INTRODUCTION

You have had a long and successful career as a Marketer; Take us through your journey. I graduated in engineering and after working in this field realized it's not my cup of tea. Then did my MBA and started working in services on the technical side and finally moved to marketing.

How do you define Account-Based Marketing? Account Based Marketing is a marketing method focusing on personalizing campaign designs and communication with individual prospects through better understanding. It helps to try out different strategies desired by different accounts and work out the best way to engage different prospects. ABM provides an overall view of how to engage with a customer.

CURRENT WORK

• Recently Aspire won the ITSMA award in their ABM lead gen category.
• I have a dual role in my company as the CMO of Aspire Systems, a leading IT services firm, and am also the head of marketing at Synergita, a product brand. 
• As a CMO of Aspire, we serve various industry verticals - Banking, Retail, Software, etc. And each of these verticals has unique market attributes. So obviously, one size fits all is out of the question. 

We can’t talk about ABM without talking about Sales - Marketing alignment. What were the challenges you had to face when you proposed or even after you introduced ABM in your organization? ABM can help to make sales easier by opening doors and branding. Also by engaging prospects in different ways and providing intelligence to ensure better sales. Marketing can aid in sales growth strategies, meet required targets, and increase familiarity with accounts even though it isn’t necessary for sales to understand the working of ABM.

From our previous conversations, I gather, you are a proponent of culturing Buying intent through campaigns vs sourcing 3rd party Buyer Intent. Could you elaborate for us on why you think this way? 

OPINIONS

Let’s talk about the people aspect a bit. How should one imbibe the culture of ABM to the team members? Personalizing the message, differences in culture, and brand new ways of marketing were required due to the pandemic. ABM provides step-by-step campaigning by first setting the awareness and building slowly. Better options to engage with the audience and a finer user journey are also noticed.

How do you think ABM would shape up in the next two years? ABM to ABX, the future of ABM leads to Account Based Experience where the foundation is similar but provides multiple ways to engage the audience. Micro-segments, internal enhancement of companies, how to target customers, and so on will be given importance. AMB organic strategies are becoming familiar in the executive community.

What advice would you give to an aspiring ABM practitioner? Knowledge of traditional marketing is important. One has to be open-minded to understand the difference in culture. Patience and sustaining effort are necessary as the time period for success may vary. AMB is for everyone, be it a leader, an individual, or a team as long as one keeps trying.

How can people reach out to you? Linkedin: Raghunath Vijayaraghavan

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