Dynamic Fusion of AI and ABM with Recotap

Join us for an insightful discussion on the dynamic fusion of AI and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) with industry leaders Shubhra Sinha, VP of Marketing at Denave, and Arun Gopalaswami, CEO & Co-Founder of Recotap ABM Platform. In this video, we explore how AI is revolutionizing ABM strategies, driving personalized marketing campaigns, and delivering unprecedented results. Gain valuable insights from Shubhra and Arun on leveraging AI to optimize your ABM efforts and stay ahead in the competitive market.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from the experts and enhance your marketing strategies!

Topics Covered:

• The integration of AI in ABM
• Benefits of AI-driven ABM strategies
• Real-world examples and case studies
• Future trends in AI and ABM

Speakers:

• Shubhra Sinha, VP of Marketing at Denave
• Arun Gopalaswami, CEO & Co-Founder of Recotap ABM Platform

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#AI #ABM #DigitalMarketing #MarketingStrategies #Denave #Recotap 

Transcript

Welcome everyone to another episode of Denpulse Season 2 Signal to Sales. I'm Shubhra Sinha, VP Marketing at Denave. Denave is an AI-powered revenue acceleration company and Denpulse is a podcast series by Denave where in Season 2 Signal to Sales, we are dissecting the ever-evolving world of B2B marketing, especially now with this whole AI automation wave. Today we have another industry leader with us, Arun Gopalaswamy, co-founder and CEO of Recotap, a personalization-focused account-based marketing platform. Arun, welcome to the show. Thanks, Shubhra. Thanks for having me. 

Before we obviously get into this discussion and we kind of deep dive into all the aspects of ABM, let's get our audiences to know us a little better. So, Arun, tell us a little bit about your journey before Recotap, building Recotap app and what problem does record app solve sure right so i've been in the industry, specifically i.t industry for about 25 years now. About 15 to 16 years I've spent with companies like Hewlett Packard and poses building CRM and marketing automation platforms for fortune 100 companies. And I've turned to be an entrepreneur about 10 years ago. And so this is my second venture. So what I'm really doing with Recotap is trying to sort of use some of the learnings that I've had in terms of building market tech platforms and also understand what the requirements are. So digital marketing, ABM, B2B marketing has evolved. So what we're trying to do is to bring in the current dynamics, marry the technology understanding we have, and provide a platform for marketers and marketing teams to solve marketing problems effectively and bring in more effectiveness. Wonderful. Right. So in terms of what specifically we do through Recotap is provide automation capabilities to execute marketing teams ABM process. So we have a platform through which they can identify by the right accounts, they can engage with the target accounts, understand how the engagements are going, where are these accounts progressing, and we also provide a lot of insights and analytics in terms of engaging with those accounts. So it's a complete end-to-end platform to automate the account-based marketing workflows. Great. So if you have to just pinpoint one problem that Recotap solves for marketers or for businesses, what does it do? Right. I think we've sort of like right from the beginning and then there is also a history to it. 

The previous version of the product we had was built for content personalization and content recommendation. And from there we evolved to a full-fledged ABM platform. We continue to sort of dip into that and then we over index on personalization. So whether it's to do with engagements, through ad experiences, a personalized landing page experiences and so on, uh so many things, right? So where we try and then provide the personalization and personalized outreach capabilities, which is one of the key tenants of the Account-Based Marketing (ABM) program and the way how you execute ABM, right? And I think that's how we try and differentiate and then we are constantly evolving. We're bringing in a lot of ai capabilities into the platform to even do better things than what they are doing. 

Awesome. Awesome, Arun. I think it's amazing when people follow their passion. And of course, Record App, as you said, the platform aims to solve the most pertinent need for marketers to be able to reach out to their target customers. So for me, just a quick introduction. I've been with Denave for about 10 years now. Before that, I was largely a communications person. I ventured into the world of marketing with Denave. And I've had the wonderful opportunity to work on varied demand generation programs for our clients as well as for Brand Denave as well across various geographies. So, of course, I think I'm sure we'll have a lot of insightful discussion today because we'll have various scenarios to consider when we talk about especially account-based marketing, account-based experience. 

I would say this is account-based everything that we have to now talk about. Okay, we all know that B2B marketing landscape, it's kind of right now, it's at a fifth gear. A lot of things are happening. Last few months, in fact, almost close to a year now, the AI and automation story in B2B marketing, that has become really strong. And AI is giving us the headlights to see the road ahead. It is helping us analyze vast amounts of customer data to identify patterns, predict behavior. growing access in terms of functionality, price, use cases. It's becoming very, very relevant. What else, Arun? What are the emerging trends that you're noticing in the realm of B2B marketing? I think largely, so there is a technology play, right? 

So where these tools, specifically, so we've been using AI in our product right from the start, right? And I think what GenAI has done is like sort of look at a different level, right? And I think that's where we are trying to figure out I think every industry, every professional is sort of trying to identify what are the use cases, what are the different ways how we can solve the problems that we may have not been able to solve previously. So that's on the technology side. But in terms of the overall approach, the B2B marketing experience itself, I think that has been changing. So I think ever since COVID, Right. So where we all became like very digital first kind of uh marketing process that we were building. 

Right. So I think from there, um, it is all about, um, quality over quantity. Right. I think there was a time and that worked a lot of playbooks on the kind of like the scale and the volume based marketing process, especially in B2B market. But sort of mimic the B2C process. Right. So where you take. Uh, try and then go after hundreds, if not thousands of leads. And then even if you're able to get a percentage sub percentage conversion so that was like meeting people's uh needs and that playbook, I think became commoditized, right? So if you had resources, uh, if you had money specifically, right, I think it was, it was basically everybody, uh, was able to do it. There was some sort of level playing field. 

So I think the companies that were uh having advantages in terms of setting up their customer acquisition process through very lead focused kind of a marketing, suddenly realized that it's not going to sustain right and i think uh it is also around the time where uh things like account-based marketing became more prominent as well it's not a new concept I think it started to get its fair share in B2B marketing, right? So, I think the evolution currently is, so how do you not go broader but narrower and then still achieve what you are achieving, maybe even do better, right? So, I think to a large extent, these frameworks are around putting the customers and their needs and their challenges in the front and then trying to solve for those specific problems. 

And I think that's where things like personalization, right? It's not about calling somebody by name It's just not filling up those variables anymore. Exactly. It's not a variable. It's more around what are their needs? What are the pain points? What are they saying? And what are they not saying? And how do you make them realize that there are better ways to do things, right? And I think that is the essence of account-based marketing. And I think that's where the trend is. If you are in B2B, you can't miss the buzz of AB. Right? Every company, whether small, big obviously uh some of the large enterprises have been doing this for uh maybe even a decade, right? So, where they have mature programs. But right now, I think uh there's a little bit of buzz, right? 

Where there is also misconception that this is something that can be used for all kinds of businesses. I'm sure we'll talk about some of those aspects, but i think largely, how do you go focused? How do you go, very contextual to the either the customer or the accounts is made. And I think that's the evolution that I'm sort of witnessing in doing what I do for the last five and a half years now. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Like even for us, I think the pandemic was something which was more of a catalyst to, like you said, ABM is not a new concept. Neither is omni-channel engagement nor is intent data. None of them are really new concepts. But I think they got their due, they got their fair share once. 

I think even the marketing budgets were kind of slashed and then you were made to look into your targets and look at ROI much more closely. And then be very, very focused in your efforts because there was this team trying to do this much and get a certain share from a certain set of customers. So you have to go really focused and I think that's when the trend started catching up and it's happened across businesses across the globe where especially in B2B where ABM of course is now bigger than ever I feel and the whole intent data integration into your ABM strategy of course being a game changer because you're just not going after your target accounts you're going after the set of accounts in your target list who are looking for services like yours. 

So the chances of contributions therefore being higher. But I think the most interesting part in all of this right now is that the human touch continues to remain essential and that's encouraging. So while AI and automation are powerful tools, I think the whole human touch being crucial in driving effective B2B outreach strategies, the value of personalized calls and even handwritten notes. I think it's continuing to stay and also to offset the digital overload. I feel that's happening. So, I don't know, of course, you know, ABM is every marketer's dream as well as nightmare because there's just many things going around and Let's just, you know, when I was reading up, I saw some data points that I've collected from different sources. I'll just quickly rattle them out. 

So, you know, it says that organizations with ABM strategies generate 200% more revenue from their marketing efforts. B2B marketers saw an increase in average annual contract value of some 171% after implementing an ABM strategy. And then 82% B2B marketers feel ABM greatly improves sales and marketing alignment within the company, which is a huge, huge problem that businesses face. Those are some large numbers and they look extremely promising. But with the B2B landscape becoming more and more complex, how can companies determine if ABM is the right strategy for them? Is it right for everyone, would you say? Or is there a way to figure out that it's the right strategy for you or not? No, absolutely not. And I think the stats that you read, right, I guess is what is creating that buzz, right? 

And everybody thinks that's their, ABM is their magic wand. And then any marketing, customer acquisition, GDM problem can be solved by ABM. And there's also misconception that ABM being advertising, ABM being a tech play, right? It's actually not. It's all coming together of multiple things. I think there are some high genes in terms of who should actually look and try and implement something like an ABM. If you're trying to go after transaction kind of a sale, and if your deal values are, let's say, two-digit, three-digit, maybe this is not something you should invest. If it is a PLG kind of a motion where customers are able to discover and then self-service themselves. This is not a framework that you should invest on. It is a framework where a group of people who are making decisions on their organization's behalf and the moment that comes into play, we are also talking about the deal sizes being in 25, 30, 40, above. 

And it also means that each of these buyers or buyer committee members have different needs on which they are looking for solutions or trying to address their challenges. So I think the more complex the buying process is, the longer it takes to close deals is exactly where something like an ABM can fit in. And it's not necessarily for transactional kind of customer acquisition or deal closure. Right. So you can be a smaller company. You can be a smaller company. You can be a large enterprise, but as long as your deal values and the kind of interaction that you have with the prospects, uh, to meet some of these guidelines. So there is nothing cast in the stone. It can be, but, uh, it's only common sense, right? 

So if you're trying to invest on specific set of accounts, and if you're able to successfully convert them, so they might, they should, they should bring in the value that you're hoping to sort of uncover, being focused, being personalized, being contextual as well. Right. And if you have to really, you know, companies that are considering ABM as the core marketing strategy, if you have to really break it down for the GTM teams, how can they leverage this to tap into high value accounts? Yeah, so I think so internally. So what I talked about was the external factors that are also internal factors. So Traditionally, if you're a company that's been 20 years into the market, you are typically a sales-led organization. Marketing presence is very limited. 

And even if it is there, they are doing some brand activities or maybe doing some field marketing and things like that. So for you to get into something like an ABM, which is going to be a very, very involved kind of a process, because it's something that you're going to roll out fresh, And then, like you mentioned, there are a lot of dynamics that needs to be sort of controlled and orchestrated. So which means that we need to have that necessary know-how in terms of how do you activate. So there are, like we've been speaking, there is enough buzz everybody wants to do, but there is a lot of cold start problem. So in theory, these statistics, these blogs that we write, the podcasts that we do has created enough interest. 

And then people sort of get excited, they want to get started, but they don't know really where to start and which strings to pull. And the other misconception around that they necessarily need a tool to do it, you need very high budgets to do it, are all some of the things that sort of adds to the nightmare. But yeah, so the internal requirement is that can you allocate can you find resources that could be within the company or if you're traditionally working with agencies like yours, right? So can they provide the educated dedicated set of resources? It doesn't have to be a very large team, somebody who can understand the business, who can understand the business dynamics, the customers needs, wants, challenges, opportunities, and that gets translated into a sort of a program where you should be sustained right so 

the very nature that the complex deals takes a long time is also means that you need to be in front of these accounts periodically. So even if you're a very sales led organization, a sales person can only do that outreach maybe once in a week, do that phone call maybe twice a week. But what about the rest of the period? So they may create the top of mind, but if you're not sustaining it, you're going to drop their mind share. So which is where digital sort of an experience play comes in, right? And for you to do that, I think it is the people. So always I talk about these three things, which is the people and the associated process to drive these people and then the technology. 

So if you have this in order and anybody who can sort of do this should be able to sort of get started, right? So others who are maybe maturing from a traditional demand gen kind of a program or it is like maybe sort of outsourced. Yeah, outsourced kind of a model, right, that they have to do in-house. So they have to build that capability, know-how, right, either within the organization or with some external support, right, and have the readiness before they should embark on. Right. So, you know, the most common challenge with ABM is delivering a personalized experience and suddenly have Gen AI or AI entering and making it all. a little more possible now without basically spending a fortune and also getting in a lot of accuracy now because something which was very, very manual and research driven till few months back suddenly seems like a reality that you can possibly execute with the current set of theme itself and, you know, much more doable. 

So it's helping us achieve hyper personalization it is dynamically adjusting content and outreach based on individual buyer needs, behaviors. Even at Denave, we are leveraging a lot of these methods to drive our demand generation strategies. Like you mentioned that there is a misconception that you need a large team, you need complex technologies to run your ABM strategies. But is there a minimum ABM stack of technologies or tactics that you must have in place when you get started? Sure, I think so. The most basic requirement would be if you're activating ABM, you're relying on an ABM channel or an email channel as one of your core channels. So you need, let's say, a marketing automation system or an email marketing stack. So that's as basic as it gets. 

Then if you want to align with your sales teams, you want to reuse some of the existing data sets that you have, uh possibly you already have some sort of these data in your CRM, right? So between CRM and any kind of an email marketing or a marketing system, marketing automation system, you should be able to get started, right? So the more uh personalized you wanted to go, the more scaling that you wanted to do, right? More data that you require, then you start getting into the pure play, ABM marketing platforms uh things like what we offer right so that may not be the day one requirement, but at some stage when you're able to figure out your audience and how to engage them and then activate them and then sort of close that loop, then you start like adding multiple channels. 

When you start adding multiple channels, you need some sort of an attribution system to make sure the channels that you've identified are the ones that are working for you, right? So I think it needs to be stacked uh right it doesn't mean that you need to have all of this on day one and then try to figure out how to make use of the system. So I think a lot of uh marketers right are tempted to do something like this, right? Especially when they come from a technology background, right? So they all think that it's a technology play. But like you said, I think it's still a human play, right? So it's human power with the support of ai today, right? Maybe that will change at some point of time, but not 

immediate future ideas, right? So the more the human touch that you're able to provide, right? So whether it's through that call that you talked about, whether it's that written script that you deliver, right? So any personalized, any in on field activities and things like that, right? And I think that's where the human touch can still be relevant and it should be activated, right? So I think those are the basic things that you need to have. And like I said, as you start expanding, so there would be requirements, right? So maybe you need solutions to manage your social media, right? Get that data into your own full ABM outreach program to understand what's happening and things like that, right? So it's sort of endless, but I think you don't need to have that endless amount of technology to start with. 

Right. I think two things that I would add on top of that, based on, you know, our own journey is one is the whole buyer intelligence, which again, like I said, it's now far more fueled because of Gen EI and you can do that much faster now. So I think once you have that, your whole APM strategy becomes a little more effective than ever. I mean, I think traditionally, we kind of stopped at account level intelligence because that's as far as you could go. people to activate certain things. Now you can go up to the persona or to each person in the buying committee and understand their respective pain points and talk to them in that language. I think the second part, uh, which is more internal again is the sales and marketing alignment. 

So ABM thrives on collaboration and marketing team needs to understand the sales side of things and sales need to understand the marketing side of things very, very effectively for abm to really, uh, show any kind of returns. It cannot be MQL given and then SQL and then deals coming out of it. It does not work like that in this approach. Now, of course, we spoke about ABM. We are also hearing terms like ABX, Round Based Experience now doing the rounds. Is that a made up term or is there a difference between ABM and ABX? What is it as for you? I think when ABM was coined, I think it was enough to do all what ABX is trying to say what it does. 

And I think it's a stretch, but there is no harm. I think for some time we called ABX and there was ABE. I don't know what else will come. So we have ABA account based advertising, but it all means the same. Right. So how can you pick up the right accounts? Right. So understand what their needs are. Trying to try to message to them as personalized as as possible right trying to uh to be contextual to their requirements and needs. Right. Or even create that demand. Right. So you could either go and capture an existing demand. And I think that's where things like intent could be one of the levers that could be used. Or you go and then create that demand right when you're doing this, 

really providing that experience, right? And when you stretch it, right? When you bring in uh something like the inputs from sales, from customer success, customer support, then i think it becomes a much more broader, right? I think it's all, you could refer to whatever you like to refer to yeah i think so, I think to me, ABM had enough uh sort of coverage in terms of what you're supposed to do to accelerate your, customer acquisition process. But let's say if there is an organization who was doing converse sales and then there is a marketing, then I think if ABX can just be another term to say that this is a unified approach, I think there's no harm. Yeah, I think it's basically saying that whichever touch point you have with the company, you have a unified experience, whether it is customer support, your marketing, your sales, or even your HR. 

Uh, the whole experience becoming unified and that's why i think they've upgraded this terminology to basically encompass the whole thing and not make it, make it very marketing focused, but make it more like an organizational strategy organization focus yeah exactly yeah yeah i think it was so while avm was not around marketing, but there was a misunderstanding right so yeah a lot of people find that it was marketing, so maybe it helps to sort of break that understanding and then say this is an organization-wide strategy and not specific to a particular function. Yeah. Now, you know, we've been talking about the whole impact of AI on B2B and ABM. And if we, I mean, generative AI, which of course is the new wave that has come in and changed a lot of things for us. 

This has significant implications on account-based strategies. It allows new level of personalization and automation in B2B marketing strategies. So are there any Gen AI use cases, especially that you're seeing, you know, real life use cases or some use cases that you're building up when we specifically talk about, you know, the whole ABM landscape? Right. I think I see this in two ways, right? So one is like technologies that gets baked into products, like what we offer, right? The other is the as individuals. I think people are coining this term called digital twin. And each of us at some point of time is going to have this digital twin, right? That is going to sort of do a lot of thinking that we may have not done effectively or we did not have time to do it, right? 

So I think you touched upon some of these aspects initially around, let's say, how to create a document, right? So I think as an individual, right? Today, if I'm creating something, which is either it could be a document, it could be any such thing, right? You're producing something, so I'm not doing it as a first approach to go to Google and search it, but I'm relying on open AI, right? So I think that infusion, I don't think it's mainstream yet, but eventually, I think the next couple of years, that'll get infused, right? So whether you're writing... a copy, you're trying to design something, right? And all of this, I think people would start to rely on their digital twins in whatever form and fashion it's going to be delivered to us, right? 

And it's going to be very pervasive, right? So that's one. The second is around the core product that you offer, where a lot of these things would be natively infused, right? So I think a lot of these technology companies, especially in the sales, marketing, Right. So started to offer, uh, those aspects, right? So let's say you're, you wanted to craft an email, right? Uh, there are uh so based on maybe the, the accounts intent, their, uh, formographic. So you have that template, right? So obviously you can't today, just like go and then make use of it as it is. You still have to go, but you have that 60, 70, 80 finished product on which you you can uh you can start using, right. 

So probably when it comes to the platform, the inclusion of AI into that, so at least within the marketing or the ABM domain, which is what I spend a lot of time thinking, is into three parts. So one is around the account selection identification part. So we were using traditional formographic kind of signals and filters and then identifying. So then we add something like an intent to qualify and then maybe prioritize. So even in those set of areas or that particular process, there's a lot of possibilities to infuse AI and more specifically, chain AI to identify the right accounts. So the more signals you have, more data that you have, it becomes very, very difficult to process and then see what is that that you can filter out and take it. 

So I think that is a use case where we're also actively thinking around building a lot of signals, social signals, third party intent, first party intent, bringing it all up together and helping the marketers and make their life easier by identifying the accounts that has potential immediate need for example. And the second part is around content. So when the accounts are identified and you want to go reach out, whole creative building process, right? So your engagement activation and that those are the areas where you can basically, for an example, could be that, okay, these are the accounts and i have some look-alike accounts in the past. Maybe they are customers, right? So you could learn a lot of things around how you've approached and how you've converted, right? 

Those accounts, right? So what are the conversations? So there is the unlimited data that that's getting produced right now uh so far, we've not had the capability to mix all of this and then try and then get the right messaging, right? In terms of the content production, I think we're going to have like have like very very sophisticated systems where we are going to have that very hyper personalized specific person based persona based messaging right so whether it does uh the copies or creatives, any of those right so this the scripts that might be given to SDRs, everything is going to be super personalized and it helps us to to to sort of scale and then have some sort of a uniformity in terms of how we approach uh the engagement itself so so i think that's one use case. 

The second is when you are uh let's say the activation itself, the engagement activation so so the kind of channels that you want to leverage, right? So when do you start? When do you stop, right? So today it's all rules driven and and sometimes there is like human in the loop who's going to go on and operate, right? So those things, right? So this action should trigger this particular channel activation, right? Today it is very rule-based, right? So it's all marketing automation used to do and it has worked. But I think that again can go to a couple of notches above when we are able to infuse GNI into those areas. So the other risk, I think you also touched upon, is the end-poll analytics. 

So it doesn't have to be standard reports that you produce, what platforms or the solutions offer, but it can go way beyond. So the whole predictive analytics and trying to infer intent or insights from this data that these things are producing, there is an unlimited possibility. And I think these are the areas where I think the infusion of AI is going to be even more. and will be a lot more accelerated in the coming months and years. Right. I think you've made some very, very valid points. And in fact, we've been also implementing Gen AI leverages, especially when it comes to deep buyer intelligence or even competition mapping, hyper-personalizing the content, creating design at scale and a lot more. So the clear initial impacts are definitely linked to 

uh like you said, you know, scalability of the programs uh faster go-live, better productivity uh even quicker change, of course, if your strategy a is not working, so the shift to strategy b uh is much faster now uh which is also linked to overall program efficacy at the end of the day so um i think and then all of this linked to cost optimization uh everything is not overloading the program cost to be able to try certain new things, but you're able to do that faster, better. So I think early results for us, we've witnessed about in our POCs, we've looked at about 15% growth in sales pipeline with 3x faster deal cycles, some 5x increase in win rates. We're very, very encouraged looking at these early results. 

And while those are early signs and we are working on finishing touches plus, I think there is a new development happening um if not daily, weekly, you know, something new or something, something more evolved is coming our way, uh, to be able to fine-tune our strategies better and to harness the power of ai and automation to the facts Yeah. So on that point, I just want to add something, right? So we are exploring a solution where the entire strategy planning itself, right? This is, uh, we've done some POC, very encouraging results, right? So, uh, all we did was use charge apd with like, about 50-60 prompts to figure out a very custom sort of strategy document, an AVM focused strategy document for about 50 accounts. 

And that would not have been possible if somebody like a human was sitting and writing. So all we have to do is to forward this prompt to the right location and it was able to gather to figure out a lot of information that typically we would end up losing. And that created about a 50-60 page document. And each of that, obviously, you can't just go and then execute. But it gave a 70-80% completed document in terms of structure, in terms of the different steps, in terms of the activation channels, a lot of things. So what it essentially means is that you have something to work with. You're not the cold start problem that I talked about initially. is not going to be necessarily cold start, right? 

You have some base on which you can now start building, right? So that can be further expanded, could be broken down into checklist, right? It could have like project plans, right? So the entire execution becomes like a lot more easier, right? But again, you can't just live shift and then try and do it. There is a lot of intervention from the humans, today at least, right, to go and then make it even more contextual and relevant. But I think we are at the stage where we are now sort of competing with AI and then try to work together. Yes, I think that's the next level of how we work with machines is going to be evolving. So I think AI basically now is essentially putting the power of ABM into the hands of more businesses also, regardless of the size. 

So we're seeing a lot of democratization also happening when it comes to ABM, something which was very specific to large enterprises because of why they could afford ABM. Now it's something which is more accessible as a strategy. to all sizes of enterprises. You yourself mentioned how you were able to create a very focused ABM strategy for a certain number of companies. We ourselves have deployed ABM strategies, not just for ourselves, but different sizes of customers that we work with. So, all of this affordability and accessibility that's coming around it, One, of course, I want to know your thoughts on, you know, this change of this democratization of expertise that's coming in. And second, all this digital overload that it's going to cause, where are we headed with that, if you have a view there? 

Sure. Yeah, just because it's affordable, democratized, right? So you shouldn't like sort of adopt a strategy that does not maybe fit into like your processes, right? So your GTM as a whole. So we earlier talked about what kind of companies, what kind of organizations should adopt, right? If there is a fitment, by all means, yes, right? So if it is not, there's no point for spitting. But there could be aspects of what these technologies are offering could be used to be used, right? So whether it's small, big, whether selling to a large organization, small organization, But at the end of the day, it's not technology play. It's based on how you're able to reach the right accounts with the right message at the right time, right? 

And then trying to respond to what their requirements are. And I think there ends the decision, right? So otherwise, it's going to be a force of it, which may or may not result into the outcome that you're looking for. So what was the second question? No, I'm saying that now that it's become more accessible and affordable, there's also a digital overload that's going to come in for the buyer community. And hyper personalization sounds great, but if overused can also mess things up. So, you know, and then link it to omni-channel engagement also, where you're trying to say different things from different channels and everyone's trying to talk to you in the language you want to be, in the language you understand. You know, do you think it's going to create a clutter out there also? 

Not immediately at least, right? And I think we keep talking about omnichannel and we talk about hyperpersonization and things like that. And I think we've just taken a baby step, right? I think it's going to be a few years at least before we get into the minority report kind of experience, right? So I think for now, we don't have to worry about the digital overload or hyper-personalization, hyper-targeting, and things like that. I think it might be happening in specific areas, but as a whole, I think we are far from doing that. I think that's how it has to be. As a brand or a business, when you're trying to engage, you want a consistent experience with some balance. It's marketing saying something, sales saying something, go to customer success or customer support. 

are saying something, right? But if you're able to unify and give that consistent consistent experience nobody's gonna complain right and i think that's what we want uh but obviously at some stage, it could become an overload, but it's all based on how, what kind of uh guardrails that you have and how you can strike a balance. Right. No, absolutely. I think it is definitely a real game changer for, um SMEs with size organizations and just allowing us to focus on select group of high value accounts, personalizing the experience and hopefully, you know, improving the overall results and competing more effectively and head on with the larger players because you have a better grip over your or rather better inroads into kind of delivering similar level of marketing strategies now. 

uh but are there any cautionary tales or potential pitfalls to avoid when implementing ABM, especially with the, especially interspersing gen ai uh led uh leverages yeah i think do not think this is a tech player do not think as a single channel player and obviously you want some four channels, then identify what has worked or what would work, where are your customers, right? That can be found and then use the other channel, the omni channel Uh, activation is going to be something like that, like a hub on spokes. You need some core channel on which you're delivering that could be sales. If it's a salesperson where a lot of conversation and even the conversion is going to happen, right? So, what you do is with the other channel is to surround, right? 

So that core channel with different mediums different channels different places based on the strength of each of those channels. Right. But, uh So I think as long as you're able to decide something like that and not see this as a specific channel player or a specific technology player, it all boils down to the ABX. So, provide the right experience to the customer and share and then transfer value through these exchanges in terms of what they're looking for and what you have to offer. It comes to that. I think that's how I process that. Right. I think also the fact that one cautionary thing that I mean, because again, once when we have applied these strategies, we felt that wherever we underestimate the human play in, you know, executing these strategies, we are definitely headed for a fall. 

The whole point is it's a leverage. So, it's garbage in, garbage out. So, you know, if you're not asking the right questions, there's no way you will get the right answers. And also, once you get the answer to be able to understand if AI is giving you the right answer or is it hallucinating, is something that you should be able to figure out so that human intelligence and that play comes into play also when we are talking about omnichannel engagement and we are talking through different channels, each channel is being consumed differently. I consume a WhatsApp differently versus a LinkedIn versus an email. So what is being served to me on those platforms. If it's a me too, it's going to be like a spam for me. 

But what gets served and how does that become relevant to me on those platforms that I think is what really turns things around. I mean, lately, I'm obviously all of us keep getting a lot of these LinkedIn in mails and demo requests and all of that. And I think if I get say about 10 to 20 in a week, but there have been those that have accepted in like 10 minutes and they have been a conversion. I mean, I've been like a converted lead for them there because what they've told me has been like really, really precise. And they've not beaten around the bush. They've not said that, you know, they want to know me. They are really impressed with whatever I'm doing. 

They just come and spoken to me about the problem that they're solving. And if that problem is absolutely my problem, then I have, I will respond. Yes. I think that's what is. that's what is personalization and for some reason it's very difficult to understand it so beating around push and then trying to connect and then try and then sell the the next minute the moment you accept it right so there's the whole uh idea or notion of trying to build relationship and trying to understand what the other person's requirements and needs are and based on that right so we're all there right if you're into business you're trying to sell something but it does not have to be in the face all the time, right? 

And I think you're right. And I think maybe uh sub 10 percentage of people are doing it. To me, that is personalization, understanding what it is uh right so the timing right so it it also plays a significant right uh sort of impact, right? How you're responding to those uh sales calls or sales uh outreaches right absolutely So we've covered a lot of ground, Arun. Now we're moving towards the end of the podcast. Before we kind of wrap up, let's also share some practical advice for our listeners. So, are there any success stories of companies that are leveraging Let's Break It Up for effective ABM strategies? Do you want to share any of those success stories, any case studies, what they have been able to achieve through focused ABM strategies? 

Yeah, I think to me, the success, it's not a do it once and forget, right? So over the years, more than five years now, we're working with different customers, different enterprises, startups, scalers, right? So a lot of these companies, and I think one of the things that we're really proud of is helping one of our customers, a very early adopter of our platform, three to four years ago, right? they were embarking on their ABM program. So, like many of the companies, they were also doing baby steps. One of the things that they did was to not go all out and then like adopt it. This is a large IT services company, which means that they had different vertical service lines, right? So, they focused on a specific vertical, which for them, BFSI was one of the core sort of the vertical that they were focusing on, right? So, they started and then put together a process. They started to scale and around that time, so they've got an RFP, right? So, which they have to respond like over a period of six to eight weeks or so. So, what we've done is to help them put together a process in terms of how you should, right? So, there's almost like a mini project plan, right? So where through technology as well as the other interventions, we crafted an outreach. And then very periodically, we tried and responded to what those accounts' needs are, what they might have as a challenge, what the questions that they might have. And I think there was also sort of a gag order that you're not supposed to go and then talk to them. 

So which means that the traditional sales lines or channels are cut, so you could only do this through digital channels so which is something that uh we've done over that period of like six to eight weeks. And eventually that program became very successful they ended up like winning the customer, which happened to be a the largest deal they've won for a company that has been in business for about 25 years right so this was almost uh two two and a half years ago so we still cherish the cherish the and our work that we've done and the impact that we were able to create. And also, I think it became one of the programs that was picked for the ITSMA award there. 

In fact, I ended up winning one of the slots there. So it was very, very encouraging. And then since then, I think we've been working with a lot of customers. through our technology platform and we also have a consulting firm through which we try and solve the cold start problem, right? So, right. So in that, I think again, like to me, the success is not just like doing it once and then, and, uh, it's not a once one hit wonder, right? So you need to sustain yeah absolutely yeah and I think that's what we've been able to. Yeah, I think that's a great one. I think it also brings up a few very, very pertinent points that you brought up. One is in the discussion when we said that ABM is not for everyone and mainly it depends on the deal size and the kind of buying committees you're addressing and stuff. 

And especially the whole conversion cycle in these cases is larger. The gestation period of this conversion is larger because the deal size generally is bigger. So, ABM has a role to play in this entire period. And that's where it has the major differentiation from our spray and pray model where you just get a form fill and it becomes a lead, and the sales team starts chasing it. ABM is like a nurture motion, and it takes its own time. It's something where you keep convincing, nudging, convincing the customer and take them to the end of the journey. But when they convert, the whole ROI makes complete sense there. So yeah, I think that that's a very valid case study or a success story of shared where you've spoken about the final impact that's really been brought to the customer in the entire RFP process. 

Yeah, so thank you, Arun. Thanks for sharing your expertise with our listeners today. This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation about account-based marketing and I've just loved every bit of this conversation. The power of AI, GenAI use cases, everything that we touched upon. But before we conclude this discussion, let's have one light-hearted question I want to ask you before I let you go. I'm an engineer by education and that was infused to me when I was like 10 years, 15 years, whatever, right? Maybe earlier, right? So I just wish I chose marketing. So the last five years, six years or so is when I got into marketing and the more you got in, right? So this is where I think I have a lot of passion, right? 

And it's also where I got to meet and speak like what we are doing here to hundreds and maybe even thousands of people, right? So one of the things that I do is is like have customer conversations on a daily basis to understand these problems and then trying to think for them, trying to sort of like bring out the value, right? Which is a very, very, very different sort of an experience than sitting in front of the computer and coding. And in fact, I've done that for the first 10 years of my career. So a lot of things after that, but the stage that I am and the kind of work that I do, right, so marketing is - Is this sort of the marketing and sales? 

Is this the focus? And it's something that I really, really enjoy doing it currently. Though I think that if you had taken up marketing, probably the course would have changed. It may or may not have landed up to Recotap because I think the engineering background is what got you the product bent. And you basically landed up in marketing, but with your product knowledge. So I guess it worked out. Yeah. Yeah, there's no complaint. Of course, you can't go back and change, but yeah, it's a good time. Awesome. Shubhra, this is good. I didn't realize it's been an hour since we started talking. So thanks for all the great questions. Hopefully some of this, what I've shared, helped some of your viewers. Thank you again for having me. 

thanks a ton, Arun. I really, really value your time uh i know it's very tough pulling out an hour uh talking about stuff that you anyway talk about to uh throughout the day uh with every possible prospect and uh you know, to your employees as well. But thank you for uh taking out time for this. And thank you, listeners, for sticking through. And if you'd like to learn more about Denave, log on to www.denave.com . If you want to know more about what record app is doing, of course, their website is also very, very informative. And if you want to hear this more about what Denpulse is and where, you know, we've had some breached previous shows and we have more upcoming shows in the, in this podcast series, just log into our YouTube channel or Spotify or Amazon, wherever you're catching us up on. 

So thanks a ton, Arun. Have a wonderful day ahead. Thank you.