Emotional Branding, UGC and AI, and Prioritizing Product Marketing with Tom Klein of Matterport

 

EPISODE SUMMARY

Tom Klein, CMO of Matterport, believes that investing in product marketing is critical in driving innovation. Plus, he shares the importance of building emotional connections in your marketing, drawing on lessons from his time at notable companies like Chanel and Mailchimp to explain how brands can resonate on a deeper level while delivering clear functional value. Discover practical applications of AI and user-generated content, along with insights on the power of testing, learning, and bringing passion to every campaign.

GUEST BIO

Tom Klein is the Chief Marketing Officer of Matterport and is responsible for aligning the company’s global marketing initiatives with its mission of digitizing the built world at scale. Klein brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing efforts for some of the world’s leading brands and has a passion for operating at the intersection of marketing and technology. Before Matterport, Tom served as the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Mailchimp, where he led the company’s go-to-market efforts and the brand, product, campaign, and content teams. In 2017, Adweek recognized Tom as one of the 50 Most Indispensable Executives in Marketing, Media, and Tech. Before joining Mailchimp, Tom founded and became CEO of Digital Scientists, a digital marketing and software development firm.

Tom earned two graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Wharton School and a Master’s in International Studies from the Lauder Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Emory University. He is also the co-author of the book Enterprise Marketing Management: The New Science of Marketing (Wiley: 2003).

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction and Guest Background
The Next CMO podcast explores topics that are on the minds of forward-thinking marketing leaders, from vision and strategy to leadership and emerging technologies.

The Next CMO is sponsored by Planful, a platform to build, manage, and measure your marketing plan, track all your marketing spend, and connect your budget with outcomes to measure your ROI. Check it out at planful.com/marketing. Your CFO will love you for it.

I’m your host, Scott Todaro, a 32-year marketing veteran, seven-time head of marketing, and coauthor of the book The Next CMO.

Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of The Next CMO podcast. Today, I am joined by Tom Klein, who is going to give us a great rundown on a bunch of best practices that I think are going to really revolutionize the way you are doing marketing today. No pressure, Tom.

Tom, I’m so excited to have you on the call today because you’ve got a great background. Not only are you the CMO of Matterport right now, but you were also the CMO of Mailchimp. I know a lot of you probably either use the tool or have someone on your team that does. Having six years of experience running a MarTech product as a CMO comes with a lot of pressure. And we all know that CMOs typically last one year and nine months. So, congratulations, Tom.

Thank you!

You absolutely quadrupled that. That is fantastic.

Now, the other great thing about Tom is that he hasn’t just done a couple of leadership roles—he’s been doing this for 20 years. So, we’re going to get a lot of detail, best practices, and maybe a little pain as part of the discussion today.

Another notable thing about Tom is that he’s classically trained in marketing. He has an MBA from Wharton with a concentration in marketing, which provides an interesting perspective. One thing that’s fun is that Tom and I are around the same age. We actually remember marketing before the Internet!

Marketers who know what it was like before the Internet have a unique perspective on the evolution of the field. In fact, one of the questions I want to ask Tom today is about the changes he’s seen over time, how they’ve affected him, and what he’s done to adjust along the way.

Defining Product Marketing
The first question I want to throw out is about product marketing. During our initial discussion, Tom shared some great insights about product marketing. It got me thinking because I’ve noticed a trend where many CMOs don’t own product marketing. Instead, they focus on branding, lead generation, and PR. My advice? If you don’t own product marketing, go get it. Ask for it and bring it back into your organization.

Tom, with all your experience in the industry, how do you define product marketing? What does it mean to you, and how can traditional marketing teams effectively implement a solid product marketing function?

Thanks for having me on, Scott. It’s an honor to talk with you, and I hope I live up to that introduction.

As it relates to product marketing, I’ve built several product marketing teams at both Matterport and Mailchimp. When I arrived at these companies, there wasn’t a formal product marketing function or even a product management function in place.

Big picture, I think of product marketing as essentially marketing’s role in innovation. It starts with identifying a problem or opportunity for the business—usually a customer problem. How do you go from identifying that problem to launching a product that addresses it?

The way I see it, there are two big steps in the process. First, you define the product or service in tandem with the product team—engineers, designers, and so on. Marketing’s role here is to gather insights, advocate for the customer, and conduct research through methods like ethnographic observation.

Once the product is built or defined, product marketing shifts focus to taking it to market. This involves decisions about distribution, pricing, promotion, and other classic marketing considerations. Essentially, it’s about creating a handshake between marketing and product. Marketing starts as a second lead, gathering insights from customers, and then takes over to launch and position the product in the market.

It’s a specific skill set that’s incredibly valuable. I can’t imagine being a CMO without having a strong product marketing team to support me.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s such an essential function. Product marketing serves as the innovation arm of the marketing team. It’s responsible for messaging, positioning, pricing, and packaging. These are things that a product marketing team should own. Even if you already have a product marketing team, make sure they’re involved in distribution strategy as well.

The Evolution of Marketing Over Time
Now, I promised to ask the “old guy” question. You’ve been around a long time and have seen a lot of evolution in marketing. What do you think have been the most significant pivot points over the years?

I started my career at Nabisco in the early 1990s in the cookie and cracker business. This was before the Internet became widely used. Back then, marketing was largely about art with a little science mixed in. There was minimal data available, and we relied on approximations like Nielsen surveys for TV viewership.

With the rise of digital marketing, everything changed. Today, every customer interaction generates data—every click, visit, and action leaves a trace. Marketing has become a combination of art and science, with data playing a massive role in decision-making.

This shift from the “Mad Men” world to a data-driven one has been transformative. It’s exciting, but it also requires a level of mathematical sophistication that wasn’t necessary before.

Building a Brand in B2B Marketing
That’s a great point about the evolution of marketing. Now, let’s pivot to something highly relevant for many of our listeners—building a brand in B2B marketing. You worked at Mailchimp, and now you’re at Matterport. Talk to me about what it takes to build a brand in the B2B world, which is obviously very different from B2C.

Building a brand in B2B is definitely a unique challenge. After Mailchimp, I spent some time at Chanel, which is an iconic B2C brand. Chanel’s brand is built on mystique, luxury, and emotional connection. Even though it’s a consumer brand, there are lessons to be learned about how people emotionally connect with brands.

In B2B, the same principles apply. There are still emotional benefits that resonate with your audience, whether they’re real estate agents, project managers, or construction professionals. Beyond the functional benefits like improving ROI or streamlining processes, a great B2B brand can also help its users feel proud, successful, or inspired.

For example, at Matterport, I want customers to feel like they’re part of something bigger—whether they’re designing a building or capturing a unique space. Emotional benefits, like making someone feel cool or empowered, can differentiate your brand from the competition.

That’s such an important point. The emotional connection is key. Marketers often miss the fact that their audience remembers how a brand made them feel more than the specific details of a message.

Unique Value Propositions and Brand Architecture
Let’s dive into another critical aspect of branding—unique value propositions. You recently worked on a project at Matterport to define your value proposition. How did you approach it, and what advice would you give to others?

Developing a value proposition starts with understanding what truly matters to your customers. I like to use a method where we present a range of benefit statements to customers and ask them to rank their importance. Then we follow up with questions about how likely they are to purchase if those benefits are delivered.

The goal is to separate the “nice-to-have” benefits from the truly motivating ones. This requires both qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research, like customer interviews or focus groups, helps you identify potential benefits. Quantitative research allows you to validate those insights by asking customers to rank and prioritize them.

When crafting the value proposition, I include a mix of functional and emotional benefits. The functional benefits might include things like saving time, reducing costs, or increasing efficiency. The emotional benefits speak to things like pride, confidence, or excitement. Together, these elements form the foundation of a compelling value proposition, which can then inform all your marketing touchpoints.

That’s such a great approach. Many marketers jump straight into creating messaging or positioning statements without doing the groundwork. The research you’re describing is essential for crafting a value proposition that resonates with your audience.

One thing we’ve discussed is the importance of marketing getting involved in product development. You mentioned the four P’s of marketing earlier—product, price, place, and promotion—and how marketing teams sometimes lose credibility with product teams. What’s your take on that?

It’s true. In many organizations, product managers and engineers are making key decisions, and marketing gets left out. I believe product managers should report into marketing. That way, you’re ensuring that the customer’s voice—via marketing research—is at the table when key product decisions are being made.

At Matterport, we’ve structured things like a pod. Product marketers are embedded with product managers, creating a strong connection between marketing and development. This structure helps ensure that the product team is aligned with customer needs and that marketing is involved from the very beginning of the development process.

Marketing’s Role in Product Development
That’s such a great point about alignment. You mentioned earlier that decision-making authority can sometimes be unclear in cross-functional teams. How do you manage that?

It’s all about clarity around roles and responsibilities. Before starting a project, we make sure everyone understands their role—who provides input, who performs the tasks, and who has decision-making authority.

This kind of clarity helps prevent conflicts and ensures that everyone is aligned. I recommend doing this groundwork upfront because it saves a lot of time and frustration later.

User-Generated Content and AI in Marketing
Let’s pivot to something more tactical. User-generated content and AI are two big topics in marketing today. How are you approaching these trends at Matterport?

User-generated content is a huge opportunity for us. For example, when customers create Matterport spaces, we’ve made it easy for them to share their work. We created a platform called Matterport Discover, which acts as a centralized home for user-generated content. It’s similar to how YouTube works—every time you create a video, it’s easily searchable and shareable.

From an SEO perspective, this is also a win. User-generated content drives a lot of organic traffic and helps strengthen the brand’s visibility online.

As for AI, we’re incorporating it into both our product and our marketing processes. For example, we use AI to help with translations, enabling a single marketer in Japan to handle tasks that would otherwise require a large team.

We’re also experimenting with AI in content creation. It’s great for generating ideas, creating drafts, or performing translations, but I don’t believe it’s ready to replace humans entirely. Every piece of AI-generated content still needs a human review to ensure quality.

That makes a lot of sense. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a silver bullet. It’s interesting that your team is already using it for things like translations and content ideation.

Key Advice for Aspiring CMOs
Let’s move to the final question. If you had one piece of advice for CMOs or aspiring CMOs, what would it be?

I actually have two pieces of advice.

First, embrace a test-and-learn mindset. Create an environment where experimentation is encouraged. This not only drives better results but also fosters creativity within your team. Sometimes, the “weird” idea ends up being the one that resonates most with customers.

Second, put your heart into your work. Passion is essential in marketing. If you’re not genuinely invested in what you’re doing, it’s going to show. The same goes for your team—help them find passion in their work. If your team is just going through the motions, they’re not going to create work that truly connects with your audience.

I couldn’t agree more. Passion and creativity are the keys to standing out in today’s marketing landscape. You made another great point earlier about how passion reduces your workload as a leader. When your team cares about their work, they take ownership, and you don’t have to micromanage.

Closing Thoughts and Final Takeaways
Tom, this has been an amazing conversation. There are so many great takeaways for our audience—especially around product marketing, branding, and leveraging AI.

Thank you for sharing your insights. We’d love to have you back on the podcast in the future.

Thanks, Scott. It’s been a pleasure.

And thank you to our listeners. We’ll see you next time on The Next CMO Podcast.