Ketan Pandit - Zuddl

In this episode of the Demand Generation Club Podcast, Franco Caporale interviews Ketan Pandit, head of marketing at Zuddl, discussing the evolving B2B marketing landscape and the pivotal role of events in lead generation. Ketan shares his journey to his current role, highlighting the dynamic nature of B2B marketing. He recommends a tech stack including G2, SEMrush, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zuddl for demand generation. They delve into pandemic-driven changes in event dynamics and offer advice on crafting effective event strategies.

Transcript

INTRO:
The Demand Generation Club Podcast is back, and we're turning up the heat with Season 3. Get ready for insightful conversation with experts from Splash, TrustCloud, WorkRamp, UserGems and more as we dive deep into B2B marketing approaches that are making an impact in 2024. This podcast is brought to you by SaaSMQL, the SaaS growth agency that helps B2B software companies land seven-figure deals with highly targeted multichannel campaigns. Since 2018, SaaSMQL has helped over 100 SaaS companies generate millions of dollars in sales pipeline and recurring revenue. To learn more, go to saasmql.com.

Franco Caporale:

So I'm here today with Ketan Pandit who's the head of marketing at Zuddl. Hi, Ketan. Welcome to the Demand Generation Club Podcast.

Ketan Pandit:

Hi, Franco. Thanks for having me.

Franco Caporale:

Let's dive right in. I just want to know a little more about your background, and how did you become head of marketing at Zuddl?

Ketan Pandit:

Oh, that's an interesting question. I didn't start with wanting to be head of marketing at Zuddl. It's just something that happened along the way. I've been doing events for a long time. So from college days and my first job and so on and so forth, events have been a very strong suit for me. I'm really good at it. So over the period of time while I was doing this, I was working with different types of industries. I was with consulting, then I was with an engagement provider. I was with CleverTap before this where, again, I was doing events. And this opportunity just brought all of those things that I was doing for so many years together, and it was a beautiful culmination of what my experience has been and where the industry is headed. So I joined Zuddl about two years ago. I complete two years in October, and it's just a great opportunity. It's just something that happened.

Franco Caporale:

And what excites you in particular about B2B marketing and demand generation in generating leads and opportunities?

Ketan Pandit:

Okay, so the safe answer is that, oh, I love to experiment and I love to see... But the real answer is that most of us marketers are very atomic in nature, in the sense that we get very bored very quickly. So we want to be doing different things all the time. And B2B marketing, especially now, has become... It moves very fast, so a lot of things are changing at all times. It gives us that opportunity to try different things. It's never static. So I think that, for me, is the biggest driving factor and it's the most exciting thing also.

Franco Caporale:

That's awesome. Yeah, it feels great compared to B2C marketing and you sell, or you have an opportunity to generate leads for $5, $10, $20 versus driving these large opportunities. For me, at least, feel much more exciting, but I guess it's different point of views.

Ketan Pandit:

Yeah, I'm sure B2C has its own challenges and excitement. But for me, I think it's more B2B. I don't have experience in B2C, so I can't speak for them. But from a B2B perspective, this is how do you get the right ICP lead at the right cost, and everything boils down to that.

Franco Caporale:

Exactly. I want to ask you one quick question before we get into the main topic, which is what is your favorite tech stack for demand generation that you cannot work without?

Ketan Pandit:

I think the definition, the composition of that favorite tech stack keeps changing as in when we discover new products. But as of now, we use G2 a lot. We use SEMRush a lot. Google Analytics used to be a great indicator. With the window GA4, we're still figuring out a bunch of things, but that's a great piece. HubSpot is, again, one of my favorite tools, so that's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. HubSpot and Salesforce. So between these four or five, these are standard. Apart from that, we keep trying out different tools and new tools come in the market or somebody recommends. Recently we've just tried Limbless. We're trying to figure out what that works. And of course, how can I forget Zuddl. It's one tool where we use all our... We use it for all our events, basically.

Franco Caporale:

That's awesome. It's great when you're in charge of the marketing of a company that you can also use for your own campaigns- for your own strategy.

Ketan Pandit:

Of course. Absolutely, absolutely. And what we've realized is that it has made us appreciative of the challenges that are in the industry so much more. Because when we do it for our event and we realize, "Oh," this feature that could be improved or this feature works fantastically, and we give that feedback to product, it just works beautifully.

Franco Caporale:

And obviously, the tone about events, and that's what I want to really ask you today. I want to dig into events. In particular, when we were talking, you mentioned this coming back finally to in-person events after the pandemic. So how did you experience this, going back to in-person events? What was different compared to 2018, 2019? And how did you approach it from a strategy perspective?

Ketan Pandit:

I mean, fantastic question. So this will require a little bit of a history lesson, but just to set context. Before we all went into the pandemic lockdown, events were there. Events have been around for hundreds of years. Any community gathering is an event. The only difference at that time was that events were looked as something that you needed to do, that was good to be. You needed to be seen at events. You needed to be seen at conferences. You needed to be seen hosting your events. It was something that was largely focused on building your brand and awareness. And that was a typical mentality associated with doing events. Come pandemic, the biggest events shut down. SaaStr had to call it off. So when everybody moved virtually, over a period of a few months, the innovation that would've happened or that would've taken at least two years happened in a matter of a quarter. In three months, you had these fantastic looking platforms coming up with great user experience and great visuals and great design.

So you moved away from a standard boring webinar format to a much more interactive and engaging format. And then there was a point in time when it became saturated. People were getting bored of virtual events and it was very easy to get distracted because it's after all a tab, and you would just go and do something else while that conversation went on. So engagement started kind of dwindling and then folks figured out different ways of engaging people, different hooks. They started experimenting with the duration of the session, the topics, the kind of people they could get. There was a lot and a lot of innovation happening. But when the restrictions started easing and people started coming out of the pandemic, they were so used to this fantastic experience and being able to measure everything and every gesture, both from an attendee perspective and an organizer perspective, the experience was very different.

You could measure everything. You could see who was engaged, who was not engaged, which typically you couldn't do in an in-person event. But those expectations started getting transferred, projecting to in-person event. So now when you go for an in-person event, you will see that the production quality is far better than what it used to be earlier. The engagement activities are much more thought out of. People are measuring a lot of things, so nothing is left to chance anymore. And eventually, what has happened is that events have thought being just a tactic. It's not just something that you do. It's become a very legit channel in its own right with expectations of return on investment, with expectations of deliverables. And it has become central to marketing strategies for organizations of all sizes.

So that is the biggest change in my opinion. And we are seeing this across conversation with that are starting up to companies which are in Fortune 500 and Fortune 100. And we're seeing that they have so much focus on events that it's very heartening to see that events is finally getting its time of day, intense focus on it.

Franco Caporale:

So how do you plan your strategy? Again, from a demand generation perspective, obviously you need to generate leads, you need to generate opportunities, you need to engage accounts, et cetera. How do you use events and what kind of events are working well for you?

Ketan Pandit:

The new approach is what we refer to as the modern event strategy. It's modern events programs, which is not just one type of an event, but it's a mix of different types of events. So you've got your virtual events like webinars and virtual conferences on one side. Then you've got field marketing events, which are your smaller networking, much more intimate events. And then you've got your own user conferences, and then you've got your third party events and conferences. It's a mix. So it's not just one thing that is part of the event. It's different types of events, one, and the strategy's largely dependent on a couple of things. One is where you as an organization are in your life cycle. So if you're just starting up, then you want to build your own brand, you want to create awareness. And webinars is the easiest way to do that.

You can scale it up. You can quickly build the frequency that you want. You can get your guests, whatever. It's a great tool to get started. The other important thing, and one of the most effective things is in-person field marketing events. So basically when you have, say, 50 people for a small intimate gathering, you could be having a three-hour meetup or things like that. That is again getting a lot of ground because it helps build a lot of trust. So that's one. User conferences typically are for larger organizations. I want to say companies that have found product market fit, have a good fan base of customers, probably do between 5 million or 6 million and above in revenue. So those kinds of organizations typically go for a user conference. They could have a virtual user conference or they could have an in-person user conference. But that's, again, an important lever for growth and for managing churn and upselling.

And then, obviously, third party events. There are a lot of third party events, and each one better than the last. These are usually to go and network, to go put a brand out, figure out what's happening. So these are different combinations. Then you choose them based on, one, where you are in the life cycle and, two, where your customer is in the buying journey. So for customers who don't know about you, they would like to probably start with attending one of your webinars to figure out what you are about, where you're at, what's your product. In-person events are a good way to have people who are in the middle of the funnel to move them down. User conferences are a great tool. And then the intimate dinners and things like that are great for bottom of the funnel. So these two things kind of decide your event strategy.

Franco Caporale:

In what do you see the most success today, from your end?

Ketan Pandit:

For us, we are seeing success in person events, which are field marketing events, and webinars. So these are two major channels for us at this stage.

Franco Caporale:

For the small field marketing events, how do you decide where to host them, because obviously you can make them-

Ketan Pandit:

Choosing venue is not the easiest thing, but what we try to do is we look at where our customers are and where our ICP is. Usually we try to do this in the centers basically. So we know of a few cities, for example, are the centers where a lot of our ICP is. And we didn't get to hear on day one. We iterated over and over to figure out whether these work or not. And with remote working becoming prevalent, most folks are out working from home or working from any other location. It becomes challenging. So we try to get their LinkedIn data, see where they're at, if there's a concentration in a specific city. A lot of hit and trial.

Franco Caporale:

And obviously you're going to allocate significant amount of your marketing budget. How do you track ROI to make sure, "Yes, I want to continue investing in these events, these are being successful"?

Ketan Pandit:

Awesome. I'll give you a very tactical answer. There's no very high level answer to this. So for events, basically at the stage that we are in, for us, building pipeline is very important and putting the name out also is very important. So if there's an event that we're hosting, we want people to start knowing about that. One of the success factors for us is how many people are actually coming to these events? So the way it operates is that if you send 100 emails out, probably 20 people with respond in any way. It could be yes, no, whatever. And out of this 20, maybe 10 registered, and out of those 10, maybe five will turn up. That's just how it works.

So we look at how many people actually responded and how many people actually turned up. Because the idea there is not to sell to them. The idea is there to make them well aware of the role and help them meet other marketers. That's our ICP. So we look at success in that frame. We've just started this program, so it's a little too early for us to start saying, "Hey, this event generated this kind of a revenue," which is the ultimate goal. But for field marketing, this is what we look at.

Franco Caporale:

Okay. And are you able to track also how they move down the funnels? So if some of them become opportunities and then they might close seven or eight months from now, you keep track of all of the engagement across?

Ketan Pandit:

Oh yes, we do. Yes, we do. We do. We do that, and that's the whole point. That's where my favorite tag components like Salesforce and HubSpot come into play.

Franco Caporale:

Awesome. Do you still have a space for virtual events in your strategy? No webinar, but actual virtual conferences?

Ketan Pandit:

Oh yes, yes, absolutely. Virtual events are not going anywhere. Contrary to what people are saying, that virtual events are dead, they're not dead. It's just that people don't put in enough effort. Companies are not putting in enough effort to think through what is required. It cannot be a checklist item. It has to be something that people are willing to give three hours of their day to. If you think it through, then it definitely works. We do a ton of virtual events on our platform. And when we speak to our customers, you'd be surprised that they're not going anywhere. I don't know who started this rumor, but it's not true.

Franco Caporale:

Yeah, no. Probably, like you said, there was a point in with everyone was doing virtual conferences but not really spending the time and effort to make them really engaging. And they became kind of me too type of effort.

Ketan Pandit:

That's right. So imagine if I have choose between three hours of spending my time on a very mundane event versus three hours with my family, it's obviously going to be my family. But if the topic and the people and the whole conference setup is amazing and I know I'm going to get value, then I will do this and then go be with my... So it's just about how you craft it. You have to put in the effort. And it's not easy. Virtual events are not easy at all.

Franco Caporale:

I agree. One thing you mentioned that really caught my attention when we were talking is you are trying to build a community around events and this whole topic. Tell me more about what is your plan to build a community while you organize all of these events around North America and other places?

Ketan Pandit:

So the thing is with a community is that you cannot force it. A community just comes together on its own. And that holds true for even events, whether it's an online community, whether it's an offline community. But the idea behind all of these events is that when you keep doing them one after the other on a consistent basis, you will start seeing a lot of people gather there. They will build their own trust networks within those communities. And that's how a community comes together. If you look at the most popular communities today, and I'm part of a few of them, for example Pavilion, or you could look at Partnership Leaders or even S11S, which is a very B2B marketing focused community, you will see that people got together first and then they build a structure around it.

So it didn't start with all fancy landing pages and all those tools. But it started with a bunch of people wanting to solve for a problem, asking each other out, and then referring their friends saying that, "Hey, this group of people that talk about the partnerships, would you like to join?" And some of them have really coalesced very well. So that's the idea behind it. That's what we're trying to do with events as well.

Franco Caporale:

That's awesome. That's great. So what do you see the future of events in 2024 and beyond, now that we went through all of these changes in the past two, three years?

Ketan Pandit:

I think it's still evolving. 2024, the way we look at it is that in-person is definitely going to be a mainstay. So it's going to be very important for a lot of organizations. Virtual is not going anywhere, webinars are not going anywhere. People are very, very cognizant of where they're spending their time, so it is going to be very, very important to plan all of these properly. The mix is changing. The mix is going to be very critical for every organization, and they will have their own event mix. So just to summarize, in-person is going to be very critical. People are going to put a lot of money behind it, so they will expect some sort of a return. So nothing will be left to chance.

They're not looking for event vendors, they're looking for event partners. So somebody who understands and gets what they're doing and not trying to straight-jacket them into what they have built. So that's going to be very important. Field events are going to be more prevalent now, so more frequent and well thought of. The experience of field marketing is going to be very important there. And webinars, again, if you continue doing webinars for the sake of doing webinars, it's not going to work out. You'll have to really think through what the audience needs and not what you think they need for your webinars to be successful. That's what I think is going to happen in a big way.

Franco Caporale:

Awesome. I agree, a hundred percent. Before I let you go, Ketan, I have a few more questions I want to ask. The first thing, what is your big initiative that you're planning for for the next few months?

Ketan Pandit:

Again, we are doubling down on making sure that we do a lot of events. So in-person events is going to be big. We have a series called Event Heroes, where we... Started it last year, as in this year, where we get event marketers from some of the largest companies. We've got people from Vanta and Paddle and a bunch of other companies to come and talk about what has worked for them. So these are not thought leadership sessions, but these are how did you solve for this. We cover topics like negotiation, we cover topics like how to map your event strategy to your buyer's life cycle, things like that. Very, very tactical stuff. So we'll continue to do that. We'll double down on that. And we're also doubling down on in-person events. We want to go out and meet more people, just build those networks and connect. So for us, these are the two big things that we are doing, from a marketing perspective.

Franco Caporale:

Fantastic. And I want to know what is something that you wish you knew at the beginning of your B2B marketing career that you can share?

Ketan Pandit:

Okay. So it's easier said than done for somebody who's getting started, but it is one thing you... It's okay to fail. Marketing is out of 10 things that you do, you will probably fail in it. And the sooner you come to terms with it, the better. I think a lot of responsibility also lies with the marketing leaders to tell their team that it's okay to fail, "Don't worry about it. Just go try it out. But don't get emotionally attached to the program or the channel. It's okay. If it doesn't work, then move on. Maybe it's not right for you at this stage. Try something else." I wish somebody had told me that. I would've had less sleepless nights.

Franco Caporale:

I had the same experience as well. And my last question is kind of related to this. What is a mistake that you see pretty commonly with more junior marketers that should be avoided?

Ketan Pandit:

Trying to do too many things at the same time. It's very easy to launch an initiative, and we have been guilty of that. We launch too many things too fast, hoping that something will work. But what happens with that is that you compromise the depth that you need to go into and you start doing a substandard job on every one of them. Because you have limited resources and limited time. So that is one mistake that we should avoid. Pick a channel, go deep, see if it works. If it doesn't work, you'll get signals early on. Abandon it and then move to something else. But don't try to do too many things at the same time.

Franco Caporale:

Absolutely, a hundred percent. Ketan, it was really great speaking with you today. Thank you again for joining us.

Ketan Pandit:

Thanks for having me, Franco. It was lovely speaking with you.

CLOSING:
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Demand Generation Club Podcast. If you're curious about how we're landing enterprise deals and unlocking millions in recurring revenue using account-based marketing and integrated direct mail campaigns, check out our website, saasmql.com. That's S-A-A-S-M-Q-L.com. We share tons of content every week on tried and true strategic ABM initiatives that actually generate pipeline from enterprise accounts. Thanks for tuning in.