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Darcy Kurtz, VP of Global Product Marketing at Mailchimp
Darcy Kurtz believes in small businesses. Over the course of her career, she’s helped small businesses grow by connecting them with tech solutions ranging from hardware to software and beyond. Today, as the VP of Global Product Marketing at Mailchimp, Darcy is focused on empowering small businesses through Mailchimp’s full marketing platform.
Joining Mailchimp just a few months before their new launch, Darcy says she was drawn to their mission and emphasis on truly understanding customer needs and developing interesting new tools and channels. Hear how Mailchimp approaches customer research, and how they infuse Mailchimp magic in every experience.
Carl Smith: This week stopping by the Bureau Studios, we are lucky to have Darcy Kurtz, the VP of Global Product Marketing at Mailchimp. How's it going, Darcy?
Darcy Kurtz: Outstanding. How are you doing today?
Carl Smith: I'm doing great and thank you so much for taking the time. I know Mailchimp is going through some crazy growth and I have no doubt that you're super busy. I would love it if we could kick off the show with you just introducing yourself and sharing your background and how you ended up becoming the VP of Global Product Marketing.
Darcy Kurtz: Sure. So I have been in the technology industry for, gosh, over 25 years now and the vast majority of that I've spent getting the pleasure of marketing to small businesses. And I have just come to love them as a target market, really being able to get in there and help them. It's a highly underserved market, and I truly believe they're the backbone of our global economy. So when I had an opportunity to join Mailchimp, and our philosophies, our mission, our purpose really aligned around that. And to see a company that doesn't just say it but actually lives it and breathes it every single day, this was a great place for me. So I'm really enjoying being a part of their transformation and really evolving from an email company into a full marketing platform so we can enable those small businesses even more than we ever have.
Carl Smith: Now, tell me a little bit about how you found out about the opportunity of Mailchimp and what that process was like for you to get on board.
Darcy Kurtz: Sure. Well, serving small businesses for as long as I have, they've been in my ecosystem for many, many years, so I have heard of them, I know them. In fact, I did a couple of years at a startup and used them, so very, very familiar with Mailchimp. And being here in Atlanta, they are a mainstay in the Atlanta business community. And so when they had an opportunity open, it just was a great opportunity to mix my skills and experiences with what they were looking for.
Carl Smith: And how long have you been on board now?
Darcy Kurtz: Right at five months. I'm entering my sixth month here, so still relatively new.
Carl Smith: Wow. You came on as everything is just going gangbusters with the whole transformation to the new website, the new product, the new everything. What was that like? Did you even get to sit down on your first day?
Darcy Kurtz: It's true, it really has been quite a ride since I joined. It was actually perfect timing. I joined about two months before all of the launch of the new brand and such, and so I really got to see it coming to life and had a big part in just learning about where's Mailchimp going, what are we trying to do? And now having the opportunity to take it into its next phase, so it's been really exciting.
Carl Smith: So at this point, especially if you're focusing on that global market, how has the changes... How have they been received?
Darcy Kurtz: It's actually outstanding. And the reason is because the customers told us in the first place to do this, so it's such a crazy market. I always say it's a wonderful time to be in marketing because there are just so many tools in our toolkit. The downside of that is there's over 7,000 point solutions out there in the world and, not only is that hard and overwhelming for a veteran of marketing, but certainly for a small business to go and try to figure out, how do I put all these pieces together to create the right stack for my company? So customers started saying, "Gosh, it would be so nice if you did more than email. I would love to get rid of these other solutions that I have and just start using Mailchimp. Would you, would you, would you?" And that really is the impetus of how we got here, is customers asked for it.
Darcy Kurtz: And so for the last couple of years we've started building that out and really focusing on what are those key tools and capabilities that small businesses need in and all in one platform so they can have one tool instead of five or 10. And not only that, that all those things start to work together. And they can really drive some efficiencies and effectiveness that you just can't when you have lots of different systems that aren't talking to each other, running separately. So customers have been not just embrace this, they're waiting for it, chomping at the bit for it. It's hard to be a small business and try to manage all the marketing technology that's out there today.
Carl Smith: Well, I can second that and give you an amen because as a small business ourselves, community business, whatever, we have to be out there. And I still remember the day I was on a chat with the person who manages all of our content marketing, and I was talking with her and I was like, "Yeah, we could maybe try some Instagram stuff or something." I went, "Wait a second, I got Mailchimp open and there's an Instagram thing," and she's like, "What?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know. I think I just... Okay, we've set up a campaign. There we go." I couldn't believe how easy it was. And we had all the elements we needed, everything like that. And then it was all connected in one place and we're turning it into this big infomercial, but I was overwhelmed with how easy it was. And then we were like, well, there's Facebook now and there's all that kind of stuff, so how... You say that the customers wanted it, what is that process? How does the customer feedback make it to the product team?
Darcy Kurtz: Yeah. So you bring up a really interesting point around the ease of use and how that works, and the thing that we try to do every time, everything that we deliver at Mailchimp is sprinkle that what we call the Mailchimp magic on it. It's not just about how do we take a bunch of tools and cram them into one solution and say, "Here you go, small business." We've been dealing with small businesses at Mailchimp for over 18 years. We are hugely committed to them. We talk to them every single day repeatedly and really listen to not just what do you need, but what are your pain points and how do we help solve those? So it wasn't just about, to your example, of putting Instagram and Facebook ads into the tool, it was how do we make this super simple? Because it's not just about doing an Instagram ad or a Facebook ad, it's about how do all these different channels connect to create an integrated campaign that drive better results than doing it all one at a time.
Darcy Kurtz: So you can create an email and, with one click, it will automatically upload to your Instagram and your Facebook. So you don't have to go recreate ads for all of your different channels, and suddenly you're a multichannel marketer. So it is that ease of use, that ability to really put the spin on it for what is it that small businesses need, because their needs are very specific and different than what large organizations are requiring. So we look through that lens with everything we do and all the development that we do.
Carl Smith: Are you out in the field talking to customers or you're having... I don't want to say focus groups because that was always a weird thing to me, but how are you getting in touch with them?
Darcy Kurtz: Oh my gosh, we talk to customers every day, and really it's all of the above. We do market testing, we do one-on-one interviews, we do focus groups, we do user testing, any kind of format of research that you can imagine we are doing it on a daily basis. We think that that really is what fuels the magic sauce, it is you get to know your customer and understand their problems, be able to walk in their shoes. And so for us, it is a super high priority to constantly be talking to them, understanding their pain points so we can develop new things. And then once we develop them, testing them with them to make sure that we've got that magic component right.
Carl Smith: So in any one week, how many new ideas could come in?
Darcy Kurtz: We're getting new ideas all the time, and we get them through our social channels, we get them through our research elements, we get them through our service channels. I mean thousands upon thousands of ideas are coming in every day so it's certainly not an issue of quantity. It's always about, "Okay, how do we see what the trends are, bring these things to life and then deliver something that's really going to add real value to the customers?"
Carl Smith: Yeah. Is there a whole idea curation team? I mean, that's the way it feels like it would have to be.
Darcy Kurtz: Wait, well, we empower everybody to be that. Everyone within inside Mailchimp is empowered to be creative and try new things. It's one of our core values here at Mailchimp, is around creativity and independence and taking risks and trying new things. So we certainly wouldn't set it aside and say it's a particular team. It's everyone's job to be listening to our customers and finding new and creative ways to help them.
Carl Smith: And I think one of the amazing things for me, I'm in Mailchimp probably two or three times a week, not near as heavy as some of the other people on the team, but how everything still rotates around that individual contact that we have so that it's so easy for me to see with Instagram, with a mail campaign, with whatever, who's really engaged and who maybe doesn't want to hear from us and maybe who we've been knocking down their door too much. It's such an easy way to see it. And then also with some of the recent revisions, the ability to say, don't send this to anybody I sent that to, which seems really simple, but when we have a community with so many people have said they're interested in so many things, we don't want to overwhelm them. So it's so nice to be able to say, if I sent something to somebody last week, give them a break this week.
Darcy Kurtz: Exactly. Exactly. Those are the kinds of automations and thinking that we like to call it smart. It's a smart system that is going to help instill confidence in you as the marketer to know that you're doing the right things. We like to really enable customers through the tool to have confidence that the things that they're doing are the right things and that they're actually going to work. So we do like to have those safeguards in there.
Carl Smith: And you're so right because there's nothing more nerve wracking than getting ready to hit the send button when you know that 5,000 people are about to get it. And you've proofed it 12 times, and you had three other people look at it, you did all those kinds of things, but then you get that high five from Freddie and you're like, "Hey, we're good. This is all good stuff." So I think one of the things for me, through the transformation, was how Freddie stayed in the forefront. I can only imagine, as somebody who...I knew rocket science when Mailchimp was coming out, and to watch that evolution and for Freddie to be there for so long, it was important to me. I didn't want to lose Freddie.
Darcy Kurtz: It's very true. And it's just a core element of who we are, which is that ability to walk side-by-side with you. We are a small business too, we've been the person that has to push the button to send an email to a ton of people and we know the anxiety that that brings. And even as we're evolving, and we're growing, and moving into our act two, we really believe that you build a successful brand and a successful business by staying true to yourself. And that element of us is something that we feel is just very authentic and a part of who we are, so we will continue to keep that in the system.
Carl Smith: So when you're working at Mailchimp and you're growing really crazy, both in terms of the number of people at the company as well as the capabilities of the product, how do you as the head of product marketing, global product marketing, how do you decide where to focus in your messaging, because you can only say so much? How do you determine your core messaging?
Darcy Kurtz: Yeah. Well, we talk to customers. We talk to customers again. So we really are trying to focus in, not just the message, but what is it that we're delivering that's going to add a lot of value? And the things that are resoundingly true, you mentioned it, it's easy to use...If people want to be able to come in, and even if they're using complex features and complex functionality, they want that complexity to be invisible. They still want it to be easy. So that's a big piece of it. They want it to be smart, they want recommendations, they want the ability to tap into resources that we as Mailchimp have that they might not have to give them best practices, not only just industry best practices, which certainly we know, but they can leverage... We have millions of customers and billions of audience members that we use AI and machine learning to analyze what works best. And we can use that data and those insights to help our customers be smarter in the way they market, be more efficient, drive growth faster. So we know that is a really, really critical element.
Darcy Kurtz: We know that they want power, so there are customers that want to start with us and they want to grow with us, so not only do they want the tools that help get them started, they want things that will stick with them and help them evolve as a marketer over time. So these are some of the key elements that we hear customers talk about over and over. And so it's not just the message, it truly is what we're building and then we just go talk about how we have it.
Carl Smith: Which makes perfect sense, you can't really do feature marketing because everything's evolving, but that value-based marketing, which you're hearing from people all the time, and you're putting back in, I mean that's the steady pulse that you're getting out there.
Carl Smith: And also, I have to say, in terms of the knowledge that's shared, I don't know how many times I've said, is this a good subject line? Is this going to play well? Am I going to do this? Am I going to do that? And there's always an answer.
Darcy Kurtz: Yeah, it's interesting. Just recently we've been having those exact conversations with customers and prospects, and one of the biggest pain points is that developing the content itself. It's one thing to know how to market and, "Okay, I know I need to do an email and some Instagram and send some postcards and do some Google remarketing," but what are the words that you actually put in there? That's harder to do.
Darcy Kurtz: You talked about the Freddie high five, that's great for sending your first email, but there's really that constant need that the customers have for tips, trips, tricks, best practices. That sort of guiding them through some of those things that are really hard like how do you build content that's actually going to deliver. And we have the capability and tools to tell them these are the kinds of things you should be doing to maximize this marketing effort that you're putting your money behind. So instilling that confidence in them that they should go ahead and try things because we've got 18 years of experience and tons and tons of data backing up what we're recommending that they do.
Carl Smith: And you just mentioned the postcards. I had totally forgotten about that. We haven't tried that yet, but I remember the first time I saw it I was like, "Whoa, this is awesome," to be able to do physical mail while I'm also doing all of these other outreaches... And so it has me asking the question, what's next? Is there anything you can share in terms of new channels, or new capabilities, or anything that you might be able to spill the beans on? And know it's totally fine, but personally I'll hit pause and you just tell me and I don't tell anybody.
Darcy Kurtz: Okay. Sure. No, just around...Let's talk about the postcards, which is a really cool innovation. A lot of people talk about direct mail is dead and it's antiquated and all of that, but the bottom line is it's not. Direct mail still works. And yes, the technology is something that's been around for a long time, and so we sprinkled a little bit more of that Mailchimp magic on it to give it a modern day spin for modern brands. So you can do it right from Mailchimp, you can have it be a part of your integrated campaign.
Darcy Kurtz: And one of my favorite parts about it is you can, not only create it, you can print it, you can stamp it so you don't have to be licking the stamps, you don't have to address it. We mail it out to your customers for you all with the push of a button, which is really nice.
Darcy Kurtz: And you layer on top of that some of the features we have like lookalike audiences so that we can find people that are like your very best customers and we can send postcards to them, we can find addresses for you if you don't have physical addresses, so really putting that digital spin on a physical product.
Darcy Kurtz: And when you think about the marketing toolkit, I mentioned earlier what a fun time it is to be a marketer because there's so many tools, every tool has its place. And postcards are super because they are tangible and they are capable. I have right now up on my refrigerator, I have a postcard that one of my favorite stores sent me for a Valentine's day sale that's coming up, and I didn't want to forget it so I put it up on my refrigerator so this weekend when I have time I can pop by. And that's just not something you can get when you just are using digital, so it's a great addition to the marketing platform.
Darcy Kurtz: And I say all of that to answer your question, which is we're always looking for what are those channels and tools that are really going to help small businesses, that we can make available for them in a really interesting and different way that aligns to all those values that we talked about? Like it is going to empower you to do smarter marketing, it's going to be really easy to use and it's going to help you drive efficiency in your marketing. So we're always looking for what's the next thing we're going to add through that lens.
Carl Smith: Well, I'm excited because we're going to start using the postcards this year. We've already talked about it.
Darcy Kurtz: You should. Hey, do it for Valentine's day. Say happy Valentine's Day to your favorite customers, it's a great tool to do that.
Carl Smith: It's also for us as event marketers, after somebody's been to the event, we can use some of that imagery and say, thanks so much. It's even more tangible when they see a photo of themselves, when they see something that's them. So we're hoping that that'll keep us top of mind.
Carl Smith: And I just have to say thank you for coming by the show today. Mailchimp is such a big part of the community, has done so much for us, and to have a little bit of insight into how things work is just great.
Darcy Kurtz: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great fun. I obviously love talking about some of the things that we're doing because it's really, not only is a great time to be in marketing, it's an even better time to be at Mailchimp. We're doing some really cool things right now.
Carl Smith: Well, it's nice to watch as well, so thank you. And everybody listening, thank you so much, and we'll be back again next week.
Show Notes
Thank you to Mailchimp, InVision, VOGSY and Media Temple for their support of our inaugural Digital Diversity Days, and their generous contributions to the Bureau Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) scholarship fund. With donations totaling $26,000, the DE&I scholarship will go live once more. These organizations have done so much to strengthen the Bureau community, so be sure to show them some love.
Also, special thanks to Sparkbox who handled all of the planning and logistics for Digital Diversity Days. Our time together was thought-provoking and a wonderful opportunity to learn and connect.
This week’s episode was recorded previously and we’ve been holding it for a big announcement…Mailchimp now has a new website builder that will integrate seamlessly with your emails, landing pages, signup forms, social posts and ads. And there’s even more coming out soon, so stay tuned.
