Unveiling the Future of AI & Digital Marketing: Insights from a Tech Trailblazer

Hey, hi everyone. Welcome to your show, E-Coffee with the Experts. This is your host, Ranmay here. And today we have JJ, who is the founder of Marllm with us. Hey, JJ, how is it going?

Yeah, good. Glad to be here. Glad to talk to you.

Lovely. JJ, before we move any forward, let’s get to know the human behind the mic. To start off, we would ideally want you to briefly introduce yourself, talk a bit about your journey, how did you get in the digital marketing space, and also a bit about Monlem, your agency, the software, the tool, what are you guys specializing, and then we take it from there.

Sure. Thanks. I guess the journey started a while back. Thirteen years ago, I was graduating with STEM distinction and also Academic Arts Cumlaude diploma as well. I wanted to combine the two things, the design and the technologies. Went to computer-generated studies 15 years ago, and that turned out to be quite innovative at the time. It was basically AR, VR type of technology. I was quite lucky to be selected for Best New Designers show where I was discovered by the global market, the marketing store worldwide and the global McDonald’s creative team. Basically, got hired straight from Uni for their AR, VR initiatives, marketing, sales marketing, and premium-led sales. Started working on global brands like McDonald’s, Nestlé, Carlsberg, straight from Uni. Then after a while, became a global leader in the global programs leader as well, and decided to, after a while, go back to computer software engineering and development to just learn more things. That’s where AI, SEO, Martex became a bit of a focus and just did a bunch of those automations and then led teams, led squads as a tech lead, co-founded a startup, and the second startup in, that’s where we are here today.

It’s a Martex startup called Marlum. We help businesses move away from ads. We’re using an alternative, more scalable and cheaper solutions. So yeah, basically, limit shelf.

Absolutely. You touched upon AI, you are in the space for quite some time now. Coming from computer software background, you can relate to when I’m saying that AI explored it in 2019, but it always existed prior to that as well. In today’s date, what is a general take on AI, JJ? Where do you think we are and where do you think we are heading with all the AI storm that’s going on?

It’s really interesting question. I feel what we’re seeing now with AI and personalization, because Optimization, all of that is simply hitting the mainstream. But this trend and deep research on what AI is capable of, what is augmented reality, what is virtual reality, what needing to customize for individual customers have been, I would say, under the water for a while. The first moments I recall is 12 years ago when at the marketing store worldwide, We had quite huge meetings about big trends we’re identifying. I remember customization and tailoring being firmly on the table back then, 12 years ago. It’s to do with the rise of internet and the rise many echo chambers and rise of ability to be completely surrounded in your own bubbles. That gave rise to the need to reach out and tailor messaging, tailor channels, all of that. I remember back then, 12 years ago, thinking and presenting also that the customers want bespoke and tailored versions of products. At that time, we were solving premium-led sales for McDonald’s, global, driving sales with Happy Meal Toys or driving sales with premium products for Nestlé or Cosmos. I remember very vividly that we had to find a way to make the same product completely unique to individual customer.

Back then, at that time, we found some cheaper solutions using customization with stickers and all of those things. But technically, you could deliver on that complete bespoke teletailarization at scale. What I see the future, if we continue to follow this trajectory with AR, VR, as well with the rise of the fully augmented realities as well, is that we’re just going to see this trend go completely on steroids. What I believe is going to happen is that no two people will experience the same version of Web, World Wide Web. Everything will reach a point where we will have that echo chamber in a way or bubble journey journey in a bubble all throughout the whole Web, pretty much. I guess it’s like an extreme illustration, but if we follow the last 12 years and the next 12 years, I believe this is firmly where we’re heading. And to couple that with digital, first experience in age of AI, I think businesses should look into their digital sales processes from start to finish in creating digital shopping experiences. It doesn’t matter if it’s direct to consumer or business to business. The direct to consumer trends are moving into business to business world as well as all of the consumers are now fully trained on what used to be B2C with millennials and Gen Z.

Everyone have those expectations that it has to be slick, it has to be low touch point, it has to be clear. And millennials and Gen Z in the workforce are moving towards digital first more, and that’s supported by data as well.

From a startup standpoint, as a high growth startup founder, there must have been some initial challenges that you would have faced. If you can throw some light on what were those initial challenges, how did you form a team, the support function, launching of the product, getting those first clients onboarded, how did it all look like and how did you overcome them?

Nothing out of ordinary that other startups don’t experience, which is just making sure you secure excellent talent, source enough revenues, identify a super pain that you can solve for customers and avoid solving lukewarm pain. I would say nothing out of the ordinary in that regard. It’s a short answer here, but I’ll just say it’s still the same challenges that any other startup would say they are experiencing.

That’s okay. In your interview, you did mention about working with brands like the McDonald’s and the Nestlés of the world. How did that experience expanded your thought process or helped you leverage that experience in your own startup? How did that help you in your journey so far?

That’s such a good question. I’m so happy you asked that. I keep thinking from time to time about it. What I learned there was that premium-led sales marketing is extremely powerful. It can drive the whole of sales. Let’s say, just to give it an illustration, you’re selling a cereal box, but that sale is actually driven by a premium that the customer has found inside of the box. That It’s like a very oversimplification what it means of premium-led sales in that traditional marketing sense. Obviously, the learnings and insights I had there showed me the power of product-led What I mean by that is some startups will have heard that we’re entering a golden age of innovation that can’t rely on sales-led approach anymore because people are tired from sales, features, and They don’t believe in them anymore. We’ve been over exposed to products and we are fatigued by interfaces. We actually hate them by this point. We are no longer mesmerized by a flashy UI or UX. It’s just not going to close a sale. But what has to happen is product-led growth, which means that the product is responsible for attracting new customers and new sales, causing new sales and convincing the audiences and To do that, we have to target relevant products and services to relevant audience segments.

That’s no easy job to be done, but there are who have done it over and over, and I guess we have those people as well.

Yeah, easier said than done. But again, that is how simple the process actually is. Again, the formation of the back-end looks difficult, but if you have a target audience, you get a platform, a dialog, and you are able to present your product The product should speak for itself. Once you have shown the product and if you have understood the need, you can relate in terms of what module exactly solves the problem. Again, demonstration and the pitching of the product is important, but the product has to do the job. At least 50% of the sale is what we feel is the product helps you bet. Because the crux of it, you have to spend months, years, whatever to build the product. When you have a platform or dialog where you are showcasing the product to a potential client who actually has a need, then the product should speak for itself, right?

Yes. There is this term that is popularized more in the Silicon Valley, obviously, is product qualified leads.

Yeah.

Plqs, I think everyone’s going to be talking about that in next five years or maybe after a couple of more years. But product qualified leads is a real thing, and you have to really engineer everything around that as well. It’s not I don’t see us as qualified leads or marketing qualified leads, it’s qualified leads. You have to do that.

It was MQLs versus SQLs all this while. That is this new term coming up. Yeah.

It’s Again, it’s been around for a while, but I can appreciate how it’s not a widely used term by a lot of places. But product qualified leads is 100% the focus of definitely the renowned startups that we hear from Silicon Valley. Product qualified leads are scalable startups have managed to achieve that. We can always copy the successful and renowned-Yeah, the best practices. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. At your setup, how does Marlem use predictive analysis to identify high-intent customers and then tailor the marketing efforts accordingly.

Again, we use a variety of methods to research what the target audiences are searching for, looking for, or what is trending. Traditionally, from the world of SEO, you would look at cost per click metrics or those metrics that could be lower volume searches, but they would be more expensive if you bought an ad. Those are the basic methods to identify. I suppose there are other ways like analyzing trending hashtags and other emerging subjects in the channels where your target leads gather. That’s another method.

Talk about sales for not only managing it, but also optimizing it because that is what you guys do as well. Where do you feel at what stage do you feel that a business of what is the size? Can be small, mid, large scale businesses or enterprises, they would obviously be using some CRM or automation tool. But for small to mid-size businesses, where do you feel is the right stage to get an automation tool into their system to combine things?

That’s a good question. I would say businesses that have large inventories, SMEs maybe, let’s say that have too many resources to manage should consider automations even early on. Let’s give an example. Let’s say there’s a fintech that has 1,000 partnerships or Okay, maybe that’s not the small SME, but let’s say there’s a hotel business chain that has 1,000 rooms they need to advertise. Those are the businesses that should look into your automations because those tools are well in the industry and they can do a lot of heavy lifting and more with less resources.

Too many leads coming in from multiple channels. So enough put all of it at one place so that nothing is being missed out. Yeah, I completely get your point. Great, Ajay. This has been a brilliant conversation. But before we let me go, I would like to play a quick rapid fire with you. I hope you’re game for it.

Yeah, let’s do it.

Okay, your last Google search.

My last Google search, I’m sure I did it today. I can’t recall. I think it was something about- Technology and SEO was easy for you. Actually, my last Google search was this morning about what is the document called that is not a term sheet for closing an investment, but a one prior to that.

Okay, that is some news that you revealed over here. Okay, great. Good luck for that one. All right, moving on. Your next vacation.

It’s going to be in December for Christmas, and I’m just going to spend a good month in my home country with family and relatives and friends. Because no one is working actively in London. So, yeah, a month away.

Yeah, it’s a bit short town for quite some time around the end of the year. So, yeah. And so, Juju, what is next? What is next in your life? Marlm is doing good. Obviously, there are things on the cards, but what is next?

What’s next for us? I guess we want to move the dial on helping democratize marketing, sales marketing, because what we see in the industry marketing is loaded with buzzwords, SEO is loaded with buzzwords, AI is loaded with buzzwords. But to create something quite efficient and effective, you have to be an expert in those three. I think that’s just not possible for businesses to be expert AI, expert SEO, expert marketing concerns. There’s lots of space to make a difference. That’s what’s next for Marlam, and we’re moving a dial in That way.

All right, finally, the last question will not kill you any further. Where do you find you on Friday evenings after office?

I treat myself to a long walk after work where there’s a bit of daydream or maybe a cocktail or something in hand. That’s my way to unwind from all the founders/CEO issues and send myself up for a weekend, which I admit I don’t work on the weekends. That’s a hard rule.

Yeah, that’s where I’m at. Can a founder do that? Can a founder do that, really?

He can do that. I absolutely think you must do that. You have to work hard and then rest hard. Okay.

All right, lovely. Thank you so much, JJ, for your time and doing this with us. Really appreciate it. Cheers.

Thanks so much, Ranmay.