Vikram Ramesh, CMO at Adlumin catches up with MarTechSeries to chat about the latest in B2B marketing and how new age AI powered martech can enable modern marketers:
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Hi Vikram, tell us about yourself and your tech marketing journey. What top marketing learnings have you come away with through the years?
I began my tech marketing journey working as a security engineer working on encryption algorithms. However, my real focus was always on getting closer to the customer—understanding their needs and pain points and ensuring that the products I built addressed those directly. This drive to connect with customers led me to transition into marketing, a move that some might say was either a shift to or from the “dark side.”
Over the years, my journey has been centered on leveraging data to make informed decisions, always with the customer’s needs at the forefront. I spent a decade at Silicon Valley startups before moving to Austin, where I honed my skills in agility and adaptability—key traits in a fast-paced marketing environment.
My career in security and technology marketing has spanned 20 years, but over the last 10 years I’ve focused on growth. This was particularly true in my roles as Head of Global Marketing at Google Cloud Security and as CMO at Mandiant, where I had the opportunity to work on major GTM activities ranging from acquisitions and divestitures to multiple brand launches – in addition to the day-to-day activities. Through these experiences, I’ve learned the importance of building a plane while flying it—and to do so successfully relied on continuously leveraging data to make decisions, and keeping the customer’s needs as my North Star.
For me, as a marketer, it’s all about maintaining a growth mindset. In the startup world, failure is inevitable, but the key is to fail fast, learn from it, and keep moving forward. This approach has always driven me and shaped how I lead marketing organizations today.
In my new role as CMO of Adlumin, which is experiencing a period of rapid growth, I’ll be leaning heavily on the lessons I’ve learned over the years to successfully expand brand awareness and global presence in international markets.
As a marketing leader, what B2B marketing strategies stay at the core of most of your marketing plans?
One of the key approaches I follow is Account-Based Marketing (ABM), especially for targeting high-value prospects. ABM allows us to focus our efforts on the most promising opportunities, ensuring that we’re delivering personalized, relevant content that resonates with decision-makers.
Within an ABM strategy, establishing thought leadership for our brand helps us position ourselves as industry experts. This allows us to effectively differentiate ourselves from the competition and create a strong, authoritative presence in the market.
Additionally, ensuring we have social proof throughout everything we do helps build credibility. Case studies and testimonials from customers who are already using our platform serve as powerful endorsements and help build trust with potential clients. It’s important that we integrate these testimonials into all aspects of our marketing efforts.
Finally, consistency has remained a cornerstone of my strategy. Whether it’s our messaging, the channels we use, or the way we present our offers, consistency ensures that we maintain and strengthen our brand’s value proposition. This also prevents any dilution of our brand identity, which is crucial for long-term success.
At the end of the day, marketing exists to make sales easier. Our North Star is always revenue, but achieving that requires a strong brand narrative that drives demand—and in turn, demand that reinforces our brand. These strategies help us achieve both, ensuring that our marketing efforts are both effective and sustainable.
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Take us through the kind of martech and AI powered martech you’ve been using to drive goals.
AI is becoming increasingly vital in driving marketing efficiency and content creation. At our organization, we leverage HubSpot, which serves as an integrated CRM and marketing automation platform. HubSpot’s built-in AI tools assist us in content ideation and fine-tuning our campaigns, ensuring that our marketing efforts are both targeted and effective.
For content creation and ideation, I’ve had success with using Jasper.ai. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for generating new content ideas and even refreshing existing materials like white papers and eBooks, helping marketing teams maintain a consistent flow of high-quality content that resonates with audiences.
On the productivity front, I use Notion, which includes AI features that streamline my workflows and improve overall efficiency. It’s an essential tool for managing projects and ensuring that all aspects of our marketing strategy are executed seamlessly.
What lead generation and demand generation strategies do you rely on to boost marketing cycles and pipelines?
First and foremost, all strategies I deploy are anchored in consistency. This ensures a strong and steady pipeline across all marketing activities.
On a more tactical front, I focus on building SEO-optimized content and thought leadership pieces to drive inbound marketing. This helps attract prospects organically while reinforcing our brand’s authority and awareness. On the outbound side, I implement highly targeted campaigns using intent data and predictive analytics to zero in on our ideal customer profile (ICP). This ensures our outreach is precise and effectively drives engagement.
Throughout any strategy, it’s important that your marketing approach is deeply integrated. For instance, when we’ve participated in big cybersecurity events like RSA Conference, the company doesn’t just show up. We pre-engage prospects with email campaigns to encourage them to meet us at our booth, partner with select companies for co-marketing initiatives and joint physical events, and follow up with leads through retargeting campaigns. Our internal BDR teams are also equipped with call scripts to ensure consistent post-event conversations.
To bring it all together, we emphasize customer advocacy. At another recent event, Black Hat, Adlumin organized a program to collect Gartner peer reviews, leveraging the event to engage customers directly and gather valuable testimonials. This not only boosted our credibility but also enriched our marketing efforts with authentic customer voices.
Can you share a few thoughts on the future of B2B tech marketing and martech?
The future of B2B tech marketing will be driven by an unprecedented level of personalization, which will be made possible by the rapid growth of AI tools. We’ll see marketing campaigns become far more tailored and automated, allowing us to deliver highly targeted content at scale.
Alongside this, AI-powered solutions will streamline the lead qualification process, enabling BDRs to set up meetings with prospects who are already highly engaged and informed. Prospects will interact with AI-driven tools, such as online demos, as part of their journey from an email campaign to a purchase decision. By the time they engage with a sales rep, they’ll already be well-informed, making the process more efficient and focused on closing the deal. In some cases, we might even see prospects complete purchases entirely online without needing to speak to a sales representative.
Another significant trend will be the emphasis on first-party data strategies, driven by increasing privacy regulations. As third-party data becomes less reliable and accessible, companies will need to focus on collecting and leveraging first-party data to understand their customers better and deliver personalized experiences.
Five marketing and martech best practices you’d leave everyone whose reading this with.
- Prioritize data quality and integration. Ensuring that data across your marketing tech stack is of high quality and well-integrated enables accurate ROI reporting and ensures that all tools work cohesively, providing a reliable foundation for your marketing strategies.
- Invest in team upskilling. New tools that help marketing teams do their jobs are released continuously. Familiarity with new tools, especially in AI and automation, can significantly enhance efficiency and creativity in marketing initiatives.
- Leverage AI. AI offers powerful capabilities – make these capabilities work for you. While these tools will require fine-tuning, they can greatly enhance productivity and innovation within your marketing efforts, especially when coupled with upskilling efforts to educate teams on how to effectively use AI.
- Regularly audit and optimize your martech stack. Given the vast array of tools and vendors available, it’s important to build a stack that works for you – you shouldn’t be working for the tech, or fighting to make it work for you. Regularly evaluate the tool’s effectiveness to ensure it serves your needs.
- Embrace a test-and-learn culture. Fail fast, learn quickly, and stay agile. This approach will help you remain responsive to market changes and make improvements when needed.
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Adlumin is the security operations command center that simplifies complexity and keeps organizations of all sizes secure.
Vikram Ramesh, is CMO at Adlumin
