. You know, one of the things that you had [00:06:35] said at the time was you didn't really feel like other CMO communities felt like your [00:06:40] peers.
Jon Miller: You know, that, that either they were smaller companies wrestling with different [00:06:45] problems, or they were big companies, but, but not with B2B problems. [00:06:50] Um, and that stuck with me and, and a hundred percent true. That is a big part of what [00:06:55] pushed me to help try to start. This B2B CMO project, you know? So, so [00:07:00] in a way you're partly to, to blame or get some credit for all this, you know, what, what, what [00:07:05] were you looking for that you felt was, was, was missing from other B2B [00:07:10] communities?
Chris Koehler: I mean, I think, you know, I'll give you an example of [00:07:15] in times of crisis, right? Especially when you're at the top of whatever [00:07:20] profession in any organization, everyone's looking to you for the answers. [00:07:25] In, in many of those cases, the reality is you don't have the answer, but you don't want to say, well, well, [00:07:30] I can't look across the aisle and say, Hey, my head of sales, what should I be thinking about from a [00:07:35] marketing or my head of product?
Chris Koehler: You know, what, what should I be doing with my marketing strategy around that? [00:07:40] So you look for peers and, um, I remember very specifically during COVID, [00:07:45] uh, there was a, a group of CMOs that I had found out were meeting on a weekly [00:07:50] basis for almost like a therapy session. Because everything was changing, you know, it was [00:07:55] like, oh my gosh, we can't do in person events.
Chris Koehler: Digital's not working this da da. Like, [00:08:00] and what are you doing? What are you doing? And so I remember it was CMOs [00:08:05] of, of Zoom and Okta and Slack [00:08:10] and Twilio at the time. And like, you know, there were like quite a few of the network that [00:08:15] would sit down and we'd share ideas and, and sort of riff off like, hey, here are the things I'm [00:08:20] seeing.
Chris Koehler: And as part of that. And that worked for a while and then sort of COVID died off [00:08:25] and went back to their day jobs. Right? They started running, you know, running their teams and, [00:08:30] and didn't need as much therapy. But I missed that craving of like, Hey, I need [00:08:35] other people. Like I'm, I'm struggling with a situation where I'd love to bounce an idea off [00:08:40] someone.
Chris Koehler: Uh, and, you know, I'd love to get their feedback on, on some of that. And [00:08:45] so, like you said, I'm, I'm involved in many groups, but they're often like commingled. [00:08:50] Where the companies of our size, I mean we're 5 billion plus in revenue. Um, there aren't a lot [00:08:55] of software companies in that realm. And uh, so I end up being around a lot of like [00:09:00] B2C CMOs and it's like the problems are the same, but it's not exactly the same.
Chris Koehler: Um, [00:09:05] and so the, the idea which we had chatted was like, Hey. How can [00:09:10] I learn from other CMOs that are sort of at scale, that are dealing with a lot of [00:09:15] the same challenges that I'm dealing with and how? How can I learn from them? Because the reality is [00:09:20] like I don't have all the answers and I don't know who to turn to other than peers that are dealing [00:09:25] with the same situation.
Jon Miller: That is probably the single best pitch for the B2B CMO [00:09:30] project. That, that, uh, better than I, better than I could have done. You know, in the, [00:09:35] in the project, the, the two big themes that the CMOs we talked to seem to [00:09:40] be struggling with are, are one. Just what does it really mean to be a strategic CMO, [00:09:45] uh, in today's world?
Jon Miller: And then two, just dealing with all the change that AI [00:09:50] is driving. So that's, I want to just dive into both of those. [00:09:55] Um, so I guess start with the first one, like, you know, what, [00:10:00] what does being a strategic CMO actually mean to [00:10:05] you?
Chris Koehler: uh, maybe I'll put it in the framing of the strategy. That I teed [00:10:10] up for my
Chris Koehler: team. Uh, and I said there, there's a couple things that I wanna [00:10:15] sort of be able to hang our hat, tell the rest of the company, like [00:10:20] this is what we're gonna go focus on. And this is how we, how we get a seat at the table, [00:10:25] we drive value and be seen as a valuable component of the growth of this [00:10:30] company. So the first one was, we have to drive growth. That can mean [00:10:35] several different things that can mean in a self-service channel, right? We're driving [00:10:40] traffic to, we're partnering with our product, um, our product peers, and we are [00:10:45] ensuring that our developers are getting access to the capabilities they need [00:10:50] and getting up to speed quickly.
Chris Koehler: And like we have a role to play in that because that's, that's our [00:10:55] future enterprise developer, um, down the road. That can be in pipeline, [00:11:00] right? How do we partner super closely with our sales team of together? We [00:11:05] gotta own pipeline. We gotta build pipeline that's of lifeblood of the company. So in, in driving [00:11:10] growth might be, um, you know, pricing.
Chris Koehler: One of the things that I, when I [00:11:15] took over when I was, when I came to Twilio, I said, Hey, I'd like to take on pricing. 'cause I [00:11:20] think pricing could be a, a growth driver. For the business. As we start to think [00:11:25] about how do we simplify, how do we package, how do we do a better job of telling our story [00:11:30] from a pricing perspective so our customers get it?
Chris Koehler: So I said, we need to drive growth for the company, [00:11:35] not like for marketing sake for the company. We have to drive growth. The next one is we have to tell [00:11:40] our story. And that takes many facets. Like we have to be really good [00:11:45] storytellers across the business. And it's not just the product, it's the corporate narrative.
Chris Koehler: It's like [00:11:50] why we exist and we've got stakeholders that's, you know, we've got shareholders that, you know, that [00:11:55] own our company. We've got employees that we've gotta get excited about coming into work every day. [00:12:00] And we have, at the end of the day, we serve customers. And so customers need to both be [00:12:05] inspired by what we're doing, understand what we can provide.
Chris Koehler: And be [00:12:10] aware of all of the, the capabilities. So it's like, tell our story, drive growth. Um, [00:12:15] and then, then one of the things that, that I said to him is like, this could be a little bit more internally focused, but [00:12:20] like, we have to make Twilio simpler. Simpler to buy, simpler to sell, partner with a [00:12:25] sales team, like reduce the complexity of this business and make it simpler both for [00:12:30] customers, for, you know, our, you know, our, um, other employees, uh, [00:12:35] in, in the company.
Chris Koehler: So let's make it simpler. And that's, you know, everything from the storytelling to the [00:12:40] positioning to the pricing, all of those things. And then last, I was like, we need to [00:12:45] have fun. And what, what does that mean? And, and. I, it sort of came down to be bold [00:12:50] and I think, you know, one of my observations, and I've been lucky enough to be in B2C and B2B [00:12:55] marketing.
Chris Koehler: I was at E-Trade during the fun days with the babies and you know, [00:13:00] everyone like, you know, everyone was like, oh, what's gonna be the E-Trade Super Bowl commercial? I wasn't there long. I was only [00:13:05] there a year. But like, that sort of built into my psyche of like, why can't [00:13:10] we have fun with our story and our brand?
Chris Koehler: And I think B2B for too [00:13:15] long, it's been too serious. We're still selling, well, we've always been [00:13:20] selling to humans. We're now maybe selling to humans and agents, uh, which is a whole nother dynamic that we're [00:13:25] learning, we're learning from, but like people wanna be, they wanna be inspired, [00:13:30] they wanna have fun, they wanna laugh.
Chris Koehler: Like we're, you know, at the end of the day, we're selling to humans and [00:13:35] it's relationships and building, you know, building trust. So let's have some fun with that. So that was the other [00:13:40] principle. And I think if you take all of that and you're like, how do we simplify? Simplify what we [00:13:45] do? How do we tell a story?
Chris Koehler: How do we drive growth? How do we be bold? That's what a [00:13:50] strategic marketing organization. Should be able to do in a company, if we can [00:13:55] do those four things, like we are gonna be right, uh, seen as a, [00:14:00] as a strategic partner in the company. And we've seen that over the last two years [00:14:05] and, uh, we've been lucky enough to have, you know, some great success on that.
Jon Miller: And you didn't mention MQLs [00:14:10] once that entire time.
Chris Koehler: I mean, like, listen, it's a necessary evil, but [00:14:15] at the end of the day. I, I've seen too often through my career where people are high fiving [00:14:20] on how many M qls and the reality is like, unless it's driving revenue for the business, it doesn't [00:14:25] matter. It's just, it's an ends to a mean, it's a math formula that we build out.
Chris Koehler: [00:14:30] Revenue is the thing that that, that everyone in the C-suite cares about.
Jon Miller: Is there [00:14:35] something that a, you've seen or, or that you think a, like a, a, a tactical [00:14:40] CMO does that you explicitly don't do? Or, and or [00:14:45] vice versa, something that you do that you definitely don't see a tactical CMO doing?
Chris Koehler: Um, oh, [00:14:50] they're, they're kind of a, I don't talk marketing ever in with my [00:14:55] peers or in the, in the board. Um, I talk about here are the business [00:15:00] drivers. You know, I will say like, I would never get into a world where we talk about m [00:15:05] qls, SQLs, any of that stuff at the board. This is how much pipe, we've got enough coverage.
Chris Koehler: [00:15:10] Our CRO and I are aligned that we're gonna be able to get to our revenue targets next quarter. Like [00:15:15] that's the level of detail that they care about. They're like, are you guys [00:15:20] gonna be able to get to the targets that you've set out from when we were a public company from a street [00:15:25] perspective? Um, I don't use like marketing jargon at all.
Chris Koehler: You [00:15:30] know, in, in any of our discussions I talk about, okay, revenue, profitability, [00:15:35] growth, those, those are the, I, the language of the C-suite is how I talk. [00:15:40] Um, not, Hey, let me, let me walk you through all of the marketing jargon that I've [00:15:45] gotta give you, basically a cheat sheet of like, what the heck is he even talking about?
Chris Koehler: So I think that's [00:15:50] one. I think talking about, um, pipeline as [00:15:55] the goal. Pipeline's not the goal. The goal is revenue pipeline's the way [00:16:00] to get to the revenue. So again, the way you frame it is all around revenue, not [00:16:05] about pipeline. Pipeline is what you need to get as part of that. So I think there's examples of [00:16:10] that where, um, that I see that quite a bit and then I off often see.[00:16:15]
Chris Koehler: And one of the things that, I guess maybe because I've been in so many different parts [00:16:20] of the organization, I've been in the sales organization, I've been in the product, the othering of [00:16:25] like, oh, well, the product team does that, or, oh, the sales team is part of that. Like, no, no, no, no. That [00:16:30] does not happen in our org.
Chris Koehler: We're all part of one cohesive unit that we've gotta work [00:16:35] together. So I've seen that probably too often where it's like, we're in this [00:16:40] together. Uh, we own the number and that's pretty uncomfortable. Like my teams, it's [00:16:45] taken some time to get there, but it's shared goal, shared accountability. Uh, [00:16:50] if, if sales misses the revenue number, that's my fault.
Chris Koehler: In addition to our CROs, [00:16:55] number fault, right? We together own this. And, uh, too often it's like, well, sales [00:17:00] didn't do this. And I'm like, oh, go spend a go spend a week in their shoes and then come back to me [00:17:05] and tell you, you know, complain about why they're not doing something you need them to do.
Jon Miller: Yeah, I think I saw [00:17:10] also that you, uh, play or played a lot of soccer when you were younger. Is [00:17:15] I
Chris Koehler: did, I did. I played in, uh, at university and still an avid fan.[00:17:20]
Jon Miller: So, I actually like to use soccer as an analogy, you know, for all this, like, sure, [00:17:25] you've got forwards and you've got fullbacks, you've got play people in playing different positions, and those have different [00:17:30] roles and responsibilities. You know, at the end of the day though, you care. Is, did you get the ball in the net?[00:17:35]
Jon Miller: Did the team score a goal?
Chris Koehler: and the assist is just as important as the goal itself, [00:17:40] right? You may not get all the glory and you see this sometimes where, and it, and it happens in, [00:17:45] you know, in, in soccer, football, um, where you know, the guys [00:17:50] are are, or women scoring all the goals, get all the glory. The reality is the person that gave the [00:17:55] ball was just as valuable as part of that, and that's okay.
Chris Koehler: Um, you know, and in some cases [00:18:00] marketing plays that role where we've got the assist, um, and we're not scoring the goal. The sales team [00:18:05] might be doing that, but that's okay. 'cause we're all on the same team. At the end of the day. It's, we it's not, it's not [00:18:10] I or up. Yeah.
Jon Miller: you're winning as the team. You know, I've had some CMOs like worry, [00:18:15] like, oh, but if like I'm not measuring my marketing contribution, like, you [00:18:20] know, then I'm like, what if I have poor performers? Or what if there's somebody who's not doing right? And I would say like, [00:18:25] a great soccer team cares about the scoreboard and do you get enough points?
Jon Miller: But that doesn't mean the [00:18:30] coaches aren't filming each player and they're, and you know, they're still giving [00:18:35] coaching to each individual, and you can still optimize each individual even as you care about the [00:18:40] team winning as a whole.
Chris Koehler: Yeah, hundred percent. Like just because I'm not sharing with [00:18:45] the board some of those marketing metrics doesn't mean that I'm not actually. Measuring the [00:18:50] success around that. It's just like what we share externally. The goals are different [00:18:55] than what I might my, you know, my scorecard looks like internally.
Jon Miller: I think that's very, very well [00:19:00] said. Um, let, let's move on to kind of the, the, the, the second [00:19:05] area, um, which is how AI is changing things. And I know this, again, this is something [00:19:10] that you've been thinking about in digging into, you know, quite a bit. [00:19:15] Um, you've even alluded to it like, like. What happens when the buyer's [00:19:20] increasingly, not just a human, but a, an actual AI agent?
Jon Miller: What [00:19:25] does that mean for attribution, for how we as [00:19:30] CMOs can actually prove that we're having some impact? I.
Chris Koehler: Yeah, I mean, [00:19:35] this world is, is, uh, it's changing so fast and it's, it, quite frankly, it's, it's [00:19:40] hard to keep up with just the, the amount of innovation and change. It's both [00:19:45] the most exciting time and probably the most terrifying time as a marketer, uh, to be in [00:19:50] this industry.
Jon Miller: It's also a really exciting and challenging time to be building technology for [00:19:55] marketers.
Chris Koehler: Or, or building technology because you know that, that, that's a whole nother another [00:20:00] component of this, right? And so there's a world where for the [00:20:05] first time, sort of in, in human history, like the other person that you're selling to [00:20:10] may be not a human, but is doing something on behalf of a human. [00:20:15] For the most part as we start to think about it in Agentic world, and I think it all started, it all [00:20:20] started, I don't know, 18 months ago, or it's probably almost two years now, when with this [00:20:25] notion of AEM and you had, you know, ChatGPT and Anthropic and um, [00:20:30] you keep going down the list of all of the different models where consumer [00:20:35] behavior has changed so radically in the last couple years that [00:20:40] your default for everyone was, let me go to Google, let's Google that. That's, [00:20:45] that's my starting point and I'll argue like that was a well-known, tried and [00:20:50] true. As a marketer, I could either optimize through SEO or I [00:20:55] could buy or do both, and I could be relevant in a conversation depending on how much I [00:21:00] wanted to spend around that. Now that's completely changed because there's not a [00:21:05] single player in that front. There's multiple models. It's non, you know, it's not deterministic. [00:21:10] So ask the same question multiple times. You're gonna get a different answer. And so all of a sudden, like [00:21:15] mo, the complexity of what I've gotta go optimize changed like radically.[00:21:20]
Chris Koehler: So AEO was the first start of this. And we get into a world [00:21:25] where I, I had this epiphany probably. I'm trying to [00:21:30] think. I was sitting in a hotel room in Boston and, uh, a few months [00:21:35] ago, maybe it was two or three months ago, and I, I think for a while I thought, okay, [00:21:40] AEO that's an extension of SEO. Like I've got a team of content.
Chris Koehler: Like, [00:21:45] let me just do a better job of SEO. That's now for AEO [00:21:50] And then I took a step back and I was like, you know what? That's, that's, I'm not thinking about that. Right? [00:21:55] Actually, everything in marketing is now geared towards AEO as this [00:22:00] new avenue where everything that we do, we have to optimize for both AEO [00:22:05] the an answer engine optimization, which again, for a while it's gonna be humans, but it might be for [00:22:10] humans doing search.
Chris Koehler: It might be for your agent doing search all of a sudden now. [00:22:15] Everyone in the organization needs to be thinking through how do we optimize content in this [00:22:20] new world? And, um. It was like this, whoa. Light bulb came off. [00:22:25] It was like everything's changed and we gotta get everyone rallied around thinking through, [00:22:30] right?
Chris Koehler: Who were we writing content for? And the, the team. The team [00:22:35] basically we did a workshop and we spent a bunch of time sitting in a room trying to figure out how do we position this, how do [00:22:40] we, how do we make sure we rally the whole company and the whole organization around this? And [00:22:45] we're like, we are going to write for humans and optimize for agents. We think [00:22:50] that ultimately at the end of the day, the agent is doing something on behalf of a human. And this was [00:22:55] another sort of epiphany that I had, was that AI agents, at first I thought it was [00:23:00] like this, a new persona of like an AI agent, this new persona, the reality is an [00:23:05] AI agent is a. Persona, but it's an extension of a task or a human that's doing [00:23:10] something on their behalf.
Chris Koehler: So if whatever I would've written for a human, that [00:23:15] AI agent should think through, like, okay, that's the content that I need, maybe in a slightly different [00:23:20] format, but I I, I'm gonna still optimize around that. So. So much has [00:23:25] changed. I know that was a lot, but you know, we're in the midst of uh uh, I think as an [00:23:30] industry trying to figure this all out, and every time the mod new model comes out and there's another change, we're [00:23:35] all scrambling trying to figure it out again.
Jon Miller: Yeah. So I mean, how are you, I'd just [00:23:40] like to li dig a little deeper how you're op operationalizing some of these things. So [00:23:45] for example, what are you actually measuring around the success of this [00:23:50] stuff? What are you keeping internal to marketing and is there anything that bubbles up outside of [00:23:55] marketing on this stuff?
Chris Koehler: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting like I, I'm sure. [00:24:00] I'm not unique in this, that, uh, my team and, and me personally [00:24:05] gets, you know, snippets from the board or from the executive [00:24:10] team or someone else in the organization said, Hey, I was in ChatGPT and I searched for this and we didn't [00:24:15] show up or X, Y, and Z.
Chris Koehler: Like we were getting enough.
Chris Koehler: Yeah. Never happens. Um, [00:24:20] and so, so I was like, okay. We need to educate the whole company that we're [00:24:25] actually on top of this and we've got a strategy and we're working through. And so, um, last week in the [00:24:30] all hands call, we, my team actually did a full session of like, here's what we're doing to address the [00:24:35] AEO.
Chris Koehler: So that basically Okay guys, like stop sending us messages. We are [00:24:40] on top of this as part of our strategy. We're working through all of it. Which I got a lot of [00:24:45] really positive feedback. 'cause it, it eased the minds of so many of the employees being like, oh, okay, they're [00:24:50] working through it. They've got a plan.
Chris Koehler: You know? Okay. If it doesn't show up, maybe there's a reason around [00:24:55] that. So one, educating the company around what AEO is.
Chris Koehler: [00:25:00] Um, what it not right, what it's not talking to them about [00:25:05] what our approach and plan is. Talking about how we're doing and creating [00:25:10] content differently. You know, whether that is we're structuring the content in different formats, [00:25:15] whether we are doing more video content, like all of those things, like we've got a clear, [00:25:20] um, one of the, one of the aha moments too is that we created a, a lot of [00:25:25] content, but did that content all, did it all work together in service of [00:25:30] this new, um, way that people were searching?
Chris Koehler: Not necessarily. And [00:25:35] so we had to create different, you know, different work streams around the content. How do we prioritize [00:25:40] that? What are the new areas? 'cause that's the other thing that that's changed quite a bit as well, is the way [00:25:45] that people search changed, right? It used to be, like, for us it'd be a, I need [00:25:50] an SMS, you know, A API to embed in my product.
Chris Koehler: Now it's like I [00:25:55] need to email and text message my customers. I'm building a new software, [00:26:00] software platform. I'm looking for best in class of X, Y, and Z. Like, that's the query. How do I [00:26:05] optimize that query? Well, it used to be like a keyword or two in there that we'd go bid against, or we [00:26:10] had SEO around it.
Chris Koehler: Now it's like, I gotta figure out how we're relevant in that conversation.
Jon Miller: okay. So, so. [00:26:15] Chris, like, you know, uh, you're making all this investment in AEO [00:26:20] and other things I'm wondering about just more, more broadly, [00:26:25] how have you thought about either rebuilding processes or teams [00:26:30] to kind of move forward in this kind of AI world?
Chris Koehler: Yeah, [00:26:35] we, I, I mean, full disclosure, we haven't figured it all out. Um. I think, yeah. [00:26:40] I mean, I, and, and I talk to a lot of my peers and everyone's sort of trying to figure the same thing out. And, and [00:26:45] it's interesting, the larger at scale companies are operating in a [00:26:50] way that are very different than startups.
Chris Koehler: And startups are running in a much more nimble, [00:26:55] agile approach. And like they're creating new roles, right. That we don't [00:27:00] have in our, in our organization. And we're, we're taking a sort of a lesson from them saying, okay, well. [00:27:05] What, how are you organized? Um, what are the type of roles and, and how [00:27:10] should we thinking through this?
Chris Koehler: But I think the way I describe it is sort of our [00:27:15] AI journey is it started with a lot of like access [00:27:20] to the tools and driving personal productivity. And so, um, that's where the first start, and [00:27:25] that was probably 18 months ago to 12 months ago. Then you get into a world where you're like, okay, [00:27:30] well I'm more productive, but now my team needs to be more productive.
Chris Koehler: So how are we building. [00:27:35] What, what tools are we using to drive within my own team some [00:27:40] productivity so that we can share and we can collaborate and we can work through and, and drive, uh, you know, [00:27:45] um, more efficiency across the organization. And then it got into the world where we're like, [00:27:50] okay, well what about the cross marketing production of, you know, let's get [00:27:55] out of our own marketing silos and think through how do we [00:28:00] reimagine, let's say campaigns.
Chris Koehler: How would we start, you know, today? [00:28:05] Um, it may take like, Hey, we've got a new idea. Wanna do this campaign? It may [00:28:10] take six to eight weeks to get a new campaign out the door. [00:28:15] And if you, if you take AI and you optimize the [00:28:20] existing workflows that you have today, you might be able to shrink that down. [00:28:25] To three to four weeks.
Chris Koehler: Everything is like incrementally faster. But what we [00:28:30] realized was actually you need a system. You need to be on the same tools [00:28:35] that are gonna optimize this from start to finish. And you can't have one team [00:28:40] optimizing in, in OpenAI, another's on Claude, someone else is on Gemini, [00:28:45] they're all on different products.
Chris Koehler: And you're like, okay, well how are we going to share and drive [00:28:50] this? So we took a step back and we said, well. Actually in that process, [00:28:55] you might have multiple teams that are all responsible for a portion of the campaign. [00:29:00] Someone's got the ideation and the creative and the, someone built the brief, and then you've got the [00:29:05] media plan and you like, you keep going on and it's like broken up into lots of little [00:29:10] individual.
Chris Koehler: Tasks that go along almost like a conveyor belt. And [00:29:15] if you're lucky, that goes smoothly. But what often happens is like teams will work through and then they gotta go [00:29:20] back and it starts, and then all of a sudden this adds so much time around that. So if you optimize the [00:29:25] existing workflows that you have today with a ai, you can only get so much efficiency.[00:29:30]
Chris Koehler: But when I challenged the team and I said, okay, well what if I want a new [00:29:35] campaign in 10 days? No, that's not possible. I was like, why is it not [00:29:40] possible? What if you just reimagine how you do that? What if you put a [00:29:45] single individual that is gonna be responsible for driving that across the [00:29:50] organization and you put new AI tools in their hands and they can go build this [00:29:55] full thing with the support of others in the organization, but like get out of [00:30:00] their way.
Chris Koehler: Let them go figure out how to get it out the door in 10 days. That is [00:30:05] the transformation I think we're all gonna have to realize now. What [00:30:10] individual has enough knowledge to be dangerous, right? That can go do [00:30:15] that. What's the right, what's the right audience that we're going after? What's the right messaging?
Chris Koehler: [00:30:20] Where would we put this into market? How do we localize this? Like all of those things, [00:30:25] that's, those are new roles, right? We don't have, we didn't have anyone in the, in the organization that was like, [00:30:30] I'm gonna go do this from, from start to finish. So you're getting in a world where. [00:30:35] New role types are gonna be created.
Chris Koehler: The silos amongst the [00:30:40] organizations, even within marketing are gonna have to break down. And I think what we're gonna have [00:30:45] to do over the next 12 to 18 months is like, reimagine how we're [00:30:50] organized, right? Because the organization might actually, the way that we're [00:30:55] structured might actually be the bottleneck to drive to, you know, to getting better output [00:31:00] faster.
Chris Koehler: And that doesn't mean like what, what the scary part is when you talk like that. [00:31:05] It's like, oh no, here we go. We don't need as many people. And it is like, no, [00:31:10] actually we have a backlog of ideas and things that we would love to be able to go [00:31:15] do. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sitting here being like, well, I'm so glad we can do [00:31:20] everything that, you know, we've come up with and brainstorm about the stuff.
Chris Koehler: The reality is we all [00:31:25] have to make trade offs of constraints. It's like, well, I'd like to do this, but this [00:31:30] one's more important so that back burners and we do this approach. Getting to a world where [00:31:35] you can actually drive more, I think is the thing that we've all been promising. I mean, Jon, we've been [00:31:40] in this space for a long time where we're like personalization at scale.
Chris Koehler: I mean, I've been guilty of saying that for [00:31:45] 10, 15 years. It's really, really hard. But I think there is a world where you could [00:31:50] get into where that's might be possible. Um, and you know, I think it's [00:31:55] a better customer experience. It's better for the company and the brands and that's where, that's where [00:32:00] I am sort of evolving over time.
Chris Koehler: But it's a, it's really hard for employees too [00:32:05] 'cause like it's all change. Right. And I think that's the piece that we're all sort of [00:32:10] grappling with.
Jon Miller: what I love about what you did at the end there, right? Was like you, you started mostly [00:32:15] talking about AI to drive efficiency. You know, let's streamline six weeks down [00:32:20] to, you know, 10 days and all that kind of thing. But the very. End, it's like, oh, and let's also use it [00:32:25] to deliver personalized journeys, one-to-one touches, you know, interactions, [00:32:30] um, which just was not possible before because of the complexity that's [00:32:35] about making our marketing more effective, not just more efficient.
Chris Koehler: Yeah. And I [00:32:40] think, yeah, and I, and I think there's like, the easy, the easy answer is to go into [00:32:45] doomsday scenario and be like, oh my gosh. Like everyone, no one's gonna have jobs like, you know, this is terrible. AI's [00:32:50] gonna do all of it for us. I'm not in that camp like I'm, I'm more of an optimist. I think, you know, [00:32:55] that we're, we're actually seeing.
Chris Koehler: Is we're gonna be, we're gonna drive a lot more [00:33:00] output. I think the question and the concern that I have for the craft [00:33:05] is just because we can doesn't mean we should create. [00:33:10] Right? And I think, I think what is gonna be interesting over the next couple years, [00:33:15] forever in this industry, content was the bottleneck.
Chris Koehler: Content was the [00:33:20] limiting factor with everything that marketing did. It is like we just couldn't create enough [00:33:25] creative or copy or offers or any of those things. Like it was just so hard 'cause you needed human [00:33:30] interaction and um, engagement as part of that, now we're gonna into a world where content is [00:33:35] like ubiquitous and free almost to some point, and how do you flip it on [00:33:40] its head so that you're using the most.
Chris Koehler: Valuable content the most, you [00:33:45] know, you're, you're, you're limiting those, I think that will be successful are the ones that actually pair back [00:33:50] how much they do versus, you know, just spout off more and more content [00:33:55] every day.
Jon Miller: I mean, I, to me it's back exactly back to that [00:34:00] personalization piece, right? The, the, the content is abundant where, and if we're [00:34:05] not smart, we're all gonna end up sounding the same. 'cause we're all using the same models. [00:34:10] What's gonna actually make us stand out and be different is the proverbial right thing at the right time [00:34:15] for each person using all the data intelligence that we have available to us,
Jon Miller: [00:34:20] you know. That to me is the, gonna be the real unlock for what, what AI can do. [00:34:25] So, um, well this, this has been an awesome conversation. Uh, we always [00:34:30] like to end with, um, just giving you an opportunity [00:34:35] to share gratitude. We talked about your origin story, but not all the [00:34:40] sidekicks and supporting cast that helped you get to where you are.
Jon Miller: So are there [00:34:45] any, uh, mentors you want to give a shout out to or, or others? It's kind of [00:34:50] who helped you along the way.
Chris Koehler: I mean, there's, there's tons. Um, you know, I wouldn't, I, I, we'd, [00:34:55] we'd be dishonest if we said we didn't get to where we are without a lot of help from, you know, from people all [00:35:00] along the way. You know, I think for me, just, I, I would say my family is the first one [00:35:05] dealing with the craziness that is, that is the life that we lead.
Chris Koehler: Um, when we have these, [00:35:10] these roles, um, I, I've had some great mentors. Um, you know, [00:35:15] Steph Carullo at Box gave me the opportunity to step into the, the CMO gig at at [00:35:20] Box, and, um. You know, I was, uh, very lucky, uh, to, to, [00:35:25] to step into that role. It's been fairly life changing. Um, I had a couple, um, [00:35:30] a, a couple mentors at Adobe.
Chris Koehler: Um, sadly, uh, they [00:35:35] both passed away, but, um, you know, that, that have. They gave me the [00:35:40] opportunity, one gave me the, gave me the guidance and the feedback when I [00:35:45] wasn't ready to hear it, but they were probably right. Um, and making me better [00:35:50] as a leader. Um, but also then giving me the opportunity to quite [00:35:55] frankly, get ahead of myself and figure out how to do, um, some of the roles that I was given.[00:36:00]
Chris Koehler: With the confidence that, uh, that I would figure it out. So yeah, [00:36:05] there's, there's great mentors along the way. Um, yeah, I've been very lucky [00:36:10] to, uh, to, to get into this role. And, um, I have a lot, a lot, a lot of help along the [00:36:15] way.
Jon Miller: Well, Chris, you know, thank you so much. I mean, I think there's just a lot of great meat [00:36:20] to chew on from this, from this call. Um, I think, you know, probably one of the ones [00:36:25] that stuck with me the most is, you know, when you're front, in front of the board, you [00:36:30] know. Don't talk marketing talk market. Um, and, [00:36:35] and similarly how you sort of talk about pipeline is, you know that that's you own [00:36:40] pipeline and you talk about it, but it's not the goal, it's just the path.
Chris Koehler: [00:36:45] Yeah. I mean, I think as when, when people get into this role, think about it as you're a business leader [00:36:50] driving a company. You're not a marketer, marketer's, your second hat. Your first hat is like, [00:36:55] I'm helping to drive the company forward. And in that role, my speak and my [00:37:00] language is very different than when I'm talking to my marketing team about the very specific components.
Chris Koehler: [00:37:05] And you have to play both and you need to understand which situation you're in.
Jon Miller: A hundred percent. [00:37:10] And then on the AI side, you know, I liked your line about right for humans, but optimize for [00:37:15] agents. I think that's like a, a really clean argument. [00:37:20] Um, and, and I just love the hopeful note on the end, right? Which is AI is not [00:37:25] about firing all our humans. It's about clearing the backlog, uh, and building [00:37:30] on all those ideas that we never had the hands to really do.
Jon Miller: So, [00:37:35] you know, with that, I think, um, you know, as you said, we should be simple, be bold and have [00:37:40] some fun with the story.
Chris Koehler: Hundred percent.
Jon Miller: Chris Koehler, thank you so much for [00:37:45] joining us.
Chris Koehler: Thanks, Jon. Appreciate it.
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