Building Precision Marketing Campaigns with AI and Intent Data with Kieran Thakky

[00:00:00] Vamsee Tirukkala: Hi, welcome to Draup Dialogues, a place where we bring in the thought leaders and practitioners to come and share real life examples and best practices with everyone. So, we are very honored to have, a very esteemed guest and a very dear friend of mine, Kieran Thakky, who's the Director of Marketing at Harman International.

So Kieran, welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:22] Kieran Thakky: Thanks Vamsee for having me.

[00:00:24] Vamsee Tirukkala: Of course, sir. And it's been a great journey with you for the past few years and this is a time for me to pick your brains.

[00:00:32] Kieran Thakky: Absolutely.

[00:00:32] Vamsee Tirukkala: So Kieran, since we started working last, whatever, five, six years, the whole world has turned upside down. With everything that we used to do, it's completely different what we are doing today.

[00:00:43] Kieran Thakky: Absolutely.

[00:00:43] Vamsee Tirukkala: So let's start with one of the big things that is happening in the market today, which is- everybody talks about data, everybody talks about AI, right? What is your perspective of how the change has impacted the marketing teams?

[00:00:57] Kieran Thakky: Now, ABM has evolved really fast, right? And, within the ABM, we have big data AI automation, which is transforming it at a greater speed. Now, big data is where you get your intent signals.

[00:01:16] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:01:16] Kieran Thakky: And based on these signals, is where you can hyper contextualize your content and at the same time, it is super important that your timing is right. Right? And this is where your AI plays a bigger part where let's say if there are two companies, and they are looking at cloud migration, or rather hiring cloud talent. And one is focusing on modernizing their cloud,

and the other is looking at maintenance and management.

[00:01:56] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:01:57] Kieran Thakky: So that kind of detail is very important when you are really looking at ABM and getting those insights from data and AI can help you contextualize your conversations better.

[00:02:10] Vamsee Tirukkala: Right.

[00:02:10] Kieran Thakky: Now to top it on that I would say you cannot, as a marketer, do without automation.

Given the way the technology is disrupting and the number of products that are coming out in the market, marketing needs to be on its toes and automation is like your backstage crew.

[00:02:31] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:02:32] Kieran Thakky: Now within the automation it takes care of all of your follow ups, your daily tasks such that the team is focused more on strategy versus your spreadsheets.

[00:02:46] Vamsee Tirukkala: So let's actually dwell into the different topics, right? Everything that you mentioned about data and ability to customize.

It's the same data and ability to customize that all of your competitors also have access to. It's not- whatever you aspire to, they're also aspiring the same thing. Whatever you access, you have access, they also probably have the access to the same thing. So how are you going to differentiate your capabilities and your ability to get the mind share?

[00:03:14] Kieran Thakky: That's like the holy grail of question, right?

[00:03:16] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:03:18] Kieran Thakky: So see, we all have the same dashboards. We probably get most of these data from across channels, which looks similar. It could be your traffic spikes to your intent signals or even hiring information, right? But then, what really

gives the edge is not the data itself, but how you make sense off- a sense out of it. And when we talk about that, once you make sense out of what the data is, it is also about how fast you act to it. And for you to act, you also need to have systems that adapt to these changes.

[00:04:04] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:04:07] Kieran Thakky: And most importantly, what gets really lost is how do you really contextualize that data to really appeal to that audience?

[00:04:22] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:04:24] Kieran Thakky: Because it is not about running a campaign. It is about building conversations.

[00:04:31] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yes.

[00:04:32] Kieran Thakky: And only when you are talking to them in- at the time when they are most receptive is when your message will land.

[00:04:42] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:04:44] Kieran Thakky: And that is where your storytelling narrative also needs to come in. Because there is no more templatized way of sending out messages. The better you understand your customer, how fast you can reach out to them,

[00:04:59] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:05:00] Kieran Thakky: educate them. At the same time, have that system wherein you can understand how your messaging is performing as well,

and re-tweak and reapproach. I think that is how you are able to differentiate between having a data.

[00:05:21] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:05:22] Kieran Thakky: Versus building that rhythm and a far better resonance.

[00:05:27] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it. So what you're saying is once you have the data, it's all about having the agility, having the alignment and having the right context.

[00:05:36] Kieran Thakky: True.

[00:05:36] Vamsee Tirukkala: And probably the right channel as well. Okay, wonderful. So Kieran, in your, in your experience in the recent past, what have

been some of those intent signals that you said, wow, this is amazing that I can do something like this.

[00:05:53] Kieran Thakky: So Vamsee, when you really think of intent signals, there are again multiple tools which offer you these signals.

[00:06:02] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:06:04] Kieran Thakky: It could be ZoomInfo, it could be Draup, it could be LinkedIn, right?

[00:06:10] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:06:10] Kieran Thakky: So everybody has their own preference in choice. But then when you are really taking these intent signals, you cannot just go by one signal and approach to it.

[00:06:22] Vamsee Tirukkala: Right.

[00:06:22] Kieran Thakky: You need to layer them on top to really make sense and to get a broader understanding on where the business is heading towards.

Where is the account heading towards? And, it could be as simple as, let's say, there is a first party data that you get. It could be somebody who's consuming a lot of your automation related content.

And at the same time, you have another organization who is looking for hiring patterns.

There is a executive movement. So all of these things add up to the overall business focus, and based on that is how marketers need to approach versus betting on one intent alone and going for it.

[00:07:14] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it. No, I think that's right. I think what you said is, completely makes sense because there is nothing that says that, okay, if you know this, they're going to buy.

You really need to figure out- there are hundred different things that makes it a perfect recipe. And you need to know all those a hundred different things to say that, hey, yes, there is a real opportunity. Yes, this is the right person. Yes, this is the right time, and yes, this is the right channel to reach out to them.

So I think, that's absolutely right Kieran, that's exactly what we are seeing across our other customers as well. And glad to see that you have already deployed that kind of a framework to reach out to organizations, right? So now, to the core of what we are talking today.

Where do you see this AI journey is going to take the marketers, Kieran?

[00:08:09] Kieran Thakky: Now 2025 is shaping up to be a year of precision personalization and speed. And AI has a bigger part to play in all of this.

Now if you really think of AI, what was, you know what we used to talk about AI/ML to NLPs to ChatGPT to different versions of GPTs and then you have the agents that have come in. In the time that has taken to disrupt the market,

with AI as a technology is at a lightning speed. So this is a great news for marketers because you can't wait for one quarter for insights. And now what has happened is you are getting data which is realtime behaviors

at your disposal. And, you have tools again, powered by AI, which can schedule your messaging at timings which is best for that particular audience. For example, usually if you're targeting a North America market, you would schedule it at one time. And you hope it works for all the three zones.

[00:09:45] Vamsee Tirukkala: Right.

[00:09:46] Kieran Thakky: But now, with the overall AI powered campaign orchestration. What is happening is if there is a set of people in East Coast, they get it at the right time when they're most likely to open it.

[00:10:02] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Kieran Thakky: And even if your communication goes to spam or junk, that is tracked and you get to know.

[00:10:10] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah. Yep.

[00:10:11] Kieran Thakky: You can optimize your subject lines to really retargeting ads, how you can program these things for them to be dynamic and at the same time contextual.

[00:10:28] Vamsee Tirukkala: Sure.

[00:10:29] Kieran Thakky: Based on the response of the target buyers.

[00:10:34] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:10:35] Kieran Thakky: You can have multiple options of these ads. So AI is doing AB testing for you and automatically launching what-

[00:10:43] Vamsee Tirukkala: At scale

[00:10:44] Kieran Thakky: Exactly.

[00:10:45] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:10:45] Kieran Thakky: What works best at scale.

[00:10:47] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah, no, I think you are absolutely right. I think it's a pivotal year and we are just in that, probably like it- very early stages of this transformation that we are going to see accelerate much faster and much disruptive force. One of the things that we track, is trying to understand what kind of people are our customers hiring for their marketing roles, right?

And in the last two, three years, we have seen those JDs and profiles change at much faster rate. We have some customers who are hiring for prompt engineering skills in marketing roles. We are hiring- we are seeing people talking about multi-nodal, multilingual experiences.

[00:11:30] Kieran Thakky: Yeah.

[00:11:30] Vamsee Tirukkala: For marketing people, which was never sought out.

So what do you think is going to happen to the people? Like I know it's- I know probably 10 years from now there is going to be a new set of people who are going to come and they will become like a AI native marketers, but we have people in our organizations. How are they coping up with that, Kieran?

[00:11:54] Kieran Thakky: I think, this is, again, there is a lot of debate on.

[00:12:00] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Kieran Thakky: But then in my opinion, you know, you should look at AI as a tool that is supporting you to achieve greater outcomes. And again, adapt at a greater speed. Now, when you think of talent

from B2B IT perspective, right? Marketers, link for example I, I come from geology background.

[00:12:36] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:12:37] Kieran Thakky: And I had to learn about cloud, AI, IoT. And that's a sheer interest.

[00:12:44] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:12:45] Kieran Thakky: That curiosity. And, to those times to what we have right now, you are supposed to just work on or understand prompt engineering for ChatGPTs.

Like for example, at Harman itself, we are piloting a GPT solution. For use across the organization. This is basically where, employees can type in their own social media post in their own language.

And automatically AI is going to refine that according to the brand guidelines.

[00:13:26] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:13:26] Kieran Thakky: And give the options to them. Now, pre-AI, let's say somebody has a post that goes up, marketing had to find that person, reach out to him and ask him to remove that post.

[00:13:41] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:13:41] Kieran Thakky: To today, wherein we are providing that freedom,

within that brand guidelines.

[00:13:48] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it.

[00:13:48] Kieran Thakky: So I think AI is more of an enabler.

And also for the existing talent, they need to spend some time in understanding the prompts. And when we talk about the future, I think this will be our second

nature. Who knew mobile could be so accessible to everybody and today we are so dependent on that.

[00:14:14] Vamsee Tirukkala: Right.

[00:14:15] Kieran Thakky: So tomorrow AI could be one other technology which will further enable us.

[00:14:22] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay. Another question. If you were to hire for a new person, what is that one skill that you started looking for in the post gen AI world compared to, say, three, four years ago?

[00:14:37] Kieran Thakky: So again, when we talk about skills, I've been having these conversations with my peers and colleagues as well.

It's no longer about you knowing the technicalities.

[00:14:50] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:14:52] Kieran Thakky: Maybe if somebody was there who was working only on email campaign specialist now you have an AI to do that.

[00:15:00] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yep.

[00:15:00] Kieran Thakky: But then I would not say it is being replaced or the talent is being replaced there. But what I would say is, the overall thought process behind it is

how intelligently you are able to scale. Both your team and your work. So really, when you talk about one skill, if I have to pick, that would be more in terms of curiosity.

[00:15:29] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:15:32] Kieran Thakky: Like Walt Disney said, we move forward, we open new doors, that is because we are curious. Every great marketer needs to have that curiosity and that why in him such that they can dig through data, they can dig culture and make more sense of the overall resources that they have, such that they creatively address a problem.

[00:16:16] Vamsee Tirukkala: That's great Kieran, and so one last question. What's the one mistake you will not tolerate a marketer do in this world?

[00:16:27] Kieran Thakky: I think that would be not understanding your customer.

[00:16:32] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay. So basically you're saying that with all the data and insights and intelligence that you have saying that I don't know who they are is unforgivable.

[00:16:43] Kieran Thakky: Absolutely. What's the point? How will you hyper personalize if you don't know who you're targeting it to?

And what is the use of speed when again, you don't have a ideal customer in your mind,

[00:16:58] Vamsee Tirukkala: Right, okay. No that's, I think that wraps up our podcast Kieran. I really appreciate you taking time to walk us through. I think, there are few real unbelievable best practices that you have shared.

And more importantly, the things about, people always get worried about anytime there is a new transformation or a new disruption, people always say, wow, it's changing too fast. But the reality is we have always seen the technology advancements are becoming shorter and shorter period of times.

It's like, it's not going to wait for you to learn about how to use it, how to deploy it. It's going to make it very fast, right? That, and I think some of the things that you talked about right now, with all the data that you have, you need to act very fast. You need to bring the context of what you are trying to do and what your prospect or customer is trying to do.

You need to align with what you can do for them, and more importantly, you need to figure out how best to reach out to them and create that, I think one of the word that you used is education. That I think is the fundamental characteristic of a marketer.

[00:18:11] Kieran Thakky: Yeah.

[00:18:12] Vamsee Tirukkala: To educate your prospect and the customer. So, with that, we'll wrap it up.

Kieran can't thank you enough, for being one of our early customers. Continue to support us, continue to push us to expand the horizons. Thank you very much Kieran.

[00:18:30] Kieran Thakky: Thank you so much Vamsee, for having me and thanks to the Draup team. I'm really excited that I was part of this conversation where most of the sharp minds you bring in together, such that they share their thoughts about sales, marketing and ABM.

And I really can't wait how much of what we discuss today will be put into campaigns.

[00:18:52] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:18:53] Kieran Thakky: And I look forward for those results.

[00:18:54] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wonderful.

[00:18:55] Kieran Thakky: Thank you Vamsee