Hi, I'm Kelly.

I'm a brand, community, and product marketer.

kellydmatkovich@gmail.com · Connect with me

I've spent 15+ years building brands people actually care about, through events, content, and partnerships that create real community.

I currently lead growth and product marketing for two endurance sports platforms at Outside Inc.

Before that, I ran community strategy for a national wellness media company, growing it from 15 states to 39, plus 3 countries.

I started my career producing large-scale medical conferences around the world, so event logistics and details come second nature to me.

I spent most of my life thriving in a big city. Now I live in a small mountain town in Colorado, adventuring every day, trail running, hiking, and dabbling in everything else. Trading one kind of energy for another taught me there's always room to keep evolving. There's an art to routine I cherish, but I'll always be pulled by the excitement of trying something new.

01 — Community Marketing

Building die-hard loyalists

Community has been the throughline of my career. It's an incredible retention play because it builds a brand's customer base into authentic die-hard loyalists. Customers that organically talk about your brand because they genuinely love it, truly the best case scenario.

I grew a national ambassador program, ran 350+ live events, secured partnerships with 100+ brands, distributing over 200,000 products and services to micro-influencers, and manage social media across multiple brands, including athleteReg, BikeReg, and Women of the Sawatch. It all comes down to getting to know people and giving them a reason to stay.

02 — Brand Strategy

The story that carries

Some of my favorite brand work has been finding a voice in a crowded industry. At Outside, I helped reposition athleteReg around one idea, Registration with Reach, and got our team rallying behind that same story across our sales page, blog, and everywhere else it showed up.

I like to start with what a brand actually stands for, then build campaigns people feel rather than scroll past. A six-month partnership with Garmin turned fitness instructors into genuine brand advocates, not through a big media buy, but through the right five people, the right event, and content worth sharing.

03 — Experiential

Community, happening in real time

Some of my favorite work happens in a room, not an inbox. I've run sold-out fitness activations in Chicago, built out Outside Endure, an endurance conference during Outside Days' 40,000-person festival in Denver, produced a week-long virtual wellness summit with 30 speakers and 500 attendees, and planned global medical meetings for over 3,000 people.

Brand activations are an awareness tactic to most people. To me, they're community happening in real time.

04 — Product Marketing

Making the tech make sense

For athleteReg, I've led the writing and strategy that make harder-to-explain tech easier to adopt. That's meant webinars, blogs, and emails that do the translating, plus the GTM strategy behind a platform redesign.

I work closely with product and engineering so the story we tell matches what we actually built, and clients feel smart the moment they use it.

A few things people have said

Unprompted, mostly

"She made me feel seen and confident."

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"I was at my first aSweatLife virtual Sweatworking Week and I would chat in the Slack channel quite a bit. Kelly always responded and made sure I felt welcome because she knew I was new. She reached out personally afterwards to encourage me to apply to be an ambassador! She made me feel seen and confident! Thank you, Queen Kelly, for all you do."

Haley P.

Chicago, IL

"I've been impressed from day one."

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"Kelly came on board as our Marketing Manager in September 2024. We did not have this role before, so I'm not able to measure against that, just the goals we created for the role and her performance against my expectations. By all measures, Kelly has been excellent, outperforming where I thought she'd be as a key contributor at this point in her tenure with the Event Services team."

Ross K.

Outside Inc

"Her presence is magnetic."

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"Kelly is the most genuinely kind person! I had connected with her online and it truly felt like we had known each other for so long before we actually met in real life. Her presence is magnetic!"

Neethi N.

Austin, TX

"Rallying around a zillion things to pull off Outside Fest."

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"Huge shoutout to Kelly Matkovich for rallying around a zillion things to pull off a big presence at Outside Fest!"

Lexi W.

Outside Inc

"She brought a crew with her, and it meant a lot."

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"It was such a treat to have Kelly support me during a fitness event I was a part of in Denver. Not only did she come through, but she brought a crew with her. It might have been a small gesture for her, but to me it meant a lot!"

Gideon A.

Chicago, IL

"Led by example, every step of the way."

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"Great work getting all the different pieces and people and timelines and everything lined up to get the new athleteReg website across the finish line."

Gregg B.

Outside Inc

"She has always been a welcoming soul."

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"My first memory with Kelly was for the Sweat Working Week in 2020. From the moment of meeting she has always been a welcoming soul. Because of this I continue to stay connected and collaborating with Kelly."

Jas K.

Dallas, TX