Strategic Approaches and Innovations in ABM with Rekha Ghosh

[00:00:00] Vamsee Tirukkala: Hey, welcome to Draup Dialogues. This is a podcast where we get, industry leaders and thought leaders to come and share what is happening, in their realm of things, and especially around sales and marketing. And with that, we are very honored to have one of our esteemed guest, Rekha Ghosh, who's the Chief Marketing Officer of Sasken.

Rekha, tell me a little bit more about yourself.

[00:00:24] Rekha Ghosh: Thank you, Vamsee, for having me here and it's a pleasure to be speaking to you on this podcast. Where do I start? Actually, one of the most interesting aspect that I would start with is that having been working in B2B, IT and technology and engineering services marketing, I graduated in zoology by the way.

And from there on, and then I went on to do an MBA and I started my career in, a bit in sales because I enjoyed the thrift of being- talking to people, getting them, convincing them and getting an outcome out of it. But then I realized that, there is more to do it, in the profession.

And I wanted to get that stuff done through someone else. And that was the reason why I decided to move into something which is closest to the sales, which is closest to the market, yet has a different perspective to every initiative, and has a different way of looking at it. It's creative, it's demanding, and at times frustrating.

But yes, that's how I got into marketing. And here I am after two and a half decades of marketing.

[00:01:35] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wow, two and a half decades from studying geology to studying psychology of the people right now. That's amazing, Rekha.

[00:01:42] Rekha Ghosh: Yes, that's right.

[00:01:44] Vamsee Tirukkala: So let's actually, the point of, especially for this particular podcast is to kind of talk about the holy grail that is emerging in the industry today.

That is AI, right? Everybody thinks that AI is a holy grail for marketers because it allows you to scale at a personalized level. Right? So that is, everybody's kind of so excited about it. So can you talk a little bit more about how you are leveraging AI in your day-to-day activities? And can you give us some concrete examples of some of the successes that you have seen,

Rekha.

[00:02:21] Rekha Ghosh: I would say- I mean there's been a lot of pros and cons about this AI being part of marketing and not being part of marketing or influencing people's roles, responsibilities. But I think when we look at AI as a tool, which enables us to be more efficient, effective and targeted. I think this is a tool, because it enables you to be more personalized,

it enables you to optimize and scale. How we are leveraging at Sasken, or in my day-to-day role is I think, there are a couple of areas that we look at it very regularly. One, is the content optimization. It's just not about the website content optimization because it gives us a little bit more personalized way of looking at it, but also on a day-to-day basis when you have to create content for so many channels and at the same time, you have to make sure that each

content is consistent, has a tone, has a output. You want to start somewhere which is good. So I think the AI helps us at least create a consistency in those messaging. We are becoming more efficient by leveraging these AI tools to help us curate content, create personalized messaging. And there's another way to look at where we are finding a little bit more traction within our function considering that we are a lead team.

I think we, we look at some of these web pages on, you know, the microsites every now and then you get to know, make this microsite or make that microsite. I think the AI is definitely helping us replicate some of those and reduce some of those coding time and making sure that the pages are done well, the day pages are done in a way that we want to do it.

So even if I'm able to do 60% with AI and 40% I have to do it, I think I'm there because I am at least not reducing my resources and the difficult time of managing his or her timelines. So I think these two places we are doing it quite, often. Another thing that we are trying out a few times is, looking at how we create- do creatives, designs. Right now we have not yet reached there where we will have our designs designed by AI. However, we definitely do some bits of AB testing, some bits of, trying to see what kind of a concepts that is the AI tool throws out and then probably take a human angle to it and make something. This is where we look at, leveraging AI for us.

[00:04:57] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay. Excellent. I think one of the things that you also talked about, like in the ability to predict certain things using AI, right? Can you just gimme a little bit of an example around how we are able to predict certain things and use that to capture, or use that to kind of micro target certain opportunities.

Are there any examples that you can think of?

[00:05:19] Rekha Ghosh: Yeah, I think see there- as a B2B marketer, I think two, three aspects of marketing is very important. One is the account based marketing where you have to be hyper-focused and ensure that there is a personalization, there's a proper segmentation, and your messaging is very, very customized.

Similarly on webpages. When you have multi-channels of advertisements and you want to make sure that, you know, how do you personalize them? What is their, what is the kind of traffic coming in? What is the kind of, intent they have? What are the things that they're looking at? I think these are the places where high- the AI definitely helps us work better.

Similarly, I'm looking at doing an ABM, you know, if you look at ABM and the most critical thing, which is personalization or- and, emailing. When I'm doing an email campaign within an account, I think it is important for me to do the scoring, which is like a predictive scoring the data, which is the, in the universal data, which are the possible accounts that are going to be, looking at converting

based on the data available. Within the account, which are the possible customers, or sorry, the contacts, I would say the contacts, who would be your most appropriate personas or your most appropriate targets? What kind of messaging would work for them? So I think in these two aspects, I see that, AI definitely has been helping and would be very big help in doing predictive, analysis or predictive insights of- within the account as well as predictive scoring of leads actually.

[00:07:05] Vamsee Tirukkala: That's, that's awesome, I think. Thanks for sharing that Rekha. So just out of curiosity, what kind of tools are helping, what kind of tools are you leveraging today to transform your marketing processes?

[00:07:18] Rekha Ghosh: See, we use a multiple sets of tools. Some are data, some are intelligence and some give us a lot of insights.

So I think I'm very thankful for a tool like Draup, which gives me a lot of intent information. A lot of, you know, the account level information deep down what's happening on a psychographic and demographic level, what is the executive movement? So that kind of gives me a lot of information on that, which helps me plan my ABMs or other initiatives as well.

Similarly for data, when you look at data, which is becoming more and more critical for everyone to have because of the various laws and regulations. As

well as, the way we utilize the data. I think it's also important to have all these compliant databases. So we do leverage a couple of other platforms like ZoomInfo.

We do have some of our sales teams use something on the sales navigator side, but I personally as a marketer feel that, unless there is a combination of these, two, three different tools and the things that they can do. And there is a collaboration between sales and marketing, to be honest, to make it consistent, I think, the efforts would lag behind.

[00:08:34] Vamsee Tirukkala: No, absolutely. I think that is where the world we are seeing is moving, evolving towards is some kind of an orchestration layer that everybody can tap into.

[00:08:43] Rekha Ghosh: Yeah.

[00:08:43] Vamsee Tirukkala: And that orchestration is going to be based on multiple tools are not necessarily just one tool or not just necessarily based on internal or external data,

it's going to be combination of both. So, I think it's phenomenal how much you have matured in such a short period of time, Rekha. Thanks to your leadership. One other thing that comes to my mind is, of course we talked about how AI kind of helps you in personalize and scale and everything.

I think one of the things that we are seeing a tremendous value is around using AI tools for multi-channel outreach. Omni-channel outreach, right?

[00:09:20] Rekha Ghosh: Yeah.

[00:09:21] Vamsee Tirukkala: So what are your experiences there, Rekha?

[00:09:24] Rekha Ghosh: I think, when I think about multichannel, one of the things which always kind of, I have seen and I have experienced amongst groups, when we have a discussion. Everyone feels it is too complex, too many things at the same time, et cetera.

But I would say that multichannel is, more than complexity, it is about the consistency and coherence of their messaging. That is what, and I would say that, here, in multichannel orchestration or I would say multichannel initiatives, AI will pay- play a lot of role in orchestration rather than augmentation. Because the multiple- across the different channels, across different initiatives that you want to maintain a consistency, I think beyond-

instead of thinking what all channels AI will any which way, let you know based on the data that these are the most optimum channels. I think orchestration, personalization and ensuring that the right information goes to the right audience is what AI is gonna help us do this, in multichannel initiatives.

So yes, you said right orchestration is becoming much more important and critical than just augmentation or planning part of it.

[00:10:39] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wonderful, wonderful. Shifting to a slightly different gear, I think, we have lived with the AI tools for a good part of few years, especially in the last, I would say couple of years.

What is your biggest challenge in adopting these tools, Rekha? Is it the technology? Is it the processes? Is it the culture? Is it the people? What's been the biggest challenge for you?

[00:11:06] Rekha Ghosh: I, in my personal experience, I would see, and I would say that it is more about the mindset it is. Or, you know, even though we at the bottom of our heart, we know that these possible usage, is going to enable us to do something more, something different.

But I think mindset is what determines your ability to be open, to take up new things. Or ability to explore, experiment, and the fear factor is always there, right? That what if I figured out these are the possible things that can be done in my role, by AI? What happens to my role there? Do I actually- so I think initially, at- and I was also a junior at some point of time and even today there are so many things which people say that, okay, oh AI can do this, so why do I need you?

[00:12:01] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Rekha Ghosh: I think it's important for all of us to be cognizant to one fact is that by end of the day, we all are human beings and we have a human emotion, which AI don't have. So we need to be prepared for the fact that AI will bring in lots of efficiency, maybe speed, maybe new way of working.

But what humans can do is that, add that into- make it more humanized and make changes as we want to make changes. This is the other person's emotions or the expectations, which will never happen. So I think, at the end of the day, we all have to- see though, as a manager, sometimes I get frustrated that why somebody is so resistant about not accepting this tool.

But yes, at the bottom they are a little scared, they're apprehensive. And their, attitude towards change is a little what needs to be changed I think.

[00:13:06] Vamsee Tirukkala: That's more on the people and change management, which by the way is the most, most important and the most critical aspect and the most difficult aspect in any transformation.

What about technology, Rekha? Do you think that the technology is at this space- at a pace where, it is actually becoming omnipresent in all aspects of marketing? Or do you think that there is more hype than reality at this point of time?

[00:13:32] Rekha Ghosh: No, I think we, all of us, as marketers, I think we all of us are trying to experiment, explore what are the possibilities.

But at the same time, there are a couple of aspects that we all are vulnerable as well as, a little apprehensive about. These all hyper-personalization almost to the extent of being, on the face, being- impacting somebody's private spaces, actually. I think one of the biggest fear is that, what happens to the security?

What happens to the, the personal privacy of the individual. Security from the technology side of it, the system side of it, the data side of it. We are looking at leveraging, so many tools. And that gives more number of people the opportunity to get into your system, look at doing things differently, impact your productivity.

So I think that one of the things that, of course, as a marketer, when we work with databases, when we work with customer databases, and when we try creating content, which is, almost, tracking every individual's movement. These are the fear which kind of gets into the mind and you know, the technology as it advances, the

security issues also advances equally.

[00:15:03] Vamsee Tirukkala: Sure.

[00:15:04] Rekha Ghosh: As a marketer, we just have to be very careful about it, very careful about impersonation, very careful about wrongful information sharing. Very careful about somebody misinterpreting the information and mis-spreading the information.

[00:15:18] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it.

[00:15:18] Rekha Ghosh: I think we all are- while we want to adapt, while we want to adopt but these are the fears, the technical fears that keeps coming into the system.

[00:15:29] Vamsee Tirukkala: And, believe it or not, I think we are also leveraging AI to solve those problems as well.

[00:15:34] Rekha Ghosh: Yes, yes.

[00:15:35] Vamsee Tirukkala: It's AI creating the problems and also trying to solve the same problems at some level.

[00:15:41] Rekha Ghosh: It's really very funny that, you know, the problem is created by a technology, and another technology is trying to solve that problem.

[00:15:48] Vamsee Tirukkala: Exactly.

[00:15:49] Rekha Ghosh: Or any they're creating another technology to solve that problem.

[00:15:52] Vamsee Tirukkala: Absolutely. One of the things that, of course we have seen this with advent of Chat GPT and other AI tools. Suddenly with this technology, the level playing field is more or less become even for everyone.

[00:16:07] Rekha Ghosh: Yeah.

[00:16:08] Vamsee Tirukkala: It is the same thought leadership anybody can access. It is the same data that any of our clients- customers can access from Draup. So that level playing field is becoming, even regardless of who you are, where in the world you are. In that scenario, how are you trying to differentiate, Rekha?

[00:16:28] Rekha Ghosh: In fact, one of the things which is becoming more and more difficult for marketers is, what just you described, that everyone seems to be having access to being the thought leadership.

Everyone seems to have all the relevant information that is required to run a campaign, personalize a campaign, or set up a brand campaign also for that matter. I think the differentiation that we are trying to- and I would say that we are trying to be as successful as possible, in this scenario, is even though we leverage AI- let's take an example for a, for a content creation, okay?

What we want to ensure is that we use AI to curate or, you know, create the base level, research level or do the work, which is going to help me put all the information at one place. But as a company, we want to make sure that, you know, we differentiate ourselves in terms of totalities of our content, and yet we wanna make sure that, when we outreach to a, to a prospective customers, prospective employees, or the market, we have our essence of brand, essence of our ethos of a culture that also is baked into the whole content.

So we do not put into the AI, or leverage an AI and churn it out. We definitely consume it, assimilate it, and then make it as I would say closest to Sasken that, you know, when you interact with Sasken as a brand, when you, what you think of Sasken as a brand or what Sasken brand stands for it.

[00:18:15] Vamsee Tirukkala: Sure.

[00:18:15] Rekha Ghosh: I think we make sure that, we look at customizing all of it or enabling all of it in the same form.

[00:18:23] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wonderful. So I think, I know we have limited time, unfortunately, Rekha, I could actually talk for days and days with you on these topics because you have so much experience and expertise in this topic. But let's do something interesting. Very rapid fire questions, okay?

[00:18:38] Rekha Ghosh: Okay.

[00:18:39] Vamsee Tirukkala: What are the most valuable resource for learning advanced marketing strategies today,

Rekha?

[00:18:45] Rekha Ghosh: I think it's peer to peer network groups because theories don't hold any good anymore.

[00:18:51] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:18:51] Rekha Ghosh: It's more about the implementing experiences that can help you learn that.

[00:18:57] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wonderful peer to peer networks. Never let go of that personal angle.

[00:19:02] Rekha Ghosh: Yes.

[00:19:02] Vamsee Tirukkala: No matter what tools are available,

wonderful. So the second question, what is the biggest misconception about multi-channel marketing that leaders seems to have?

[00:19:14] Rekha Ghosh: I think, I just said earlier it's not about multi-channel is too complex because there are so many channels.

[00:19:22] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:19:22] Rekha Ghosh: But it's all about orchestration.

[00:19:24] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:19:24] Rekha Ghosh: So they don't seem to get that.

[00:19:27] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it. What are you doing about it, Rekha? How are you educating your leaders?

[00:19:32] Rekha Ghosh: I think we continuously work with them and probably some of them have, we have walked them through, when we build those campaigns and when we say that- when we try the orchestration plan, we share it.

[00:19:42] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah, awesome. So, tell me a key industry trend that marketers must watch out for in the next few quarters or years.

[00:19:54] Rekha Ghosh: I think the most likely one would be, right now the AI is getting embedded into some of these marketing tools. Maybe, very soon we'll start having AI native tools, which is, which is gonna be a marketing stack.

AI native marketing stack. So we don't necessarily need to have multiple systems where we need to implement or other APIs and embed them and et cetera.

[00:20:21] Vamsee Tirukkala: So you're saying that the integration between the tools is going to be seamless, that you don't have to worry too much?

[00:20:25] Rekha Ghosh: Yes, you don't worry about it.

[00:20:27] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay, wonderful. So what is one best advice you have received, for managing high performance marketing teams, Rekha?

[00:20:37] Rekha Ghosh: Set clear outcomes and goals.

[00:20:40] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay, are you using tools to kind of create those goals and also measure and monitor those goals?

[00:20:48] Rekha Ghosh: For each of the functions within marketing?

Yes.

[00:20:53] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:20:54] Rekha Ghosh: We ensure that there is a goals. If it's a website, of course there are tools to measure the performance of the website, the traffic, et cetera. Similarly, my campaigns have KPIs and measures for their performance. We leverage various tools, to ensure that, our social performance or website performance or individual performance because I think the key is to set clear goals and expectations with anyone.

[00:21:21] Vamsee Tirukkala: Got it, got it, got it. so Rekha, just shifting the gears a little bit here. When you are thinking about the next marketing leader, should you look at someone who's a visionary or someone who has like creative juice flowing all the time? Or would you look for someone who has a data science, data analytics background?

[00:21:51] Rekha Ghosh: I think it's a combination. If one or other, it'll not work that way because, you need to understand the data to be able to interpret.

[00:22:00] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:22:01] Rekha Ghosh: And if you are not able to interpret the information the right way and not go to utilize the data in a creative way, then you will be one another.

You'll be one among the rest of the people. And you have to keep thinking, you have to keep thinking in future what is happening and what is going to happen with the way you are working.

[00:22:21] Vamsee Tirukkala: Yeah.

[00:22:21] Rekha Ghosh: Otherwise we are probably stagnant. So I think it's important for us- for any marketer to have these three elements in some form or other. Degrees can be variant, but in some form

[00:22:34] Vamsee Tirukkala: Wonderful. I was talking to one other marketing officer and they said that, they feel that it is easier to take a creative person and execute them with the the technology, the data skills, then the other way around. What's your thoughts on that, Rekha?

[00:22:50] Rekha Ghosh: I would probably agree with them.

[00:22:54] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:22:55] Rekha Ghosh: Because I think data people are very, black and white, zero and one very fact based.

[00:23:01] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay.

[00:23:01] Rekha Ghosh: And sometimes they don't, look at the subjectivity of creativity.

[00:23:06] Vamsee Tirukkala: Okay. Wonderful. I think, maybe in the near future we will have a digital marketing assistant or a co-pilot that is going to enable, all these skills for the creative, analysts or the marketing, high performance marketing teams to be lot more acute and documented.

One last question, Rekha. On a lighter note, what is that one marketing task that really frustrates you? You wish AI takes it away, but it has not taken it away yet.

[00:23:46] Rekha Ghosh: Everchanging demand from the boss.

[00:23:50] Vamsee Tirukkala: We all wish that happens, Rekha. So on that note, I think it's a wonderful conversation, Rekha.

Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and your experiences. I think, learning from you kind of, validated so many things that we ourselves are thinking about where the marketing is going and learned quite, quite a few things, especially around, your thoughts around omnichannel marketing.

How we tend to complicate it rather than trying to look at it as more of an agumantation rather than a complex problem that we need to solve. It's a great, I think your thought about, how to think about data security, data privacy, these are the things that are going to be the most important topics for the leaders in the coming years.

With all these tools talking to each other, trying to, as you said, trying to impersonate certain things and trying to eliminate that impersonation. All of that is going to happen within the same environment but at the end of the day, it is leaders like you who's going to make it all possible. So with that, thank you so much

for sharing your- first of all, giving us the time and also sharing all these wonderful insights with us. Thank you, Rekha.

[00:25:01] Rekha Ghosh: Thank you, Vamsee. Thank you for having me on the podcast. It's a pleasure speaking with you.

‍