Ketan Pathki for Revenue Marketing Alliance | Meet The Ambassadors

Speaker: Ketan Pathki

Ketan Pathki: Hi, my name is Ketan Pathki and uh I work as uh the Chief marketing Officer for Fielda right now. I have around 17 years of experience in uh pretty much everything around marketing, uh predominantly go to market strategy end to end, go to market strategy and execution. And I've been in revenue marketing for close to 13 years now. Uh

Ketan Pathki: I think every marketer uh is by nature, a revenue marketer and going forward, they would have to be uh primarily responsible for revenue generation if they're not already. I think uh gone are the days when uh lead generation was the only thing that marketers did. And then, you know, sales job was to close the uh the sale and get revenue for the company. But I think uh marketers are more than ever geared towards revenue generation, revenue creation and whether it is ROI, whether it is attribution, whether it is uh you know, creating growth for the company, I think that's, that's always going to be the key role. And uh I think the Revenue Marketing Alliance is playing uh the most important role in this uh in this, in this field. The term revenue marketing itself, you know, not many people understand what this means. It's a very simple term and self explanatory. You don't understand what exactly the term is. There's a lot of stuff going around. Uh marketers are famous for creating jargon, there is demand generation, ABM, demand capture, demand creation, lead generation. But in the end, it's all really towards the same, right, basically, you know, generating revenue and growth for the company. And I think that uh being a part of the Revenue Marketing Alliance is a, is a great opportunity for me to uh really uh you know, popularize this term and, and make it as uh you know, especially in the, in the region where I come from, not many people know about uh you know, what revenue marketing means. So I, I think that uh that, that is the, the de facto term that, you know, uh it's not just about leads, but it's also about uh you know, revenue and then also interacting with uh so many great fellow marketers in this community. I think I have had the opportunity to talk to and uh you know, speak to and just basically look into a lot of great talent that's available. I think it's a, it's a great opportunity to collaborate with uh some like minded people and learn from each other. I think that's, that's one of the very compelling um uh reasons for me to join. And also, you know, play my part in popularizing the term of, of the concept of revenue marketing uh in general because I wanted to clear some of the confusion that's going around with so many terms associated with marketing. And uh the third thing is really uh to build my own community of like-minded professionals who, which helped me build my network as Well, so no better place than the Revenue Marketing Alliance uh to be a part of. And I'm really excited to be uh you know, part of this community.

Ketan Pathki: Um as uh executive responsible for revenue growth for the company, I think uh there are a few challenges that uh that every exec faces, but there are a few that are more prominent than the others. I think the the biggest right now is uh really uh around attribution. What is uh how does revenue attributed to marketing in general? Because in a B2B enterprise, historically, uh revenue was owned by sales and CEO and marketers probably were responsible for building the pipeline but still is right. But uh attribution towards revenue is very important and I think that really helps highlight the the key roles that uh marketing plays in, in a larger organization and the kind and its direct relationship with revenue growth. I think that's been one of the, the challenges that uh you know, I've been grappling with for some time technology solves that problem to an extent. Of course, there's a lot of revenue attribution tools, there's a lot of uh you know, uh processes now that kind of align towards aligning together like ABM for example. But by and large, it's still a bigger problem. And uh you know, So that is, is probably my number one challenge, you know, you know, attributing revenue generation to marketing efforts uh is, is one major challenge. The second challenge uh really is about uh training teams and building the culture of round revenue marketing within the organization, right? Uh Because marketers again are more uh so that two major roles that marketers themselves see doing or uh you know what is expect management expects from marketing. The first is content creation really market is responsible for creating content and it ends there creating wonderful content, well designed, well created content across all. So that, and the second is really about creating campaigns and generating leads for the company. So basically, of course, everywhere and marketers kind of fall in between these two. So it's either content, great content creation or lead generation. So that's historically been the roles and I still it still is. But uh what uh I want to what the biggest challenge is really getting this together to build a very efficient uh revenue generation engine within the company and uh the culture, the mindset, the processes, everything that you know, cares an organization towards uh you know, and, and, and, and, and basically it becomes a revenue marketing function, not disjointed functions within the organization. So I think building that culture uh is, is is other bigger challenge uh you know, in terms of getting the right talent training them, uh getting their KPIS coaching them, you know, and, and basically just the cultural aspect of, of that, the third is really around technology, uh you know, uh building a leaner meaner tech stack for revenue marketing is not a very robust bloated one which uh with now with AI coming in with now with uh more focus on profitability and revenue over, you know, evaluations or more over acquisition. It's, it's around mo most of them are moving in that direction, most companies are moving in that direction. So I think uh building that tech stack, how, what is the best tack to build and how do we actually get that uh the challenge? And uh yeah, lastly is around uh basically uh building an end to end machine that kind of helps in planning, executing, measuring tracking and the basically close loop revenue marketing, what we talk about. So yeah, those are the biggest challenges. Apart from that, I think uh the last one is around working with the CEO and the CFO in terms of uh you know, talking the right numbers, right, talking valuable numbers which really reflects the importance of marketing and revenue generations because because the CEO and the CFO uh are the two very key roles that are responsible for uh that you need to report to and that, that really are responsible for everything that you know, as a CMO or as a head of marketing that is that you're required to show. So working with them and I think being very tuned to it as a revenue marketer right from the beginning and building that in your DNA really helps you understand what your CEO and CFO wants. So I think that uh is a big challenge right now. Uh And I think that really is what we need to solve.

Ketan Pathki: I think uh the advice I would give to any marketer who is trying to make this career in this fascinating world of marketing in general or revenue marketing in general is to really think revenue, think that you are not just doing a job. First, most major thing is think not that you're doing a job. Uh irrespective of whether you're working for, you know, whatever uh company, whether it's an early stage start up or bootstrap start up, a funded one, a larger enterprise, it doesn't really matter. But you've got to think yourself as a part of the revenue generation mechanism, right? You, you, you are not just doing your role, uh you know, and with whatever role that you're hired for, you've got to think that I'm here to generate revenue for the company that is a very big mindset that is very important. And I, when I started my career, I was fortunate to work with organizations like this, that kind of drill it into my DNA that, you know, it is, you are import responsible for you. I think not many marketers think along those lines they're just concerned with. Ok, I need to create a wonderful uh video. I need to create a great article which is fine. That's a part of your job, KPIs and, and that's what you're hired for. But you would think revenue, I think that is, is very, very good because you will grow quickly and you will grow more in, in your role. If you are tuned to think about my role is revenue generation for the company. I'm a revenue marketer, irrespective of what my designation is, whatever small or big thing I do because contributing directly indirectly to the revenue. And I think that is really, and most CEOs love uh such marketers who can actually align and uh you know, because they look at it, marketing is generally a profit, is a cost center for company, not a profit center because marketers need budgets higher budgets because they have to justify those budgets, right? And if you can show it form of revenue, I think it justifies the costs that are incurred in marketing, it justifies everything that spend is there. And I think that is very, very important, right? Any marketing spend that is there and if you can show it in terms of revenue, right? I think that so think along those lines, uh the second uh advice I would give is really to choose your mentors very well, right? Choose the right people who care who have done that and who been there, done that and have really got the same mindset that I, I suppose talk about earlier. So choose your mentor as well. Uh Choose the people. Uh It could be people who you're working with within your company or within your community, within your uh ecosystem that you have. It could be, you know, you know, uh thought leaders that you follow, pick your people because initial phase, your learning is very important. And I think that uh you really need to learn a lot, be, be ready to learn and and learn the right things from the right people. It's not just about learning, it's about applying and knowing where you are wrong and right. So choose your mentors very well. You need a mentor in the initial phase. I'll see a lot of marketers who probably learn from courses and all but struggle because there is no correction or there is no pit stopper. Now somebody to really keep the checks and balances in place and say, ok, you're going in the right direction. Now let's do this. So that is very important because I was lucky to work with some great people in the issue of my career. So choose your mentors well and revenue. And then, and this is this is a forum where you will find some of them, a lot of them, in fact, revenue marketing alliance. So I think that is the second advice. The third really is around uh you know, build one core expertise always in you because if you look at revenue marketing holistically, please build one key expertise. Uh because revenue marketing is is broad in phase u whether it is campaign management, whether it is concentration, you need to build one big expert in one. Uh don't be a generalist, right? It's good to be like you call it a T shaped marketer, but you need to be very good at one very good aspect of market. It could be measurement, it could be tool market stack, whatever it is, right? Either be on the content side, on the measurement side, on the tech stack or on the uh campaign site, whether it is whatever it is, copywriting, uh you, you need to be good at one thing. So pick your expertise, be extremely, be the best in that and learn our field as well. You cannot be journalist marketer. I come across a lot of journalist marketers who try and learn everything around the way. So they are not even jacks of all trades. They're basically jacks of learning all the trades, not just all trades. So, or jill of all trades, uh so pick your speciality, uh pick your spec uh or your core expertise and build, I think you'll be indispensable. So I think those are the, the that is the advice I would give to fellow marketers. Wish you all the best. This is gonna be a great uh career if you, if you are inclined towards it and uh wish you all the best.