Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing: Recent Episodes
Hacker Valley Media
In this show, we’re going to hear from cybersecurity marketers who will share their ideas, their successes and failures, so that you can be the best cybersecurity marketer, you can be. Join us every week with a brand new episode, guaranteed to knock your SOCs off. Get it?
This week Gianna and Maria are joined by Mitch Mayne, Cybersecurity communicator and incident responder. Mitch talks about his career journey, and his philosophy on storytelling in cybersecurity while weaving in an important conversation about mental health in cybersecurity!
Mitch's Non-Technical Beginnings:
Mitch accidentally entered into cybersecurity while working at IBM. His combination of skills like marketing, writing, and incident response have helped him to succeed. In college, Mitch majored in communication, journalism, and political science. He later joined the tech realm, which led him down the path to cybersecurity.
Philosophy on Storytelling in Cybersecurity:
“Stop thinking that statistics tell your story,”
Storytelling in cybersecurity should go beyond numbers. It's great to have facts but to speak directly to people, you need to tell a story that they understand. This is why Mitch highlights the importance of developing writing skills for cybersecurity professionals.
CyberMindz and Mental Health in Cybersecurity:
The conversation shifts some gears as the hosts and Mitch focus on the introduction to CyberMindz.org and its focus on the mental health of cybersecurity workers. CyberMindz identified 15 factors that contribute to stress for those working in cyber. Mitch also discusses coping mechanisms, including journaling, breathwork, and meditation.
Get to know Mitch:
Bio: 𝗜’𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀. For the better part of the last decade, I worked directly inside a cyber services organization—not at a distance in a marketing team—alongside hackers, incident responders, and threat intelligence officers. That granted me a level of deep expertise often not accomplished by sitting in a marketing organization alone. I know first-hand what cyber services teams do, how they do it, and why they do it—because I’ve done it, too. That, in turn, allows me to tell their stories in a way clients not only understand but want to hear.
You can catch Mitch on LinkedIn
Follow our lovely hosts on LinkedIn:
Gianna Whitver
Maria Velasquez
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, or on our podcast LinkedIn page, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Cybersecurity Marketing Leader and Former Security Researcher, Corin Imai, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the individual contributor vs. head of marketing and influencer marketing relationships.
Corin has been both head of marketing and an individual contributor (IC) throughout her career thus far. She initially joined Tromzo as an IC when the company was very young. From the time Corin joined, she was wearing lots of hats and constantly learning about different facets of marketing. She has found that being head of marketing usually does mean wearing a lot of hats, and that being an IC is her true passion.
The pandemic showcased that the traditional marketing methods were just not working as well as they could be. Corin believes we need to get away from the coldness we treat relationships with if we want an organization to be a true partner to us. Her passion is aligned with how to influence that decision from top to bottom.
Corin shares the successful approaches she has seen recently by organizations taking a softer approach to cybersecurity influencing. She believes that the fundamental shift in how we function as vendors will change how we are thinking about content as an industry. Organizations like the Information Security Content Creators Guild, Cybersecurity Marketing Society, and Indoor Labs are at the forefront of implementing fundamental changes. Building these influencer relationships takes time, advocacy, patience, and faith.
Corin shares that it would be wildly beneficial for marketing teams to allow for times of reflection in the midst of our busy schedules and long to-do lists. She also shares tips for finding successful influencer partnerships. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Corin would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Learn more about Corin Imai.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Dean Pe'er, Head of Product Marketing at Entitle, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss his viral meme.
Several months ago, Dean posted a meme on LinkedIn about admin privileges, which promptly went viral. Within four days of the meme being posted, it had acquired over 130,000 reactions, 4,000 LinkedIn page visitors, and two demo requests. The meme was created around the time that King Charles was coronated, so the content was timely. It contains a picture of King Charles in full coronation regalia, and the text reads, “When IT finally approved the admin privileges you asked for 30 years ago.” [view the posted meme here]
During the podcast, Dean shares how he arrived at the idea for the meme. He realized how big of a deal the coronation was for so many people and decided it was an opportunity to do something that might resonate with people in the security industry. It took him about 25 minutes to find the picture, write the copy, and publish the post on social media. Dean discussed the fact that many companies may not allow an employee to post something so impulsively because they feel it is not brand-safe or consistent with their corporate voice. This, Dean identifies, is the largest gap between small startups and large enterprises. At Entitle, he did not encounter any hurdles, politics, opinions, or red tape regarding social media posts, and has been fully supported by the executive team at the early-stage startup.
Dean shares advice for podcast listeners looking to get into the meme game. To make impactful memes, you should first find a topic that many people can relate to. If it’s too “salesy” or overtly focused on your own product or brand, it will likely not resonate with people outside of your organization. Timeliness is also important, as exemplified by Dean taking advantage of the major event of the coronation in his own work. Marketers won’t want to miss this episode, as Dean also sheds light on the best platforms for posting memes if you’re part of a small-scale startup like Entitle. Shifting gears, Dean explains his role of solo-marketer at the company. He finds that not having a team is challenging, but can also be rewarding. His challenges have been lessened by finding the best independent contractors within Israel’s small network. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Dean would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Learn more about Dean Pe'er.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Andy Tzortzinis, product positioning and messaging mentor, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss product marketing.
Andy’s introduction to cybersecurity was several years ago as the Director of Marketing for a small startup where he wore many hats. From this experience, he gained firsthand knowledge of how everything connected within the startup and was able to transfer that generalist skillset into other roles. He began to notice that product marketers were highly coveted and often retained within organizations despite regular layoffs of other marketing roles.
Since he moved into the industry, Andy has become passionate about helping his fellow marketing professionals transition into roles that may be a better fit for their particular skills. Andy also shares about his journey from the roles of communication and director of marketing to becoming a product marketer. He found that the most difficult part of the interview process was convincing the interviewers that he was worth the risk because his experience as a generalist didn’t instantly translate into a product marketing fit (at least, not on paper). Andy unpacks the many different positions within the product marketing field. Recent cutbacks are causing those who remain to take on more responsibilities than ever before, so product marketing is becoming an increasingly more generalized role.
Andy also shares a “hot take” that startups don’t need a marketing program, they first need a solid comms program. It takes a good comms program to build trust for your startup. If you can do that successfully, you can then bring a marketing person in to further develop the existing pipeline. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Andy would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Andy is open to chatting with people 1:1 about pivoting to PMM roles, you can reach out to him either on LinkedIn.
You can also catch up with our hosts here:
Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
After about 90 podcast episodes published on Breaking Through In Cybersecurity Marketing, we are walking down memory lane with our very first episode ever!
Gianna and Maria are joined by self-proclaimed “accidental CMO,” Tyler Shields, Vice President of Product Marketing at Traceable. Tyler shares his three-step approach for building marketing programs at startups, establishing company culture remotely, setting realistic expectations with internal stakeholders when building community at companies, and why your company needs a “talking head.” Lastly, Tyler spills the beans on the true mastermind behind his Yeti swag and the marketing models and platforms he’s engaging in.
Key takeaways:
00:40 Bio
02:10 Tyler’s 3 step Approach for startup marketing
06:39 Remote working - communication is key!
09:54 Trust building and authentic leadership
11:06 Establishing company culture remotely
13:43 Accountability and teamwork
15:35 What’s in store for JupiterOne in 2022?!
18:18 Building community - foundation first
22:54 Setting realistic expectations
24:28 Spokespeople and “talking heads”
27:03 Favorite swag and the true Yeti mastermind
31:35 Product-led growth and establishing value
34:10 Social media, podcasting, and modern marketing models
35:41 Platforms - YouTube, Shopify, Slack, and the whole gambit!
39:01 Stay in touch with Tyler
Stay in touch with Tyler on Twitter and LinkedIn
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website.
We are on hiatus after CyberMarketingCon and the holiday season. We will be back with everything fresh in January. Happy holidays everyone!
CyberMarketingCon2023 has wrapped, and we are so grateful for the support we received from our speakers, sponsors, volunteers, and attendees. The week was jam-packed with networking and education, from demand gen and AI to CISO perspectives and vendor solutions. Stay tuned for more conference content from our podcast, website, and social media channels.
In this episode replay, we are joined by the Founder and CEO of Audience 1st, Dani Woolf, who was also a speaker at CyberMarketingCon this year.
In this episode, Dani discusses her core marketing values:
- Empathy
- Trust
- Loyalty
Creating meaningful, customer-centric experiences and identifying customer challenges and buying motivations while also being able to ask the right questions can transform your marketing efforts. Dani also shares the story behind the uncomfortable encounter that sparked a great friendship with a cybersecurity practitioner.
More on our guest, Dani:
Dani Woolf is a swimmer turned marketer. She has been applying lessons learned as a distance freestyler to B2B organizational success for the past 10 years. Dani's core specialty is in digital marketing, focusing on net new customer acquisition via digital channels - website optimization, SEO, SEM, social media, conversion rate optimization, and marketing automation. Dani currently serves as the Founder and CEO of Audience 1st.
Get the book Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into Your Customer's Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business by Adele Revella at Amazon or the bookstore of your choice!
Stay in touch with Dani Woolf on LinkedIn and Twitter
Keep up with our hosts on their social media channels:
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Chat with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or LinkedIn, and learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website.
Layoffs are always stressful. You can never truly be ready for it, but you have to pick up the pieces after it happens. During our podcast hiatus for CyberMarketingCon2023, we are replaying the “Life After Layoff With Amy Fair” episode. Our hosts Gianna and Maria sit down with guest Amy Fair, Content Marketing Manager to discuss being laid off and how to navigate it in stride.
Gianna and Maria ask Amy about her own experiences being laid off as they approach the rarely-discussed but important topic. Amy dives into what it means to be laid off in the cybersecurity content marketing industry and how she has turned layoffs into new opportunities within weeks. In their conversation, Maria, Gianna, and Amy highlight the importance of networking and community, and how crucial it is to maintain lasting relationships in the content marketing industry. Amy shares how these connections can lead to amazing opportunities.
Timecoded Guide:
[8:50] The value of building a network and maintaining a community
[17:29] Using Slack in job hunting and making connections
[23:21] The value of mentors and keeping people in your corner
[25:48] Advice for those anticipating a layoff
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Amy Fair on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Social media gives us different ways to market, from influencers to gifs, or videos. You can use whatever is at your disposal to boost your company’s social media marketing strategies. In this replay session from CyberMarketingCon2022 speaker Cait Hassett, Channel Manager at Blackpoint Cyber, will give you all that and more. She discusses various aspects of social media, influencer marketing, and cybersecurity. Cait also shares her journey transitioning from consumer-focused marketing to B2B strategies at Keeper Security.
Video is also incredibly significant, the power of video in marketing and the challenges of brand awareness versus category awareness in promoting a password manager within the broader cybersecurity industry. Benchmarks are important, especially in creating regular content, like as memes, employee recognition, partnerships, and cyber news updates. These benchmarks help establish consistent content themes, making the brand recognizable and reliable.
Another big part of the session focuses on the creation of a "Cyber News Update," a video series covering cybersecurity-related topics beyond passwords. Cait shares insights into scripting, utilizing company ambassadors, and maintaining a standardized format to produce these updates efficiently. She also highlights the launch of "Keeper Live" on LinkedIn Live, which aims to bring Keeper Security into broader cybersecurity conversations. From the planning process, and the selection of influential guests, to the efforts made to template scripts for comfort and consistency.
By the end of the session, Cait emphasizes finding ambassadors within the organization, creating templates for content creation, and leveraging influential figures to engage audiences effectively. The emphasis is on using different platforms, video formats, and influencer marketing to broaden Keeper Security's reach within the cybersecurity space.
CyberMarketingcon2023 countdown is officially starting and we are so excited to see everyone virtually or in person so make sure you get that ticket. More on #CyberMarketingCon2023 here, see you in Texas! 🤠
More about Cait:
Cait Hassett is a brand marketing professional with nearly a decade of experience in social media and influencer marketing. She got her start as a radio DJ after winning her job in an “American Idol” type contest and creating her on-air and social media persona to grow a community of engaged listeners in the South Georgia/North Florida Market. Soon, she was running the social media accounts for every major station in the area and consulting with other DJs on social media personal branding.
Since then, she has worked on social media and influencer marketing campaigns in-house and in agency settings, most recently creating these programs from the ground up at Keeper Security, a cybersecurity and password management platform with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Cait avidly believes that video is the most powerful marketing tool an organization or person can use.
Follow Cait Hassett on LinkedIn.
Be sure to follow our hosts on LinkedIn:
Say hi to Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
If you are looking for a community of support within cybersecurity, join our private Slack group, the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter as well!
In this episode, Charles Gold, Chief Marketing Officer at ThreatConnect, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss why CMOs fail or succeed.
To begin, Charles shares his background in running global marketing organizations. He even started a technology company during the dot-com boom time period.
Then the group discusses a ton of CMO topics, including how CMOs fail and succeed at the role, and how Charles conducted 30 interviews (!!!) to land the company a superstar employee.
Charles' best advice for marketers in security?
"If you can understand what the product does and how people use it, that will help you communicate with engineers and have credibility with customers. If you don't have this understanding, it’s really limiting."
Links:
Learn more about Charles Gold.
More on Gold's Rules
Check out the Washington Post that Charles mentions here.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
When you think humor, comedy, LOL, or even LMFAO if you are fancy, cybersecurity isn't typically the first thing that comes to mind. But who says talking about ROI, demand gen, and marketing has to be boring? Humor exists in everything, and with so much access to ridiculousness (memes, reaction videos, reviews, or TikTok hot takes), anything can be made funny.
Which is why we are replaying: It's Okay to Be Funny - Even in Marketing, from CyberMarketingCon2021. A session by comedic wizard Tricia Howard, a.k.a. Tricia Kicks SaaS, Senior Technical Writer at Akamai Technologies. The session focuses on how to infuse humor into cybersecurity marketing. Tricia uses her background as a theater major and stand-up comedian turned marketer, diving into various joke formats, and emphasizing the importance of understanding the cybersecurity community.
Key points that Trisha discusses:
➡️ "Pun-liners" – a fusion of puns and one-liners.
➡️ Anatomy of a Joke, and Rule of Three – breaks the joke down into subject, setup, and punchline.
➡️ The popularity of memes in social media marketing and the need for quick turnaround due to meme time sensitivity.
➡️ Creativity and Adaptation – creativity in content creation and the adaptive repurposing of content across different platforms.
➡️ Legal Considerations – the importance of giving credit for borrowed content and being mindful of copyright issues.
➡️ ROI Measurement – Social media metrics, like impressions and engagement rates, are important for measuring the success of humorous content in marketing.
More great sessions at #CyberMarketingCon2023 here, see you in Texas! 🤠
Follow Tricia Kicks SaaS on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Amy Stokes Waters, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Esc, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss cybersecurity escape rooms and marketing.
Amy starts off today’s episode by explaining how marketing teams use Esc for team building activities and they are given different scenarios with clues where they have to get the data back. They also have some phishing exercises where participants can have a video call with an AI bot. This is not only fun, but also teaches you more about the dangers of cybersecurity mistakes! Right now, Esc is only available for hire in the United Kingdom since this company has been rebranding, but they are discussing the idea of expanding. Amy started in sales and has been in the industry for a long time. She remembers going to a Reframe women’s technology conference in England and in one session, the speaker said, “Don't just do cool stuff, but actually tell people you are doing cool stuff.” This discussion changed her whole outlook and trajected her into the marketing realm. They talk about the importance of investing in yourself to grow professionally.
Next, Amy discusses the challenges in marketing including branding. If the branding looks nice, it is so much easier to sell the product, and the company looks more professional and established. The other challenge is how to be different and to not have the same cookie cutter messaging. Amy says if people don't know what service you are selling, then how will they ever buy it? You need to make it as easy as humanly possible to buy from you. Personality is also a critical aspect for being successful, and there needs to be faces associated with the brand as well. Marketing makes the brand, but the sales team has to be the people vocalizing that. Both marketing and sales have to work as one and need to align with each other. They also discuss their favorite words in marketing and how to push the envelope in the field. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Amy would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Learn more about Amy Stokes Waters.
Keep up with Hacker Valley onour website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Competitive intelligence programs can be reactionary and one-dimensional due to squeaky-wheel syndrome and we-just-lost-a-deal-to-so-and-so-itis.
Learn from Alex Babar, Vice President of Solutions at Brinqa about 3 categories of competitive intel every marketer in cybersecurity should know about: Marketing, Business, and Technical. Additionally, learn which categories marketers are particularly well-suited to leading and which ones make better sense to collaborate on with other teams like product, customer success, or sales engineers.
In this session:
- Cut through the competitive noise in cyber security!
- Learn the right teams for the proper competitive responsibilities!
- 3 simple but powerful competitive analysis frameworks!
We have approximately 33 days until #CyberMarketingCon2023, held December 10-13! We can’t help but reminisce and replay some of the amazing sessions from previous conferences. This week’s episode is from CyberMarketingCon2022, with a session by Alex Babar, Vice President of Solutions at Brinqa. If you enjoy this session, you will enjoy this year’s lineup filled with education, the best speakers, hands-on workshops, and networking, networking, AND MORE networking!
More on #CyberMarketingCon2023 here, see you in Texas! 🤠
Be sure to watch a video version of this session here.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
On this week’s very special Halloween episode, listenas the hosts embark on a journey beyond the seven seas, a thrilling match filled with spooky stories and of course, lighthearted banter (one can’t help but laugh even in fear)... Sink your fangs into this week's Halloween-themed episode.
On this adventure, Gianna is joined by hosts from That Tech Pod (https://thattechpod.com/): Laura Milstein, aka (at least on this Halloween episode) “the bread,” and Kevin Albert, wearing a just iconic Bob Ross costume. Apparently, there’s a Bob Ross movie starring Owen Wilson? From our research, it is NOT a Bob Ross Biopic…
The first segment dives into a genuinely chilling cybersecurity tale – a ransomware attack on a hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany. This sinister event led to the unfortunate death of a patient as an ambulance had to be rerouted. The hosts discuss the attack in-depth, shedding light on the hospital's security vulnerabilities and how the hackers demanded a ransom, only to target the hospital instead of a university. The aftermath left the hospital's IT systems encrypted for two weeks, causing significant disruptions in patient care. The police investigation treated the incident as a homicide, emphasizing the gravity of the consequences.
The hosts also discuss the infamous Bangladesh Central Bank robbery, a cyber heist that occurred in February 2016. The hackers launched a spear-phishing attack to gain access to the bank's network, resulting in the transfer of a staggering $1 billion. However, only $18 million was recovered. The hosts break down the story's humorous elements, like the misspelled instructions and the interesting timing of the cyber heist… which overlapped with a holiday.
The conversation also goes into explaining the role of the SWIFT network and dives into the casino money laundering operation in the Philippines. To add an intriguing twist to the narrative, they reveal that a bank manager was arrested and sentenced to 56 years in prison for their involvement.
As the episode ends, we close it with our favorite game of guessing alternate jobs, including Kevin managing a farm and running a cricket shop, Laura becoming the underground ringleader of a high-end casino, and Gianna's passion for iceberg lettuce.
Timestamps for the stories:
04:40 - 09:29 (Death caused by Ransomware)
10:03 - 24:00 (Bank robbery)
26: 06 - 31:30 (LinkedIn hack)
31:45 - 37:30 (Baby dies because of Ransomware)
From spiders to skulls and everything in between. Beware and be scared…Happy Halloween!
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
About ThatTechPod & the Hosts
Learn more about ThatTechPod here: https://thattechpod.com/
Laura Milstein is a global eDiscovery and cybersecurity specialist. She has a wide range of experience in the tech space with a main focus on cybersecurity and litigation support in areas such as incident response, vulnerability and patch management, pen testing, data processing, forensic collections, data storage, and artificial intelligence. Laura loves diving deep into conversations and expanding her tech knowledge on That Tech Pod.
Follow Laura on LinkedIn
Kevin Albert is a technology executive with 23 years of experience combining a unique blend of technical expertise, business management, and customer service. His experience includes leading technical teams across a wide variety of environments, spanning large and small consulting companies—including two of the “Big 4”—litigation support vendors, government contractors, and start-ups. Throughout his career, Kevin has conducted forensic acquisitions of all forms of digital evidence and performed data analysis for hundreds of projects in the U.S. and globally. He has managed large-scale investigations, including client-site forensic collection, data processing, hosting, review management, and production. Kevin is currently the Director of Technical Services of Casepoint, a software company specializing in eDiscovery, investigations, data privacy & compliance.
Follow Kevin on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Since #CyberMarketingCon2023 is coming on December 10th through 13th. We can’t help but replay some of our sessions from previous conferences. This week’s episode is from CyberMarketingCon2022. If you enjoy this session, you will enjoy this year’s lineup filled with education, the best speakers, hands-on workshops, networking, networking, AND MORE networking!
We cannot wait to see you. Enjoy this episode and be sure to get your ticket by clicking ➡️➡️➡️here!
The From the Horse's Mouth: CISO Q&A session is an in-depth conversation about reaching the unreachable buyer. Join us to hear security executives share their insights on why they buy, how they buy, and where they buy.
The speakers are:
Michele Perry, Operating Partner at Elsewhere Partners
Rick Howard, Chief Security Officer, Chief Analyst, and Senior Fellow at N2K Networks
Jaclyn Miller, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer(COO) at Stealth Startup
Ted Wagner, VP and CISO at SAP National Security Services
In this session you will find:
1️⃣ What works and doesn’t work in getting a security executive’s attention?
2️⃣ Message trust, message fatigue, and what you can do about it.
3️⃣ Trusted information sources and how security executives use them.
4️⃣ Positioning and messaging that is meaningful to decision-makers.
5️⃣ The security executive’s purchasing behavior and why skepticism is the driving force.
The speakers will talk more in-depth about the day in the life of a CISO, and how you can balance innovation and platform suites when considering products/services. From how do you develop trust with your vendors or potential vendors, the boundaries around when to how to contact a vendor and what is the acceptable amount of time for a call back from a potential vendor. The panelists also dive into who are the evangelists that people listen to and how a company can create their own evangelists.
By the end, the host opened the floor for audience questions:
How big is it a disadvantage to require an email/gate to download content?
Any advice you have for vendor websites?
How involved would you be in a customer advisory board or executive retreat?
Why do you not give survey data much merit (to Rick)?
Do you have a preference for virtual or live events?
More on #CyberMarketingCon2023 here, see you in Texas! 🤠
Be sure to watch a video version of this session here.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Joseph Barringhaus, Director of Demand Generation at Sonrai Security, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss all things demand gen.
Sonrai Security is a cloud security startup that focuses on identity, access, and permission in the cloud. To begin, Joseph shares that he has been in the world of cybersecurity and cloud for some time. The ability to build things from the ground up is what he has loved most about working at startups. Then, he explains his current role as Director of Demand Gen at Sonrai. He is responsible for creating awareness for the company’s products first and foremost, while also making sure that awareness is brought into the pipeline. Thanks to Sonrai’s close relationship with their sales team, Joseph is able to work closely with the entire funnel all the way through the customer journey. His strategy focuses on content syndication and later-stage funnel indicators. He clarifies that he is not in favor of un-gating everything. On the flip side, when things do come out that promote the company, like an e-book, Sonrai will typically un-gate the content to encourage more people to read it. More often than not, Joseph is an advocate for un-gating the things that he and his team put lots of time and effort into.
Then, Joseph unpacks MQL and demand gen. Sharing his perspective on brand awareness, Joseph stresses the importance of finding your market audience and the appropriate balance for your specific company. There is real value in knowing where someone remembers you from, which of your marketing strategies did and didn’t work, and how many touches it took for a customer to recognize the brand. Before wrapping up, Joseph shares his best advice for making time in the week for product knowledge and learning. In addition to keeping a detailed calendar, Joseph maintains a close relationship with the sales team to hear about what the market is saying through the team. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Joseph would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Learn more about Joseph Barringhaus.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
The time for #CyberMarketingCon2023 is fast approaching and we hope to see you in Austin in December. So mark those calendars and get your tickets, the conference will be from December 10th through 13th. It's filled with education, the best speakers, hands-on workshops, networking, networking, AND MORE networking.
Maria and Gianna cannot wait to see you. Enjoy this episode and be sure to get your ticket by clicking ➡️➡️➡️here!
In this session, the focus was on understanding the dynamics of channel partner relationships in the cybersecurity industry. The two speakers, Amanda McLaughlin, Director of Mid-Atlantic Marketing at GuidePoint Security (Former Marketing Manager for GuidePoint Security), and David Brown, Head of Global Alliance and Partner Marketing at ReversingLabs (Former Director, Global Partner Marketing at ZEROFOX) are on a mission to educate and dispel misconceptions about VAR (Value-Added Reseller) and vendor relationships while also providing valuable tips and tricks on how to establish and maintain healthy VAR and vendor relationships.
Here are the key points covered:
- Promoting a better understanding of VAR and vendor relationships. Also highlighting their significance in the context of the cybersecurity industry.
- An in-depth explanation of what a VAR is: “entities that offer not only products but also their expertise and services in conjunction with solutions provided by solution providers.” The speakers used GuidePoint Security as an example as it is a cybersecurity VAR offering its services and expertise to clients.
- Addressing Misunderstandings: Amanda and David acknowledged that VAR and reseller relationships can be misunderstood, which is something similar to the classic sales and marketing relationship. But they also highlight how important it is to clear misunderstandings to establish effective partnerships.
- To close the session the speakers also went into what a successful vendor looks like to a VAR. The key metrics for success and some tips if you feel like your reseller relationship is not working? They also opened the floor for some questions!
More on #CyberMarketingCon2023 here, see you in Texas! 🤠
Be sure to watch a video version of this session here
Follow Amanda on LinkedIn.
Check out David on LinkedIn.
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Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Geordie Carswell, CMO at ActualTech Media joins Maria and Gianna to talk about the stuff no marketer wants to talk about right now: lead generation and content syndication! Can lead generation be a successful part of a demand generation strategy? Is there a right way to use content syndication for a cybersecurity audience? What are the strategies - and company qualities - needed to make these successful? Listen to find out!
The guest and hosts use their demand gen backgrounds to jam on webinars, content, and other forms of creating engagement with cybersecurity audiences:
- The relevance of different webinar topics
- Considering whether to go broad or niche based on specific goals.
- The importance of personalization and alignment in lead-generation efforts
Plus…learn a little something about grocery store marketing 🤭
Listen for shop talk and laughs on today’s episode, and make sure to check out ActualTech Media!
About ActualTech Media:
Lead generation in cybersecurity can be costly and finding an affordable webinar provider who can cover all your needs like one-of-a-kind post-event reporting, recordings, and analytics can be difficult. This is why our friends, one of our sponsors for #CyberMarketingCon2023, ActualTech Media might just be a perfect fit for your webinar needs! ActualTech has low CPL costs that will help you generate QUALITY cybersecurity buyer leads and sales opportunity pipeline😁!
Links:
Learn more about ActualTech Media here: https://www.actualtechmedia.com/cms/
Follow Geordie on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Hope to see you at CyberMarketingCon this year!
In this episode, Jake Milstein, CRO, and CMO at Critical Insight, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss his unique perspective on serving underrepresented cybersecurity markets, the importance of establishing trust and personal connection with clients, and more.
To begin, Jake shares what makes his job different now that he has the additional role of CRO. One of his favorite parts about his unique perspective is that he can see operations through every step of the way, from the funnel and down the line to customer experience. His responsibilities include marketing, sales, and customer success. He finds that the best CMOs he knows are those who get involved in customer conversations and have a clear understanding of their product market fit. Jake spent 20 years in the journalism field of TV news broadcasting. He believes that where journalism and cybersecurity overlap is in their efforts to give people the facts to help them make educated decisions.
Next, Jake shares how Critical Insight came to focus specifically on the underserved cyber markets thanks to the experience of the company’s co-founders. They provide consulting services to help clients prepare for an attack, soft services to help detect an attack quickly, and the tools to respond decisively when an attack does happen. Hospitals in rural areas, for example, want a provider whom they can trust and have a personal relationship with. A major part of Critical Insight’s marketing strategy is showing up to conferences and events in these rural areas and following up with the people they meet there.
Then, Jake sheds light on how the company was able to scale at the rate it did by establishing personal connections and authenticity with the people it serves. He has found that showing up automatically makes you memorable by default. Any time a major national event occurs, Critical Insight hosts an urgent panel webinar in which they present the facts and then have a panel of experts discuss the topic. Before wrapping up, Jake and our hosts discuss the challenge of incorporating humor into cybersecurity. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Jake would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Jake on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Mandeep Khera, CMO of SecureAuth, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the market and economy, changing responsibilities for CMOs, and the role of brand awareness from his perspective.
To begin, Mandeep shares the story of his role as CMO. His career began in finance before shifting to marketing and then cybersecurity. He recognized that the cybersecurity industry was here to stay and decided to devote his career to the field. His security work in the areas of email, application, network, and cloud led him to the authentication space where he is today. He highlights that we are going through a period of headwinds in the industry, but that it isn’t all doom and gloom. It is a matter of being patient, sticking with it, and continuing to do the right things. He predicts that in 6-9 months, the economy will start bouncing back. With that, he shares the pivots that he believes cybersecurity professionals should be taking to accommodate these budget changes while keeping their team focused and happy. This means eliminating things that don’t matter and increasing focus on the most critical areas.
Next, he offers his perspective on brand awareness, which is best done by thought leadership. He believes that brand awareness should be tied into different campaigns to be the most effective. On the other hand, the role of the CMO has become more challenging than ever. Most important, Mandeep reveals, is making sure you as the CMO are in tune with your CEO, CRO, CCO, and CFO. Another important mindset for CMOs right now is to be more quality and quantity-driven, focusing on ROI and thinking and acting out of the box to stand out. One of his main focuses right now is how to improve the website conversion rate. On the subject of edgy campaigns, Mandeep shares a few of his favorite campaigns he has worked on in his career. As a CMO, one of your responsibilities is to encourage your team to be bold in their risk-taking. All ideas are good ideas until ideas start to be filtered, and everyone can come up with a clever idea. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Mandeep would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Mandeep on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Terra Cooke, Cybersecurity Governance and Risk Compliance Manager at Boom Supersonic. She is also a huge advocate for black women in tech.
To begin, Terra shares that she has been in the cybersecurity field for 15 years. She shares how she got interested in the cybersecurity field as a young person in the dial-up days. From a very early age, she knew she wanted to be in tech. Her background is in network security and she earned a very early cybersecurity degree at college. Her first job out of college was as a Information Systems Security Engineer at the NSA. In 2014, she was offered an auditing position elsewhere, where she stayed for several years. One of her favorite things about auditing is seeing people experience their own “aha moments”. Then, Tara gives listeners an idea of what a typical day for her looks like. As a GRC, she is often wearing many different hats throughout the day.
Then, Terra shares that she refers to herself as a “magical girl” because she is always able to execute the tasks she is faced with. Within the boundaries around her, she does whatever it takes to execute a vision. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses and Terra’s happens to be executing. She loves to collect data to assist her in this execution. She is also inspired by the Black Girl Magic movement several years ago. Then, she normalized the idea of setting professional boundaries. One of the most important things for GRC professionals to avoid while evaluating vendors is to buy tools simply for the sake of buying them, and ending up with poor implementations. Next, she shares her own process for looking at new vendors. Before wrapping up, she identifies the needs within the cybersecurity industry. Simply put, we should all be treating each other as humans with mutual respect when speaking with vendors. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Terra would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Terra on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, David Ebner, Founder of Content Workshop, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the future of writing.
To begin, David offers his own thoughts on ChatGBT. Like any new form of technology, it is understandable that the initial launch of ChatGBT was met with hesitation. Simply put, ChatGBT is a language processing tool that works on probability. Davis sees it more as a muse than a replacement for genuine writing. Content Workshop, he explains, is a storytelling agency helping brands tell their stories to drive new business and leverage their goals. It has not been possible for them to leverage AI to help with their writing simply because AI is not able to convey empathy. Next, hear what storytelling means to David. What really makes storytelling a work of art is its ability to inspire connection and bring an audience to a place they were not at prior to reading the content. Every piece of content should entertain, elevate, and engage their audience in this exact order.
Shifting gears, David explains how engaging people makes for a loyal audience, and loyal audiences will think about your brand and look towards you for answers in times of need. It is so crucial to make content entertaining so that it doesn’t feel like a chore for audiences to read. Content workshop takes a unique approach in which they aim to embody the life of the individual, rather than the brand. What problem led them to the brand initially? How is the person's life better now that they have discovered the brand? A brand is not a color or logo, but rather what lives in the hearts and minds of the viewer. From a tone point of view, it’s important to have a brand identity and voice first. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career David would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow David on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Sean Mattson, Head of Digital Strategy and Operations at Checkpoint Technologies, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss conversion rates and personalization.
To begin, Sean discusses his role at Checkpoint as the management of all digital channels including websites, outbound, marketing automation, digital intelligence, globalization, and SEOs. He has been doing marketing for 20+ years and has 15 people on his current team. Since the team is so small, they use tools like Marketo to help automate tasks. Sean built everything from the ground up in this company and Checkpoint was known as the firewall creator. They needed to work on SEOs and after two years of brand awareness, the traffic on their website went up by 700%. They cross linked all the pages on their own website. They also talk about how the quality over the quantity matters, and how to create leads that can be marketed. Checkpoint does progressive profiling and uses third party data services to do backend form enrichment. This created a 60% lift for Marketo landing page, but Sean asked, “why wait till I’m walking away before you show me any content?”
Then, Sean discusses how Checkpoint uses Hushly for self-nurturing landing pages that has been a game-changer for the company. Hushly sets a preview of the content as the landing page itself, so they are presented with content and value first. Then, the audience can decide whether you like it first. It is in a single field form, and you can set as many pages as you want. There is also a column on the side with alternate content if you don’t like the first page. Hushly provides the service, but Checkpoint also uses clear bit forms and zoom info forms. This is enriched in real time and there is a 25% conversion rate across the whole library. In addition, Checkpoint Technologies is rolling out resource hubs for geo sites in 11 languages and this will expand their reach. They are also using Smartling AI. Translating a website is easy, but the whole cycle is difficult to keep consistent and managed. Hushly will help translate all the PDFs and assets as well. There is a fine line between personalization and stock authorization; you need to personalize it without making it extremely obvious. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Sean would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Sean on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, the hosts are joined by Deidre Frith, the Director of Marketing at Real Time IT. With over 15 years of experience in marketing, Deidre is a one-stop shop for all things creative, social media, graphic design, and PR. She is known for her innovative and humorous marketing campaigns that have garnered attention and success for her company.
The episode opens with a discussion of the success of the funny commercial campaign that Deidre created for her company, as well as her approach to cybersecurity marketing.
Deidre also shares insights into the idea and execution behind the campaign, and the results it has achieved, and emphasizes why word-of-mouth marketing is still so important. She also talks about her team and the challenges of tracking ROI for traditional media.
Lastly, Deidre dives into her cybersecurity awareness initiatives that include a quarterly poster campaign and a dedicated cybersecurity website.
The hosts close this episode with our favorite game where Gianna and Maria guess what Deidre would be doing if she wasn't in marketing. Who wins this time? All bets are on the table!
Links:
Follow Deidre on LinkedIn
Check out Hey Y’all Wraps on LinkedIn
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts, and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Josh Feigenbaum, Marketing Manager at Sentra, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss effective email marketing.
To begin, Josh starts off by sharing how almost everyone in the industry has made the mistake where you have sent an email to the wrong chain or group. He gets his creativity from what people have been complaining about, including marketing, campaigns, sales, or what they wish existed. Josh also says he likes to play against what people expect to see in their inboxes by making his emails not look like every other email. The most creative thing he’s done was sending out a Merry Christmas email with a surprise at the very end. The surprise was that if they responded back with a time, they would give a fake cyber security phone call to get you out of something with your family over the holidays. They actually had two people participate in it! He also says creativity is not just the email itself, but the offer as well. He also likes to include gifs of himself that are new and different with a caption underneath. Josh shares that he will put emojis into the subject line if it adds to the email, but he doesn’t like emojis if they are pointless.
Then, Josh shares how with email marketing, there really is no specific time or day that is best to send out an email. He does say the subject line and content of the email matter more than when you send it. The last time he tried content indication leads, it was not successful but he would try it again. He did warm the lists up with a couple of emails, but they had zero idea what they read. In addition, Josh states it is best to benchmark against yourself with emails. You need to keep improving and the trend lines need to keep going up. They also discuss how companies are not strict enough with emailing only the people affected by that email subject– they do not need to include employees in emails when they opt out of them. They also say not to include people in the email chain list if they haven’t opened an email in the last 90 days. This could affect the sending quality if you don’t have reasonable open rates. Josh also shares how the cybersecurity marketing society is a great tool to use to see what other people say about vendors. He checks the Slack group to check reviews. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Josh would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Josh on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Brian Whipple, a longtime member of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, joins Maria and Gianna to share his impressive knowledge on how to create successful, record-breaking webinars in the cybersecurity industry.
Brian Whipple is a Marketing Manager at Conetrix and Tandem. He highlights how important it is to treat webinars as a valuable product that provides value to the audience - not as simply something you “do” because you have to do it as part of the marketing mix.
Brian talks about the key factors that contribute to the success of their webinars, including:
- Carefully selecting topics
- Having knowledgeable and engaging speakers
- Practice, practice, practice! (Yes, even for webinars)
- And to constantly refine the content
According to Whipple, it's important to focus on positive signals and feedback rather than hard KPIs, while also looking at how making small tweaks to webinar formats can help improve lead generation from these activities. Brian and his team’s approach to webinars has led to significant growth in attendance and positive feedback from their audience.
The episode closes with the ladies going head to head on their favorite game of guessing what the guest might be if they didn't choose their current career path. Someone’s guilty conscience leads them to confess to cheating in the game. Brian also promises to write down what the hosts might say when they first meet him at the CyberMarketingCon2023 in Austin. Also to find Brian online, DO NOT google him as there’s another Brian who is more “Successful and slightly better looking,” Check out our guest Brian Whipple in our links below!
Links:
Follow Brian Whipple on LinkedIn.Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts, and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Derek Weeks, author and CEO of Unfair Mindshare, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss community.
To begin, Derek shares that he has been working in community marketing for many years. He found that many people did not understand what community marketing is or how to succeed. Unfair Mindshare is all about showing CMOs and marketing leaders how to integrate community marketing as part of an overall integrated marketing program in order to elevate their brands and increase customer retention. This is what Derek unpacks in his book, Unfair Mindshare. He describes marketing in 3 orbits: product-led, brand-led, and community-led. While the first two orbits are transactional, the latter is really about collaboration and working together. The biggest red flag that you might be doing the community orbit wrong is if you find yourself talking about yourself often. As a CMO, your primary goal is to promote your company and products, build pipelines and drive revenue. However, Derek explains how CMOs can attract an even larger audience by not talking about themselves but being helpful from the beginning.
Next, Derek outlines how to build the best team for a successful community-building operation. He sees community marketing as another functional area within marketing that is equipped with dedicated staff. This function can be 5-10% of the total marketing budget. However, it requires at least 1,000 hours of work per year in order to make a large enough impact. This means that one person on your team should spend at least 50% of their time focusing on this one area. Your team is responsible for creating either a new community or leading within an existing community. Before wrapping up, Derek offers his best advice to listeners.
Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Derek would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Derek on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Kenneth Ellington, security consultant at Ernst & Young and the founder of Ellington Cyber Academy, joins our hosts to discuss how to foster positive engagement.
Kenneth Ellington is a security consultant at Ernst & Young and the founder of Ellington Cyber Academy and has been in the cybersecurity field for over four years. Ellington talks to Gianna and Maria about his journey into cybersecurity, from starting out as an intern at Publix to becoming a security consultant at Ernst & Young. In the age of social media, he emphasizes the importance of having your own voice and being unique to be able to stand out in the crowd when working on your personal brand.
The years in the industry have taught him the power of networking and being able to build a community that you can always rely on:
"It's not what you know, it's who knows you." - Kenneth Ellington
He also highlights diversity and is especially passionate about advocating for more people of color to get into cybersecurity doing this through his Ellington Cyber Academy. He also offers tips for content creation and personal branding in the cybersecurity industry.
The episode closes with our usual favorite game where Gianna and Maria guess what Kenneth would be doing if he was not in cybersecurity. Who wins? Listen to the episode to find out!
The ladies can be quite competitive, it’s even hilarious as Maria tries and fails to convince Kenneth to join her on her quest to add him to her list of candidates to open a food truck with!
Links:
Follow Kenneth on LinkedIn
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Marc Blackmer, VP of Marketing at Corero Network Security, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss breaking through into marketing, green and red flags in companies and so much more.
Corero Network Security is a leader in real-time with high-performance DDoS defense solutions. Service providers, hosting providers, and digital enterprises rely on Corero’s award-winning technology to eliminate the DDoS threat to their environment through automatic attack detection and mitigation. This industry-leading technology delivers flexible protection that scales to tens of terabits, on-premises and in the cloud, with a dramatically lower cost of ownership than previously possible.
Marc takes us on his journey of how he moved to California after deciding to take a year off from college to pursue music. He was involved in marketing for 10-12 years, Marc said getting the job was easy however, but the actual job wasn’t easy. He wanted to be perfect from the beginning, but you can’t be when you are starting out and still learning.
Marc also tells Maria and Gianna about some red and green flags to look out for when doing interviews with companies. He states that alignment between marketing, sales, and the product team is extremely important in a company.
The leaders in each of these areas need to:
- Communicate,
- Agree on messaging and where the product is going.
- While working together.
He also motivates people to listen to themselves more, when things don’t feel right, they likely aren’t. If companies ask people to do things that are not okay in interviews, then imagine what would it be like working for them.
When looking for green flags in leaders, he advises looking for leaders who are focused, friendly, energetic, and know what they want. Leaders who have a clear and realistic vision. While his advice to marketers is to get to know people, network, and be open to the idea that things that will change. There will be positives that come from change, and you will learn from it.
Links:
Follow Marc Blackmer on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Steve LaChance, Founder and CEO of discernr, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss how to foster positive engagement.
Discernr is a consultancy centered around product market fit for product led growth. They are currently building out some digital tools to make the process even more accessible. The company helps organizations at all stages of their PLG journey. Engagement, Steve explains, is a conversation that organizations of all sizes should be having. He also shares how he deals with burnout in the workplace. All leaders should be aware of the importance of maintaining a positive team dynamic in order to steer their staff away from burnout themselves. To do this, leaders and employees alike should each share their own expectations for their role and projected growth. While burnout typically means the employee is gone for good, disengagement is when an employee tends to stick with the bare minimum.
Then, Steve shares his best tactics to inspire change within his team. Step one is around daily communication of both expectations and outcomes. Listeners are reminded that when employees feel they are just doing tedious work, they tend to build up resentment for the work. Leaders should ensure their employees feel like they matter and that their work is appreciated and useful for someone. Sometimes, an employee’s lack of engagement can also be a result of a lack of career advancement opportunities. If a leader is not providing a path towards learning and knowing how to level up their skillset, the employee will end up providing those things for themselves and will ultimately leave your team. Steve explains that career advancement does not always mean a succession of higher job titles. Many people are much happier as senior analysts or marketers than they would be in a C-suite position. Before wrapping up, our hosts and guest reiterate the necessity of career advancement for employee retention. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Steve would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Steve LaChance on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Shlomi Ashkenazy, Head of Brand at Cybellum, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss how to maximize your branding potential.
To begin, Shlomi defines branding as the core narrative and story your organization wants to tell. This narrative can be uncovered by asking customers key driving questions to determine how their perception grows over time. These questions may include things like How well do you know our company? Who do you see us as? and What do we do? Brand momentum is typically generated from a combination of what you do as a founder and the work of the sales team. Next, Shlomi shares his story of tying brand into a venture capital investment. It all comes down to convincing investors that something big is in store for your idea. Shlomi sees branding as an engineering discipline as if you are building out a product scientifically. It requires less intuition and more customer feedback.
Next, Shlomi speaks to how companies can stand out in such a crowded market like cybersecurity. The first thing to do is try to simplify things as much as possible to help people better understand what you do. Then, try to find a niche and really stick with it. He also shares about the efforts he has made which didn’t work out as planned. As long as you remain agile and can afford to make mistakes, there is always something to be learned when things don’t work out. He also shares his discovery that a CEO is not important for a brand, but rather the CEO is the brand. The best way to know when your company’s story is not working is when the sales team is unhappy. If, after trying it out and it still isn’t sticking, it’s time to change direction. In the first few years of operations, around 30-40% of a brand’s budget should go to marketing. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Shlomi would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Shlomi Ashkenazy on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts, and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Emily Cadwallader, Partner Marketing Manager at Binary Defense, shares her expertise with Gianna and Maria.
Emily first joined Binary Defense as a marketing specialist wearing lots of hats. Once the company found its footing in channel strategy, Emily was able to focus all her efforts on that specific area. Channel marketing differs slightly from more traditional marketing, she explains, because it requires a more strategy-focused approach. When it comes to making things exciting, Emily believes that consistent contact with partners is super important. In terms of being there for marketing and collaboration, your partners can almost serve as an extension of your sales team. Emily and her team at Binary Defense work closely with their partners to ensure they are involved in quarterly training and staying up to date with the latest offerings.
Among Binary Defense’s partners include one tenure, several who are currently onboarding, and both regional and national partners. The first step of their most recent portal revamps was understanding what their ideal partner profile looked like. Next, Emily shares some of the company’s most successful field events. If a partner already has their year of marketing strategy planned out for the year, it can be a great opportunity to tie in with them. Many partners have a cyber-specific day in which they come to evaluate their clients and prospects. Then, she elaborated on centralizing communications and activities and why it is so important for a successful partner program. These come in two forms: centralizing your communications internally and keeping consistent, open communication with your partners.
Emily received the Star Performer Award at Binary for her work as a partner marketer. She unpacks some of the qualities of someone who excels in partner marketing. First and foremost, you need to be a good communicator and have prior experience in the different avenues of marketing. This role can’t be done alone, so the ability to collaborate with others is key. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Jennifer would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Emily Cadwallader on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Christophe Foulon, cybersecurity manager at a Fortune 500 company and Founder of CPF Coaching, joins Maria and Gianna.
To begin, Christophe shares that his idea for CPF Coaching came from the pandemic when many cybersecurity employees moved from in-office to remote work. He noticed they struggled with communication, collaboration, and influence in the new setting. His marketing experience comes into play here as he must convince leaders that cybersecurity is crucial to their business. He would sum up his entire career as the connection between the people and the technical side. In addition, Christophe also hosts the Breaking Into Cybersecurity podcast, which stems from his own experience and challenges of breaking into cybersecurity. He is also the author of two books about cybersecurity.
Next, Christophe unpacks how marketers already have the skills needed to break into the cybersecurity field. These skills include communication, collaboration, influence, and prior knowledge of your industry. Together, all these skills can work together to help the business solve solutions in a different way than those from a purely technical standpoint. Today, Christophe’s clients as a consultant include different lines of business within a large credit card division, each looking to deliver solutions for their different types of clients. His job is to deliver solutions and ensure that their data is protected. Looking towards the future, his following vision is to lead a security program for a mid-large size organization to help influence the development of a great cybersecurity pipeline and help implement planned growth.
Christophe offers his best advice for navigating these tricky waters. Figure out what problems you want to solve, how you can solve them, and what might set you apart from the competition, and then work with leaders to see where they might be in their program and how your solution can help. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Christophe would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Christophe Foulon on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Christophe’s books:
Develop Your Cybersecurity Career Path: How to Break into Cybersecurity at any Level
Hack the Cybersecurity Interview: A complete interview preparation guide for jumpstarting your cybersecurity career
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Ashish Kuthiala, CMO of Traceable AI joins Maria and Gianna.
To begin, Ashish shares his path to his current role. He was raised in several different countries and was able to experience different cultures, countries and schooling systems firsthand. He moved to the U.S. for his studies 25 years ago and now calls the country home. He has since worked in computer science, computer engineering, code writing product development and in various roles on the business side. His introduction to marketing was in product marketing, where he was able to merge his engineering background and his love for connecting people. Traceable is Ashish’s fifth startup, which he came to in the very beginning stages of the launch.
Each company Asish has worked for has taught him value lessons and skills which he has brought on to the next. With the mindset of experimenting a lot, learning from your experiments and reiterating a lot to find out what does and doesn't work, he believes you will be successful in any role. As a leader, it is crucial to build a culture in which employees feel free to experiment and learn from their failures. A key goal of marketing is to build a sales pipeline, which takes time and patience. Each quarter, he and his team look at all of the data to determine where they are on their trajectory.
Next, Ashish unpacks his fundamental approach to marketing. Today, most IT buyers educate themselves before deciding on a software. They already know what problems they want to solve, who can do it best and how much they should be paying for the service. From a marketing perspective, the most critical pieces are to be transparent, trustworthy and know your stakeholders. Employees and customers alike should be passionate about what they are building and eager to talk about it. He also addresses the common privacy concerns that transparency entails. This all comes down to velocity and moving faster than our competitors. Finally, our hosts and guest engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Ashish would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Ashish Kuthiala on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts, and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Jennifer Leggio, CMO at Netography, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the changes she has seen in marketing throughout her career.
To begin, Jennifer shares that she began her career in journalism. In 2000, she decided to make a change and moved to Silicon Valley. She first worked for a small PR agency specializing in cybersecurity for clients. Here, she was able to spin her journalism background into PR. She fell in love with working at startups. Then, Jennifer shares her perspective that comm is separate from marketing before unpacking her perspective of the current market shift. Marketing and the economy come and go in cycles. Throughout her career so far, Jennifer has found that security is very resilient and an always-needed market.
After unpacking how the journey of buyers and marketers has changed, hear what marketers can do to make sure our heads are above water with these changes. Jennifer shares that, sadly, many companies have had to make major cutbacks for their marketing teams, and there will likely be even more to come. Some leaders are making these decisions based on 2008 principles of how marketing is done. Jennifer talks a lot about the importance of doing “outside-in” programs, meaning going where the buyers are. While a sales force is important to build a business, it can’t be the only area companies rely on for growth and scale. Cutting off the resources which are more difficult to track right away will nearly always backfire.
The best communications, Jennifer explains, include industry analysts. This all comes back to go where your buyers are rather than waiting for them to come to you. Getting the right type of content that ties into your values and will move a buyer persona in the right direction requires a strong communication team. Before wrapping up, Jennifer shares her best advice for sales and marketing alignment and tips for marketers who want to become CMOs one day. Finally, they engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Jennifer would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Jennifer Leggio on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
! In this episode, Ashish Malpani, the head of global product marketing for DX, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the journey into cyber security and digital experience for AR programs.
Ashish shares his thoughts on digital experience, how they provide the right tools to maintain good cyber hygiene, and how to improve the cyber security program. They also try to see what the customer experience is like. He goes on and explains how DX team is spread out in different parts, the types of content Ashish sees resonating so well with developers and technical customers. There are things you can do to reach out to the practitioner developer audience but still reach a high level of management in the IT space. Ashish explains that in the space of cyber security, we are either victims of it or itself serving the narrative.
Ashish further explains how he dealt with analyst relation programs in the past, He explains the different analyst firms and their categorization. Foresters spend a lot of the time in research doing analyst experience, which is the experience of your product to cybersecurity analyst within the company. He shares the tips to get the most out of your product analyst. Ashish shares his opinion on the employee-to-analyst ratio and why marketers need to know employee to analyst ratio. Ashish also tells us how many people are at his firm vs. employees. Market studies can be future looking, but it’s a challenge for product marketers to talk about the future and address today's reality. People need to evolve their cyber security programs to address the needs of tomorrow.
Before wrapping up, Ashish is engaged by our hosts in a fun guessing game to reveal what career he would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Follow Ashish Malponi on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Website
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts, and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Gianna and Maria share some powerful insights into cybersecurity marketing society, what they do, and what other cybersecurity marketing societies are doing.
Gianna and Mariana shed more light on the cyber security marketing society. It is the world’s largest community for cybersecurity marketers built by cybersecurity marketers for cybersecurity marketers. The cybersecurity community has created an opportunity to get together for those working hard in cybersecurity. They have provided an all-day marketer launch for people and also did a marketer party which was completely sold out. There were around 800 people on the waitlist. The party felt like a reunion where all marketers were coming together. Mariana and Gianna continue to talk more about the changes in cybersecurity since the previous year. They say that the cybersecurity industry lacks creativity. It is great to see vendors stepping up and thinking outside the box, pushing the envelope to get creative, and having fun doing what they are doing. This year there were a lot fewer outside activities than last year. The vibe overall, from the security perspective, feels normal and big again.
Maria and Gianna also discussed their favorite booths they had seen. There are fully immersive booths with screens on the ceiling above people’s heads. Nowadays, things are moving to screening and lighting. Games are also taking the floor. Multiple people are doing comic superheroes, which is appealing to the audience. Magicians are back, and they are also drawing the crowd. There are so many ways to do things to grab attention. Some other security vendors even use sneakers for everyone to wear. There is also a continuation of the axonious campaign, controlling complexity and more. Even No name security provides rides to go to places around the city. In the marketing community industry, we do not want to lead with fear, uncertainty, and doubt, this industry is stressed enough, and we do not need to add stress from our messaging and marketing perspective. Selling, educating, and helping is a way to market, and the cybersecurity marketing society is here to help you stand out.
Finally, Gianna and Maria conclude with conferences for more cybersecurity marketers where they say cybersecurity marketing will host an annual cyber marketing conference in Texas. Cybersecurity is ready to open opportunities for marketers in cybersecurity, cybersecurity agencies, and more. If you work with cybersecurity customers and have references for all customers who are happy with your services, members can find a free and open vendor directory.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Wesley Belleman, Consulting Engineer at Colossal LLC, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss marketing in the federal government.
Wesley began his career in the military in acquisitions, specifically as a cybersecurity operations officer. Here, he was in charge of multi-million dollar programs, acquiring cybersecurity for the space force, and more. From there, he went into Palo Alto Networks and finally Colossal LLC, a value-added reseller providing services specific to the products they sell. Because he has advertised and marketed products internally as a customer in his previous roles, Wesley has a solid understanding of the challenges marketers face. Since the Department of Defense is the country’s largest employer, there is a ton of internal business that goes on within it overall. Wesley touches on Kraken, a newly released product that the Space Force is currently leveraging for public defense. He worked with a team of engineers and contractors to design, build and deploy the product. It required marketing to get people within the space force on board with implementing the product. Wesley also highlights the various AFCEA events coming up nationwide.
When building Kraken, Wesley also had to build consensus internally to get the product off the ground. He began this process by getting certified on the product and fully understanding it inside out. On that, he leveraged the strength of his colleagues on his team to fulfill different operational roles. The final step was to get to know the customers and what exactly they are looking for. It is crucial to leave your opinions and ideals at the door and understand what the customer wants from a cybersecurity product. He also recommends all founders use the resources and team members they already have. Although it is still growing, Kraken officially launched in 2019. Finally, our guest and hosts engage in a fun guessing game to reveal what career Wesley would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Visit Wesley on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Beth Barach, the Director of Product Marketing at Onapsis, joins the hosts to discuss the intersection of product marketing with product launches, Cabs, and eCabs. With over 20 years of experience in tech, Beth began her career working with channel and technology partner programs, which ultimately led to her pivot into product marketing.
Beth also shares that to execute a successful product launch, it's important to create a plan and synchronize the different teams and departments involved, such as sales, marketing, customer success, and product. getting into the idea of using product launch as an opportunity to educate customers and partners on the value and benefits of the product. Lastly, Beth stressed the importance of using marketing channels to create a buzz and engage the target audience.
The conversation also touches on the importance of getting executive buy-in for a product launch. Beth gave an example of someone on the team who is often overlooked but should be included, the support team. While Maria highlighted that product marketers should aim to think beyond their usual suspects when planning a launch. Finally, Beth provided a story about a manager who was great at recognizing the importance of executive support.
Timecoded guide:
0:02:44
Product Launch at a Billion Dollar Company: People, Process, and Performance
0:04:43
Conversation on Securing Executive Buy-In for Product Launches
0:07:42
Presenting to the Executive Team: A Successful Product Launch Story
0:09:43
Conversation on Applying the RACI Model to Product Launches
0:11:51
Discussion on Detailed Content Planning for Product Launch
0:13:39
Conversation on Adapting to Delays and Roadblocks in Product Launches
0:16:05
Conversation on Empathy, Cabs, and Testimonials in the Cybersecurity Industry
0:18:04
Exploring the Benefits of Customer Advisory Boards for Product Marketers
0:25:21
Conversation Summary: Potential Career Paths for Product Marketer Beth
0:27:38
Interview with Beth Barrack: Exploring the Intersection of Coaching and Entrepreneurship
Links:
Check out Beth on LinkedIn
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Daniella Alpher, VP of Marketing at RevealSecurity joins Maria and Gianna to discuss Israeli vs American cyber marketing.
To begin, Daniella shares that she began her career in film and television as a producer for ABC News. In the early 2000s, tech began threatening the television industry. This inspired her to get a degree in business administration and enter the tech sector, specifically focusing on marketing. Next, Daniella highlights the differences she has noticed working as a marketer in Israel vs. America. 10% of attacks at a national level are directed at Israel, 40% of investments in cybersecurity go to Israeli companies and 16% of cybersecurity vendors are Israeli. Compared to the size and population of Israel tech (specifically cybersecurity) is a huge income-driving sector for the country. In the last 20-30 years, Israel also built a large strength in product and development of cybersecurity products. In more recent years, it has naturally become a hub for cybersecurity marketing.
For most Israeli startups, the sales portion is often based in the U.S. Marketing, however, is often a mix between the two companies. In Daniela’s experience, American marketing tends to have a more long-term philosophy, while Israelis often have a much shorter-term strategy for survival. Israeli marketers are still learning the importance of branding over performance. Most Israeli marketers are focused on selling in the U.S., but it is rare for a U.S.-based company to consider marketing in other countries. Stereotypically, Daniela shares, Israelis tend to come off rude, aggressive, and emotional to American analysts, whereas Americans are the opposite. Then, there are those smaller, technical differences like the use of WhatsApp vs. Slack for digital communication and group messages.
Before wrapping up, Daniela engages alongside our hosts in a fun guessing game to reveal what career she would pursue outside of the cybersecurity marketing field.
Links:
Follow Daniella on Linkedin.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Brandon Hoe joins hosts Gianna and Maria to discuss controversial topics related to cybersecurity marketing. Brandon is the VP of Marketing at Oxeye and has held CMO and head of marketing positions at multiple cybersecurity companies, including SCYTHE, HackEDU, and StrongKey.
Brandon and the hosts also discuss in depth the idea that demand generation as a marketing discipline is the key to success. How while the funnel is still alive, the timelines associated with each step have changed, and the idea that companies often think that bringing on a demand gen wizard will solve all their problems. They concluded that the marketing environment is much more challenging for everyone involved, especially in the cybersecurity world.
Timecoded Guide:
[06:29] Cybersecurity Regulations and Market Trends
[12:17] Advice for Marketers Considering Joining an Israeli Startup at the Seed Stage
[16:30] Balancing Strategy and Volume of Activity in Early-Stage Leadership Positions
[17:59] Demand Generation and Critical Hires
[27:35] Pizza Toppings and Alternative Careers
[33:28] Starting a YouTube Channel and Noodle Shop Business
[34:52] Exploring the Journey of Launching a Product Company
LINKS:
Follow Brandon on LinkedIn
Check out and follow Oxeye on LinkedIn
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Luke Tucker, VP of Marketing at Lightspin, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss building cyber community.
To begin, Luke unpacks his cautious optimism for the current market and shares why startups need to celebrate even the smallest wins. Prior to his current position, Luke held leadership roles in marketing at HackerOne as well as an executive role in the community side. As his very first VP marketing role, he is focused on making the lives of end users and cloud engineers better. Lightspin understands that the most efficient way to secure a cloud is to think like an attacker, then build like a graph. This is how they make their mission, to best support cloud engineers along every stage of their journey, possible.
Community is a popular topic within cybersecurity lately. Luke explains Hackerone’s flywheel model. It is the outliers on the fringes of communities that need to be focused on at all times. Having moderation, best practices, and onboarding experiences early on will help to instill company culture. Luke defines community as people who consistently show up to collaborate together on a common cause. It took a physical location to really collaborate on the platform. Luke recounts what it was like seeing the security team face-to-face with the hacker community. It all began with allowing collaboration as bounty sharing and reward sharing within the platform itself. Thankfully due to some of the early adopters, Hackerone was able to build some momentum As the business began to scale, it became necessary to stay up to date with the CFO. The next step was asking users what they wanted to see next on the platform. The majority of users were there to further their careers, so they were given Hacker 101 and CTF. Luke shares that the majority of these hackers just want to have a safe space to share their discoveries with other people. Another key component of community, and where a mission really accelerates, is to give your community members the stage.
Before wrapping up, Luke encourages listeners to join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society. Finally, he engages in a fun guessing game and reveals what career he would pursue outside of the cybersecurity field.
Links:
Follow Luke on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
This week, Cami Ragano, VP of Marketing at SightGain, joins Maria and Gianna to share her expertise as a marketing leader managing SDRs so that SDRs over-achieve their goals! In fact, Cami’s SDR program has helped SightGain achieve significant increases in:
Demos Booked: ⬆
Demos Complete: ⬆
Pipeline Growth: ⬆
From Washington DC to Australia to London, Cami has led digital demand generation and brand campaigns that touch nearly every corner of the globe. With a focus on start-up cybersecurity SaaS enterprise software, she has built a career around innovative digital marketing campaigns and customer-focused events that drive revenue. Prior to joining SightGain, Cami was a marketing and business development leader at Cybrary, Endgame, Invincea (acquired by Sophos), and Risk Analytics—where she developed go-to-market strategies that disrupted and dominated the cybersecurity industry. Cami graduated from Radford University with a B.S. in Communications specializing in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her wife and three golden doodles in Richmond, VA hiking, exploring, and brewery hopping.
Connect with Cami on LinkedIn.
Visit the SightGain website or the company LinkedIn page.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Hushly CMO James Kessinger joins hosts Gianna and Maria to talk about the "bowtie" funnel and marketing's new(er) role in creating upsell and cross-sell opportunities. They discuss ABM, the unique buyer in cybersecurity, and tying experiences across the digital journey. James also gives them a peek under the hood into how Hushly uses their integrated experience cloud to market to marketers like us, and shares the data that Hushly has aggregated from their platform on ABM for cybersecurity buying.
About James: James Kessinger has been the CMO at Hushly over the past 5 years. He’s expanded his responsibilities and taken on the title of COO with overarching responsibilities for Marketing, Customer Success, Sales, Partnerships, and Revenue Operations. James has built a 20+ year career working at global enterprise technology companies in hardware, software, security, virtualization, SaaS and Cloud. He has held leadership and executive roles across marketing functions such as brand, demand generation, corporate marketing, digital marketing, segment marketing, product marketing, services marketing, along with field and partner marketing where he has led both large marketing organizations and smaller teams.
Connect with James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbkessinger/
Reach out at james [at] hushly.com
Grab the Hushly cybersecurity marketing report, and learn more about how Hushly helps marketers improve demand generation and ABM results: https://www.hushly.com/solution-cybersecurity-marketing/
Learn about the Cybersecurity Marketing Society Party for Marketers at RSAC2023 here: https://cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com/event/party-rsa-2023/
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Tom Kish, Director of Growth Marketing at CardinalOps, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss demand gen and more!
To begin, Tom unpacks the difference between the titles demand gen and growth, both of which he has held at various points in his career. Demand gen is a time-consuming role and requires balancing quick wins with long term strategies. Typically, a marketing team will come in to build some foundational elements before demand gen enters the scene to scale up. Since demand gen is so closely tied to pipeline, it is also easily and quickly measured. Tom shares the benefits of working for organizations who were operating with a tight budget and how he has carried that mindset with him to larger organizations. While the goal of demand gen is to create opportunities and revenue, the process of getting there is still part of demand gen, too. There is no one size fits all when it comes to demand gen. Marketers should be constantly adding new things to their toolbox and know when (and when to!) not apply them.
Next, Tom shares the strategies which he has found most successful in his demand gen roles. They all come back to finding the proper balance among the fundamentals goals of creating demand, identifying demand and capturing demand. A successful framework not only finds the proper balance of these things, but ensures that they all flow together seamlessly while covering all of their bases. Checking your social engagement is also really important. Tom’s team has designated people who manually identify the individuals who regularly interact with their posts. Building off this, he elaborates on the lack of innovation and creativity he often sees in marketing as a result of the rise of automation and data. His most successful marketing campaigns have been those that were totally creative and were not based on previous engagement.
Before wrapping up, Tom reveals his favorite thing about being a member of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society now that he has been a member for two years. Finally, he engages in a fun guessing game and reveals what career he would pursue outside of the cybersecurity field.
Links:
Follow Tom on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Samara Williams, Senior Manager of Security Engineering at New Relic, joins Maria and Gianna to share her insights on building relationships and making strategic partnerships in the cybersecurity industry. She talks about the importance of trust and transparency in building successful partnerships, and how working with vendors and other industry players can help organizations make informed decisions and stay ahead of emerging threats.
Samara also shares her perspective on the role of VARs and how they can serve as an extension of a security team, providing valuable feedback on tools and partnerships. She emphasizes the need for VARs to understand an organization's goals and pain points in order to provide the best possible solutions, and stresses the importance of transparency in the VAR-buyer relationship.
This episode provides valuable insights and practical advice on building successful partnerships and collaborations in the cybersecurity industry. Whether you're a security practitioner, vendor, or partner, Samara's experiences and perspectives can help guide you towards more effective and mutually beneficial relationships
Follow Samara on LinkedInKeep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
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Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode, Gianna and Maria interview Michelle Radlowski, Sr. Director, AMS & EMEA Regional Marketing and ABM at DigiCert, Inc. (former Director of Regional Marketing at Zscaler). Michelle shares her experience of working in the IT tech space for over 15 years, starting in a small startup that got acquired twice and ultimately became part of Dell Software Group, before joining Zscaler as employee 240, and now the company has almost 6,000 employees globally. She explains that field marketing, which she started doing at Zscaler, is not just about planning events but driving campaign execution in-region, focusing on account engagement, and landing campaigns from corporate marketing. Michelle discusses the misconception about field marketing being solely administrative and event planning, and how her role has evolved to encompass much more.
Michelle talks about the importance of aligning with the sales team and building relationships with them to drive business value. She explains that it is essential to understand the sales team's objectives, pain points, accounts, and personas to align marketing plans with them. She also emphasizes the significance of tracking data to measure the success of field marketing programs. Michelle shares her journey of transitioning from being a marketer who focused on lead generation to a marketer who aligned with the sales team's goals of revenue and pipeline creation. Michelle also highlights the significance of partner ecosystems, and she talks about how Zscaler has a large partner ecosystem, including strategic alliance partners, service providers, and system integrators. She emphasizes the need for a strategic approach to partner marketing that involves sales leadership alignment, account mapping, messaging, and training. Michelle concludes that a better-together story with partners that focuses on bettering the customer experience is a powerful message.
Follow Michelle on LinkedIn
The Concert in the Clouds
Michelle’s Non-profit Experience
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Kelsey LaBelle joins hosts Gianna and Maria to talk about marketing soft skills and returning to empathy in the workplace. Kelsey, who is the VP of Marketing at DomainTools, also shares how she works soft skills in her role at the company. Along with the emotional skills, Kelsey goes into creative ways to generate lead pipelines, why you should build trust with an audience, and shares the nuts and bolts of podcast production. Listen in for some deep talk on marketing—and lots of puns!
Timecoded Guide:
[07:28] Wrapping uniqueness and empathy into marketing
[15:26] Building lead pipelines with domain blooms
[32:00] Podcast workflow and process of production
[34:45] Can you be happy at work?
[36:04] Closing with the guessing game
Definitions:
DDoS: DDoS or DDoS’ing stands for ‘denial of service attack.” This is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator attempts to render a network resource unavailable to its users by disrupting the services of a host connected to the network.
SANS: SANS stands for SysAdmin, Audit, Network, and Security and is the world’s largest cybersecurity research and training organization.
DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name System which makes the internet accessible by allowing the use of domain names.
Links:
Spend some time with Kelsey on Mastodon and Twitter @punsandrosess
Follow Kelsey on LinkedIn.
Visit DomainTools on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check out the DomainTools website.
Tune into the Breaking Badness podcast.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Claire Mckenna and Michelle Rawlings join us from BARR Advisory to talk about their roles and how they work with numerous people in the field to bolster their company’s goals. Claire is the senior writer and researcher at BARR while Michelle is the media coordinator. Together, they discuss communicating with SMEs, connecting experts in the field, and how they get everyone in their company involved with outreach through a curated media program.
Timecoded Guide:
[06:09] Incentivizing SMEs and finding content
[10:46] The Media BARR Program
[14:12] Choosing content for the program
[18:43] Challenges met with the BARR program
[23:45] ROI on the Media BARR Program
Links:
Follow Claire on LinkedIn.
Spend some time with Michelle on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Visit BARR Advisory on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check out the BARR Advisory website
Go back and listen to our previous episode on recycling brand content.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Joining us this week is Chris Spellman, Senior Demand Generation Manager at SCYTHE. Chris has been in cybersecurity marketing for over six years and has also worked in marketing operations and analytics. Gianna and Maria ask Chris about his marketing expertise as they cover gated vs ungated content, demand gen, analytics, and much more. Also, listen in to hear about Chris’s fantasy novel trilogy that he authors with his wife!
Timecoded Guide:
[06:49] Creative ways to generate demand
[09:58] Gated or ungated content?
[11:51] Big failure or success in cyber marketing
[16:26] Where Chris does analytics
[18:32] How Chris does attribution
Links:
Follow Chris on LinkedIn.
Check out the Spellman Books website, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Keep up with SCYTHE on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Visit the SCYTHE website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Along with your hosts Gianna and Maria, this week we have Joshua Gonzalez joining us from Beyond Identity to talk shop in creativity. Joshua comes from years of experience as an actor on broadway and on screens—you may have even seen him on the Travel Channel! As the Media Producer, Joshua and his team put a twist on marketing at Beyond Identity and he shares some tips that you won’t want to miss. This is also the record number of times the word “corn” has appeared in an episode here: tune in to find out why! Hint: it has to do with creative marketing.
Timecoded Guide:
[04:21] Applying an acting background to marketing
[06:59] How to sell a product with a story
[11:05] Tips on pitching story ideas
[14:29] Things learned while catering to a cybersecurity audience
[25:47] Advice for companies taking on creatives
Links:
Spend some time with Joshua on Twitter.
Check out Joshua’s memoir!
Tune in to Joshua’s podcast.
Pictures of Joshua performing Midsummer Night’s Dream on broadway.
Joshua and his team’s latest cyber ad music video.
Visit Beyond Identity on LinkedIn and Twitter and on their website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, Wade Wells joins us to talk about being on the board of BSides San Diego, being a brand ambassador, and being on a podcast—all while also being a mentor and working his day job. Gianna and Maria ask Wade about his research workflow and why marketing to CISO’s isn’t always the best route for leads. Tune in for a mini-lesson on what the “pyramid of pain” is in cybersecurity and to hear how Wade picked up some valuable cybersecurity marketing tips from working at In-N’-Out.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[11:19] Searching for new products and evaluating them
[13:06] The significance of POV (Point of Value)
[16:24] Marketing to the CISO’s team
[17:36] Integration and why it’s important
[23:36] Wade’s favorite part about his job
Researching new products
With the market being saturated with products, it can get tedious, sifting through everything online. Wade has spent a lot of time researching products and Maria asks him about his workflow. First, he says that he lists what they’re good and not so good at and evaluates from there. He goes through Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and pings people about the product, seeking more information. Wade also evaluates through POV for every product and his company tests each one before they put it to use.
“So the first thing we'll do is we'll talk to them, we'll go through and understand: what does it do? How does it do it? ”
Why marketing to the CISO isn’t always the best route
Maria stresses to Wade that marketers are taught to seek out the CISO. Wade offers some insight into more effective marketing routes. In practice, Wade says that it’s often a team that will decide whether or not a particular product would be worth it in their company—and that the CISO just signs it off. So, often, targeting an audience made up of team members rather than only the CISO is a much more effective method of marketing.
“It may come down to they just do the check mark to okay, but if we're the ones in the trenches using the product every day, it better be us who really like it.”
Links:
Follow Wade on LinkedIn.
Reach out to Wade at wade@bsidessd.org
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Shaun Walsh joins today, offering a cybersecurity marketer’s handbook worth of advice in navigating job transitions in the industry. Shaun, a veteran in the cyber industry, is the Vice President of Global Marketing at SimSpace. We’ve all been there—and in today’s world within the cybersecurity industry, layoffs have come to be expected. In this episode, Gianna and Maria get fantastic and practical advice from Shaun, asking him about preparation for layoffs, how to transition between jobs, interviewing red flags, and more. Listen in to get the laydown on layoffs.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[05:51] Skill sets in anticipating layoffs
[11:30] Red flags indicating a possible layoff
[14:59] Layoff preparation
[18:24] How to handle layoff questions in interviews
[22:34] Red flags in joining a company
What are some skills we can equip ourselves with to quickly land another job?
Gianna picks Shaun’s brain on the best way to handle the limbo of layoff. What can we do in the meantime to get back into another job? Shaun says, first, to cope. He says it’s important to take the time to process what just happened and recognize that everyone overthinks and has their insecurities. Then? Shaun says to spend little time coping and to start thinking. He lays out some vital key self-questions and to analyze where to go next. In these moments of transition, Shaun also mentions that it’s perfectly okay to switch up the path a little bit.
“Sit down and say, ‘Okay, what do I want next? I've coped. Now define. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do next? What skill sets do I need to develop?" And then how do you build that?’”
How do you figure out what you want to do next if you have no idea?
Here, Shaun says that the most important thing to do is to start with one big question: why do you work? From there, Shaun says, people can quickly get through that coping mechanism and get a clearer picture of what they should be doing next. Starting with “why” allows someone figure out how they can achieve that goal which can set them in the right direction. Understanding “why” might lead to some heavy introspection and some grief but it gives one a sense of purpose Shaun says, which can set up the next necessary, tactical steps to take.
“We've all run marketing launch plans. We all know how to dissect something, but you got to know where you're going. And that would be the next piece of advice I'd give people.”
What are some red flags indicating that a layoff is coming?
In having the right tools to prepare for a layoff and the right mindset to transition to another job, how do you know when a layoff is actually coming? Shaun lays out three distinct markers of a potential layoff and where to look for them. First, if a company is public, listening to quarterly calls can give some indication of how the company is doing and if a layoff can be expected. Second, Shaun explains how watching section 16 officers can also indicate this. Third, Shaun says to talk to your SE’s. They’re the “truth tellers” of the business, he says.
“Go make friends with the SE's because the SE's will tell you whether they're busy, whether the deals are happening, whether deal reg is coming in, whether or not they're doing enough demos or POCs. Every place I've ever been in, the SE's are really the clue to the future.”
When the signs are in the air, how do you prepare for a layoff?
Shaun lays out three different answers to the question. He says that even before anything could seemingly go wrong that it’s important to get experience in many different areas to create a portfolio that’s marketable for various jobs. He says that when you start to see those red flags to also activate your network early, dedicating time every day to identifying new possibilities in the job market. Shaun also says it’s a good idea to rehearse interview questions and do research on some prospective employers. He emphasizes how it’s vital to not get bogged down in the process, either—and to be sure to take some time for yourself.
“Once you've done the base work, you've done your follow-up, you’ve followed the right protocols. Enjoy that time off. Don't let it get away from you—because it's a rare gift in and of itself. It's maybe not a gift you wanted. But it's one you should take advantage of.”
Links:
Spend some time with Shaun on Twitter.
Follow Shaun on LinkedIn.
Visit SimSpace on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Reach out to Shaun at shaun.walsh@simspace.com
Check out the SimSpace website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Join Gianna and Maria for a crazy live episode with their very own audience at Cyber Marketing Con! Hear your hosts discuss the cybermarketing industry as they also try to say a few nice things about sales. Also, listen in to hear a few audience members talk about their roles in the industry.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[01:52] Welcome to Cyber Marketing Con
[07:59] Building rapport with sales
[11:47] Cyber marketing industry, hearing from the audience
[14:46] Interviewing CSO’s
[15:30] Closing out
Building a solid relationship with sales
While Maria was setting up for Cyber Marketing Con, she overheard conversations about marketers and salespeople working together. She found that trying to work out communication between the two roles is a pretty common theme everywhere and that many people are facing the same challenges in building solid relationships with sales. She emphasizes that, aside from bribing salespeople with cookies, automating as much of the process as possible between marketers and salespeople is important.
“Automate as much as possible. I think I heard one time someone made a joke that salespeople would rather clean toilets than enter data into Salesforce.”
Onward and Upward
Maria discusses the theme of the first Cyber Marketing Con.
“We've seen some of the crazy ups and downs in our industry lately, lots of layoffs, lots of really weird signals, confusing signals on what's happening in the market. And so we're hoping that these two days that on the marketing team, we can come together and take a little glimpse of hope that it's probably going to be okay and we'll keep going together.”
Links:
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week on Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, Gianna and Maria sit down with Nick Hayes, Product Marketing Manager at Crowdstrike. During the episode, Nick shares how he went from working as an analyst at Forrester to becoming a cybersecurity marketer. Nick shares how his experience as an analyst translates to his role as PMM as Gianna and Maria ask him fascinating questions. Learn more about being a PMM and listen in to hear Nick share some wisdom that, Maria says, you might not find anywhere else as a marketer.
Timecoded Guide:
[05:01] Becoming an internal marketer and shifts Nick made in his new role
[10:15] Day in the life of a PMM at Crowdstrike
[13:07] Operational Hygiene
[16:03] Balance between internal and external marketing
[18:53] Future of product marketing
What was the biggest challenge to overcome moving from analyst to internal marketer?
Nick shares how he had to go from being an adviser to meeting many new challenges as an internal marketer. He says that, while marketers and analysts have a lot in common, marketers align to business objectives differently than analysts. Instead of writing reports, for example, Nick says that marketers have to come up with plans to generate leads and hit specific metrics while defining certain performance goals.
“In some cases, especially at the startups that I worked at, it was a lot more of ‘you need to define what those metrics and what those performance goals are.’ So that's really, I'd say the biggest challenge, but also something I was kind of looking to do, I wanted to see that, I wanted to experience that.”
What do you wish could happen in the future from an analyst and security vendor relationship standpoint?
Nick highlights the analyst/vendor relationship here, saying that both roles can learn a lot from each other. In a way, Nick says that vendors and analysts fill in gaps for one another, learning vital information from their colleagues who serve as subject matter experts in their respective fields. As for the future of this dynamic, Nick says that marketers will often brief analysts once, thinking that as long as the presentation is perfect, no more work needs to be done. Nick says this changes by following up with analysts after presentations while fostering an ongoing relationship between the two roles.
“You can learn a lot if you are in the right mindset as an analyst. And I think that two-way, that back-and-forth interaction that you have between the vendor and the analyst, you can be a really positive push and pull.”
What’s a day in the life of a PMM at Crowdstrike?
Working for Crowdstrike as a PMM is different every day, Nick says. He says that, at the company, they’re dealing with a good problem to have: they’re growing too quickly. The company is a product of its own success as it became public in 2019 and has continued to grow exponentially from its founding in 2011. Nick says that the company has had to evolve quickly as it has rapidly hit certain benchmarks. Amid the growth, Nick has had to ensure good visibility within the company as he’s worked to make sure that products are understood and fit within the broader context of what Crowdstrike does.
“A lot of the ways in which your company is producing and performing at that level, you have to evolve quickly to adapt as your company reaches these, you know, amazing benchmarks. And in some ways, when you are just continually successful, you're somewhat a product of your own success, right?”
What is operational hygiene?
One of the things that Nick emphasizes is important as a PMM in operational hygiene. Gianna asks what that is and how, as a PMM, Nick ensures that the hygiene is operationally sufficient. Nick shares that operational hygiene is asking this: how do we do things more consistently and how do we make sure there’s documentation to support the repeatable workflows that we’re doing? In a product launch, for example, good operational hygiene means finding out what the launch looks like, who should be involved, and what the steps are. He says that, ultimately, it comes back to MOps and demand gen while ensuring that things stay consistent.
“It's thinking about how we actually understand our business from a demand gen perspective, and being able to slice and dice data and tag it in different ways so that we can be nimble and the data support and can be used and fits a number of different product teams within the company.”
Definitions:
IPO: IPO stands for initial public offering, which is when a company goes on the stock market, making stock shares available to investors for the first time.
MOps: Standing for marketing operations, MOps refers to the functions of ensuring that marketing activities and business objectives align, overseeing and planning campaigns, optimizing people, and managing brand compliance.
Demand Gen: Demand gen is a term that encompasses an activity in marketing that drives brand awareness and interest in a service or product.
Links:
Keep up with Nick Hayes on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn.
Follow CrowdStrike on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Visit CrowdStrike’s website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
In this episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, Gianna and Maria speak with Russel Wurth, the Vice President of Marketing at Defy Security. Russel takes Gianna and Maria through his path on going from development engineer to cybersecurity marketer. Russel also dishes out some valuable wisdom on B2B marketing. Listen in to hear why mindmaps are better than Google docs, eight minute presentations are better than hour-long lectures, and why Groundhog Day is the best movie for marketers.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[01:33] Russel’s start as an engineer and transition to marketing
[07:22] How to shift marketing thinking for B2B marketing
[09:33] Organizing messaging structure for customers
[13:28] Defy Security and role of the company
[17:08] Pushing back on traditional marketing presentations
How did you get into the role of VP Marketing?
Russell shares his background and transition into being the Vice President of Marketing at Defy Security. While working for a cloud startup company, Russel realized at a convention that there was something missing with the brand. It didn’t have to do with the colors or logo but the messaging. After part of Russel’s job became communicating the brand, he gravitated towards marketing—and the rest is history. Russel says that communicating markitecture and technical information should come later, he found—and that, in marketing, you must be willing to adapt everyday to changing problems and solutions.
“I realized it was more than the marketing we had experienced, which was, you know, logos and colors and some promotional items. It was 'what's our message? How do we get it out there? How does it resonate? How do we promote it through trade articles and analysts?”
What are some things that you did to turn this process from tech-focused to sales user-focused?
Russel says that, to be a marketer, you don’t necessarily have to be a technical expert in the field. He emphasizes though that it’s useful to gain a grasp of concepts and language in the field to communicate better with clients. Marketers should understand some concepts enough so that they can easily explain them in a way that is easily understood. In other words, when selling to clients, Russel says that marketers should know enough about the field to carry out a conversation.
“I think the more that you can draw from industry data that's out there, what's the competition doing? How are they messaging? How can you be different, unique—that's where I think that partnership with marketing on the product technology side really can create some great outputs that really get some fruits of that labor.”
How do we get engineers to learn how to explain their product, their value proposition, and the benefits from the product in a language that everybody else can understand?
Engineers always experience marketing, Russel says. It’s translating the B2C marketing that we all know too well to B2B marketing that proves difficult. Most of the time, B2B marketing is less about appealing emotionally to potential customers but answering vital questions for their business. Russel continues, sharing that he has learned a lot from coaching engineers in marketing and by using the socratic method, turns them into naturals at marketing.
“It's different for a business buyer… they buy for different reasons. Sometimes there's an emotional aspect, but most of the time, there's an aspect of ‘How does this improve my job, my role, help me get promoted, help me get a raise, help the company do better?’”
Replacing Word docs with mind maps
Maria asks Russel to let us in on some marketing-messaging secrets. A trick up Russel’s sleeve? Mind maps. Russel says that, while using software like Google Docs and Word is okay, a much more powerful tool on first presentation is the mind map. Using mind-mapping software, Russel workshops with a product team by showing them the visual elements and different moving parts of a presentation. In doing so, he’s able to lay groundwork for the more technical presentations later on.
“There's a further down the line where you need the proof of concept, the markitecture, the use cases, and case study. So that mind map, especially now that you can share these tools very easily, it's very effective to share that in product with the product team and then iterate over that, after that kind of first workshop that you have with a few hours, laying some groundwork.”
Definitions:
Markitecture: markitecture, combining the words marketing and architecture, is technology or electronic architecture that serves the marketing process and is used for marketing purposes.
Links:
Spend some time with Russel on LinkedIn.
Check out Defy Security on LinkedIn.
Visit Defy Security’s website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Join us this week for another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. Today, we’re talking with Dillon Townsel, Head of Public Relations at Armis, as he takes us on a ride through his career journey. From Egypt and Afghanistan to IBM: Dillon tells the story of how he, like many others, unexpectedly found cybersecurity and ended up loving it. He also shares how he found himself teaching cybersecurity and emphasizes that knowledge in the field is not the first thing he looks for in employees.
Timecoded Guide:
[02:15] Background as a musician, opening recording studios, and sales
[09:23] X-Force Red and working for IBM
[13:09] Working as a combat journalist and telling stories
[20:43] How to gain technical knowledge in the field
[27:40] Why Dillon could be a professor
Dillon’s technical background and the journey of getting there
Dillon shares how his technical background in cybersecurity came in more towards the middle of his career trajectory. First, he tells how his technical knowledge fell like dominoes into more opportunities down the road. Dillon shares how his music background led him to learn the ins and outs of a recording studio which then led him to broadcast journalism in the military. He built on this, eventually going into security PR and then working on a team called X-Force Red at IBM.
“That was tough at times, right, I was out by myself, lugging around camera gear for . . . four or five days at a time. I learned a lot. Getting stories out of people and just going out and you've never met this person before. And your goal is to go out, meet some 21-year-old kid from Oklahoma, and find out what's interesting about maintaining a Humvee or working on military equipment—pulling the stories out of people.”
Meant to be: Jumping into cyber at X-Force Red
After taking paternity leave, Dillon dove into cybersecurity, taking a job at IBM. He describes how, on the team, he looked for security vulnerabilities and emphasized that, at IBM, everyone is a customer. He shares why this took a lot of trust-building and how his team ended up getting media coverage for hacking into cars and exposing security vulnerabilities in nuclear power plants, among other things. Along with X-Force Red, Dillon also worked on Trusteer and mobile device management.
“I think IBM Security was probably my crash course. That was when I got the most exposure to the most diverse set of security projects that are out there—because IBM Security works on everything. And so the possibilities are endless.”
Boots on the ground stories in Afghanistan
Dillon takes us back to his time in Afghanistan and traces back where and how he learned to tell meaningful stories. Aside from getting senior leaders camera-ready and running a radio show, during his time in the service, Dillon had to learn how to tell stories on the fly. This, he says, prepared him for his future endeavors working in PR. Now, he takes his technical and journalistic experience, working at Armis Security.
“Especially when we were doing stuff with X-Force Red, we had to take those stories and figure out 'why is this important to the average person?' 'Why would my grandmother care about this piece of security research?' And so it was always about finding the human element and being able to tell that side of security because everything we do is eventually protecting regular citizens. So all of this stuff trickles down to them.”
Where do you see print fitting in today’s cybersecurity marketing?
Dillon says that, although the majority of his background is in broadcasting, print is aecessary. He also mentions that he picked up a lot of copyediting experience throughout his career which has become quite valuable in his job. He says that his skill set has allowed him to review press releases, video scripts, and other writing. Dillon emphasizes that, in the end, little skill sets can go a long way throughout someone’s career—whatever job they find themselves in.
“In our world, telling a story in print is aecessary, right? We must get our commentary and thought leadership into those articles, making the business press understand why security is important.”
Links:
Spend some time with Dillon on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Visit Armis Security on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check out the Armis Security website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
For this week’s episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, we bring you Scott Shapiro, former Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft and the current Director and Global Head of Product Marketing at Secure Code Warrior. Scott takes us on his journey from working at a large corporation and smaller businesses to now plunging into the cybersecurity marketing space. Today, Scott also explains product marketing and how it merges with the cybersecurity field while emphasizing the value of creating a culture of learning at a company.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[2:38] Scott’s story and getting into cybersecurity marketing
[8:03] Role of Secure Code Warrior and business model
[11:31] What is product marketing?
[20:49] Dividing up projects in a team
[33:53] Scott’s product marketing strategy
What is product marketing and what does it look like?
Product marketing seems straightforward at the face of it—Gianna and Maria pick Scott’s brain on what ‘products’ are in the cybersecurity marketing space. Scott explains that at Secure Code Warrior, they split up into a growth and performance marketing team, events team, and a comms team. Scott says that, while everyone may answer the question differently, his take on product marketing is that they seek to tell the story of value drivers and problem-solving through different perspectives.
“My take on product marketing is all about, we have to create value, and opportunity as we bring products to market that meet our customer's and prospects’ needs.”
How are you accelerating your learning in cyber to feel more comfortable as a product marketer?
Scott explains that often in the cybersecurity space, people need to work together in order to nail down concepts and jargon in cybersecurity. Scott says that this starts with character traits. Humility, curiosity, and hunger around learning are key, Scott says. Collaboratively, teams can work on learning different aspects of cyber to then come together and show each other the ropes. Instead of Googling, he says, ask a team member to guide you in the right direction or teach you what something is. This creates a culture of learning and growth, which Scott says he tries to implement in a business culture.
“Each pyre is all about saying you don't want to be a know-it-all, you just want to be a learn-it-all. And that's that mindset of curiosity in just about every setting.”
How are you dividing up projects amongst your team?
Scott says that, in product marketing, dividing in conquering is all in the name: some lean more towards the project side while others turn to marketing. Either way, at an early-stage company, you have to be comfortable in both sides of the house. With product, people work within inbound marketing, seeking to form deep partnerships with product management while those in marketing focus more on outbound campaigns, partnering with email marketers or your social media. Scott also mentions a third area which is sales and customer success organization. Scott says that you have to balance between these three areas as a product marketer.
“At the end of the day, happy employees are happy customers and a happy business.”
The product marketing Venn diagram
In the episode, Scott holds up two circles with his hands, illustrating two sides of a business: personal goals and interests and business needs. The thread between the two is communication, Scott says, and the better that can be, the better you can strategize in overlapping the two circles to bounce around special projects. Scott says that this is how he builds a team of product marketers and does right by them while empowering them to grow their careers, making the business successful.
“We all have things we want to grow into, and things that excite us that you might find boring that I love, or vice versa.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Scott Shapiro on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Visit Secure Code Warrior on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
This week, hosts Gianna Whitver and Maria Velazquez sit down with Brittany Geronimo to discuss unique takes on reusing design content in a marketing design process. Gianna and Maria ask Brittany how she turns whitepapers and ebooks into eye-catching, marketable content in her position at BlueVoyant -- which offers internal and external cyber defense services. Brittany also guides listeners through her workflow explaining the unique ways she keeps pushing the boundaries with new and creative content in her field of cybersecurity marketing.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Start of episode
[02:27] Repurposing whitepapers and ebooks for marketing
[06:04] How to imagine content assets as reusable from start to finish
[08:02] Gated vs ungated content in marketing assets
[14:47] Crafting a unique message while staying loyal to the brand
[17:28] Keeping consistent themes to tell brand stories
What does the planning journey look like when you’re deciding to repurpose content? How do you create a content asset that will engage an audience? Brittany explains her marketing strategy in how she takes any tier-one asset to then turn it into digestible and easy-to-follow, creative content. These assets could be anything from an eBook, a whitepaper, or a report. Brittany shares how she takes these large lumps of information and condenses them down into either LinkedIn infographics or carousel posts making them marketable and useful for people to follow. Each creative product relates back to which type of asset Brittany starts with while each final product circles back with an option to explore the subject further by linking the eBook or larger report. Brittany breaks down her process with marketing design ideas and how she goes from what she calls a “tier one asset” to a “tier two asset.”
“I think there's a lot of pressure sometimes to just put out as much content as possible . . . But I think taking a step back and saying okay, what do we have? What else can we possibly do with it? Then, you sort of end up with these nice buckets of content that's all related that you can then use in future campaigns.”
Imagining content as reusable from start-to-finish Brittany walks listeners through how she’s already thinking about how to make content more marketable as she looks through ‘tier-one’ material. Sometimes, Brittany is involved on the front end of the marketing design process and is able to shape tier-one assets in such a way that makes them reusable for more content later on. Also, it’s important to edit content and style it to fit the audience: reused content intended for a CSO will look different than content intended for someone on LinkedIn. Good design means knowing how to make content within the marketing design process that will catch the eyes of many different audiences.
“if you think about repurposing at the beginning, you'll have more opportunity to do so as opposed to we already have this thing that's finished. It can be done both ways. But I think if you're thinking about it always, it really helps.”
Gating vs not gating: what’s the best philosophy? Which type of content should be gated and what type of content shouldn’t be gated? What’s the overall best philosophy with gated content marketing? Brittany explains where and why she finds gating to be essential with certain types of content. She also highlights how she leans towards making content more accessible overall. Brittany also adds, through this philosophy, how she seeks to create a brand that others think of when they have a project in motion.
“I personally lean toward less gating, because I think if you put up too many roadblocks, people are just going to abandon their cart, per se, or form . . . I personally don’t like to put up too many roadblocks.”
How to make a message stand out while staying loyal to the brand How can someone make their message stand out but not abandon their brand’s theme? Brittany says that there is a balance and that it takes compromise—but that it can still be done. Big fast food chains can afford to attract a high volume of attention through social media with crazy posts. This may not work for everyone but Brittany explains that brands can still think outside of the box while maintaining their company’s style. It’s also important to find themes and ways that an audience can consistently recognize a brand while continuing to find interest in the messaging.
“There's a lot of stuff out there content wise that people are getting just like hammered with all day, like on LinkedIn and other channels. So I think having a different look really makes you stand out . . . I think good design goes a long way.”
Definitions:
Whitepapers: Whitepapers are business reports that include data and analyses making information presentable to a company.
Top-funnel/mid-funnel: Levels of audience to a brand or company and their awareness to the products or services—top funnel being those not yet aware of the company and the mid funnel being those who have shown interest and might engage with the company.
Gated/ungated: This refers to whether or not content is made available to an audience through paywalls or other selective processes: gated refers to content that is exclusive through a fee, etc. and ungated is content that is available and free to virtually anyone.
____________
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Brittany Geronimo on LinkedIn
Like the BlueVoyant Facebook page
Visit the BlueVoyant website, follow on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Hosts Gianna Whitver and Maria Velasquez sit down with Christopher Mitchell from Google’s Chronicle Security and discuss how he went from working at a series of startups to working at one of the largest corporations in the world. Christopher shares stories on his work experience through many company acquisitions and shares what it’s like to go from 160 to 160,000 employees. He dives into how he has found success working on marketing teams and what has led to healthy work environments and relationships. Christopher also shares what has made his teams run efficiently and how he has found success in launching unique cybersecurity marketing events.
Timecoded Guide:
[01:46] Adjusting through acquisitions and onboarding at Google
[11:17] Days at Simplify and Soc Stock—cybersecurity marketing Woodstock
[19:26] Goals at Simplify—more than lead generation
[20:32] Key signs of business acquisition and founder aspirations
[28:32] Digital marketing strategy at Google and pros/cons
What it’s like adjusting through acquisitions from 2,000 to 30,000 Employees Christopher details his journey in cybersecurity marketing, moving from different types of startups, small companies, large companies, and everything in between. During this time, Christopher worked for companies during IPOs and eventually transitioned to Google. He describes what it was like to start at Google’s security business unit and details the breadth and depth of the onboarding process at the company. During this time, his marketing team tripled and Christopher talks about the adjustment period that followed.
“It's been awesome. I joined when we were 80-ish people. And so through the pandemic, we doubled in size, we 10x our revenue over that span, the marketing team tripled in size—we went from five to 15. So it was awesome to be part of that growth. And it's awesome now seeing all of us thrive at Chronicle and at Google as well. We're still high functioning, we're still kicking butt and taking names.”
What it’s like working on a marketing dream team Working at Simplify, Christopher picked up early examples of excellent operation and teamwork within a marketing unit. Christopher discusses the culture of the Simplify marketing team while working there and highlights what made it run smoothly. He emphasizes his team’s goals and how they consisted of much more than just high-level lead generation. Christopher also explains how to make yourself available as a resource to your co-workers and why doing so is important in a team. He emphasizes how team culture is integral to success and then dives into his experience with launching a cybersecurity marketing conference. Christopher also explains to Gianna and Maria what “Soc Stock” is and how it became a major success.
“That's actually one of the biggest words of advice I can have is always help your co-workers as much as possible—even if they're co-workers you don't like. Just help them.”
How to see tell-tale signs of acquisition and set companies apart Christopher shares some key things that he has noticed when a company is on the path towards acquisition. He highlights product universality and accessibility while diving into what sets companies apart in the cybersecurity space. Christopher also mentions his aspirations in the SaaS space and some possible business plans that he has for the future. Gianna and Maria stress how not everyone gets to say that they are a part of a smooth process between sales and marketing but Christopher shares his experience with the dynamic. He explains what it’s like to have a healthy dynamic between sales and marketing departments—and what has made him excited to go into work every day. Christopher also talks about being a part of a mature and sophisticated team and what it’s like to be responsible for MQL pipeline and revenue targets.
“We did have an extremely positive relationship with sales, maybe the only positive relationship with sales I've ever experienced in my life. But it was awesome . . . It is so nice.”
Google Adwords, digital marketing strategy, and the pros/cons of working at a large enterprise Chris talks on digital marketing strategy at Google and goes into a few pros and cons of working at a large enterprise like Google. He hashes out the big working differences between working on projects at a small company and working at Google. Moving from startups to Google is no small adjustment and Christopher dives more into his adjustment period moving from smaller and mid-size companies to one of the largest in the world. He also relays the importance of marketing teams in building a strong community throughout big changes.
“It's just a completely different world. I think if I was joining this company without my Simplify peers, I think I would have struggled even more than I did.”
Definitions:
MQL Pipeline: MQL stands for ‘marketing qualified lead.’ This is the term that marketers use for prospects interacting with brand content. ‘MQL Pipeline’ is the process in which marketers mover prospects through the marketing funnel, exposing them to the brand and turning them into possible customers.
CMO: ‘Chief Marketing Officer’—the chief executive responsible for marketing in an organization.
IPO: ‘Initial Public Offering’—The public launch of a private company onto the stock market.
_________
Links:
Spend some time with Christopher on LinkedIn.
Check out Chronicle Security on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Google’s Chronicle Security on their website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Hosts Gianna Whitver and Maria Velasquez sit down with guest Amy Fair to discuss being laid off and how to navigate it in stride. Gianna and Maria ask Amy about her own experiences being laid off as they approach the rarely-discussed but important topic. Amy dives into what it means to be laid off in the cybersecurity content marketing industry and how she has turned layoffs into new opportunities within weeks. In their conversation, Maria, Gianna, and Amy highlight the importance of networking and community and how it is vital to maintain lasting relationships in the content marketing industry. Amy shares how, at the end of the day, these connections can lead to amazing opportunities.
We’re joined this week by Amy Fair, Content Marketing Manager at SpyCloud,
Timecoded Guide:
[8:50] The value of building a network and maintaining a community
[17:29] Using Slack in job hunting and making connections
[23:21] The value of mentors and keeping people in your corner
[25:48] Advice for those anticipating a layoff
How can you prepare to be laid off? Amy opens up with stories about getting laid off and how she was able to quickly land new jobs. Sometimes layoffs are expected and sometimes they can be a shock. Amy shares how she used the community around her in both scenarios to turn the layoffs into success. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding the topic of being laid off and Amy offers a dose of optimism to those who come to her for help. She seeks to take away the stigma as she mentions that the attitude towards layoffs has changed over the years. They are even expected in many industries now. Amy highlights how her experiences have taught her that, in content marketing, it’s not only about ‘making connections’ but nurturing relationships that make the most impact along the way.
“I also want to kind of remove the stigma that comes with it . . . I think it might even be more rare for people to not have been laid off in their career, then, you know, for those who have experienced that. But I don't think it's a shameful thing.”
How “your network is your net worth” and why a strong personal brand matters Amy shares how vital it is to open up outwardly into circles to build lasting relationships with people who will have your back. Having a strong standing in the content marketing industry starts from the beginning: personal brand. Amy shares how those in the content marketing industry can apply their expertise to themselves if they want to build a solid personal brand. She also highlights how building a personal brand can save someone from a lengthy job hunt after being laid off. Having a resume counts but a personal brand extends to networking and recognition. Doing this is vital in the cybersecurity marketing industry as Amy shares how it’s a field where layoffs are widespread.
“We make our brands look good, we make our products look good, we make our customers look good. We can take all those skills that we have making everybody else look good. And we can make ourselves look pretty damn good. . . it doesn't have to be when you lose your job, you can do that all day every day.”
Slack, newsletters, and job boards: why community counts Amy, Gianna, and Maria dive into their experiences in how something like Slack can lead to lasting connections and to rekindling valuable relationships with people. Amy shares a story on how she stumbled upon an old coworker on Slack while Maria and Gianna share how they have found a lot of success in finding job candidates by using newsletters, job boards, and meeting people through their Slack channel. Maria emphasizes how, through community and reaching out to others, a boss can get to know someone before their resume shows up on a pile. People make lasting impressions through these connections. The hosts also discuss how building these connections throughout the interview process is valuable regardless of whether someone gets the job.
“Even if you feel like maybe you're new in your career, and you don't really have a network, if you have a mentor who can connect you with so and so for XYZ, like that is huge tap into that resource. That is something that can make a huge impact on your own network.”
Advice for those anticipating a layoff In cybersecurity content marketing, people need others to lean on in every step of the way. The business can get competitive, leading to unexpected job turns and layoffs. One thing that can stay constant, though, is maintaining steady and solid connections with people in the industry. Amy talks about how someone can have a network of dozens but it’s the three or four people who they have kept in touch with and have built relationships with that matter the most. She adds how it’s a two-way street and that these interactions aren’t transactional but they’re reciprocal: like friends, the people in someone’s corner should be willing to give just as much as they’re willing to take. Making connections is similar to lead generation. To find success after getting laid off, Amy says that those in content marketing need to nurture their relationships all the way through the funnel just like marketing business leads.
“You need to nurture your relationships, like we do that as marketers, with our leads, we nurture them all the way through the funnel: you need to nurture your relationships all the way through your career and beyond. I think that's so important. Because they might need to lean on you too.”
Definitions:
Funnel: Top-funnel/mid-funnel: Levels of an audience to a brand or company and their awareness of the products or services—top funnel being those not yet aware of the company and the mid-funnel being those who have shown interest and might engage with the company. Marketers ‘move through the funnel’ to build an audience for their brand.
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon2022.
Spend some time with our guest Amy Fair on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check out SpyCloud on LinkedIn and the SpyCloud website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
We’re joined this week by Peter Wheeler, Senior Manager PLG - Partnerships, Startups, Nonprofits at Auth0, to find out just what makes him…the most interesting man in the world! After years as a serial entrepreneur, Peter joined Auth0, powered by Okta, to positively impact nonprofits, charities, and for-profits working to benefit social issues. Peter talks with us about product led growth, giving back even when you don’t have the budget, and caring about customer advocacy before it was cool.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Founding businesses & joining the Auth0 team during COVID
[07:01] Making a conscious effort with cyber to give back for greater good
[12:18] Diving into cybersecurity special audiences & product-led growth
[19:42] Understanding customer advocacy & reducing verification friction
[27:40] Collecting anecdotal and case studies from self service customers
[33:11] Being bitten by a fiberglass alligator & biting down on some brisket
What advice do you have for cybersecurity companies that would want to have corporate social responsibility, but are either too small or don’t have the funding?
Instead of hiding behind the excuses of not being big enough or wealthy enough, Peter believes that cybersecurity companies all have the potential to give back to nonprofits and startups. Peter says, when in doubt of what to do, think simple. If your company is interested in equitable product access for companies with limited budgets, consider offering mentorship or training opportunities, or engaging your staff by offering time off for volunteering.
“You can never be too small. We can all volunteer independently, we can all sit on a board, we can all show up. That's it, just show up. You can mentor. Yeah, you might not have enough money. You can avoid that, you can skip that. Just simple things, it doesn't have to be a lot.”
What are your “strong opinions” on special audiences, now that you work with them?
Many of the audiences Peter works with have not made a budgetary allocation mentally, nor financially, towards things like cybersecurity. Part of his work with Auth0, because of this unaware audience, has involved implementing training and educational processes for these businesses. Showing them why cybersecurity is so important and teaching them to implement good first steps like stronger passwords is vital for marketing efforts and product led growth.
“In nonprofits, in startups, there's a big shareholder footprint, stakeholder footprint, people that are affected by what the organization does. Educating that audience is good. Making them understand what cybersecurity truly is is good, so they implement at least the simple things.”
How does Auth0 implement product-led growth?
Auth0’s freemium, self-service product can satisfy just about everyone. The secret sauce of their success? Increasing customer advocacy and refusing friction. Good documentation, strong outside of network customer support, being active with customers, and having your staff invigorated about your product all contribute to a more satisfying and therefore more trustworthy environment, which keeps companies coming back for more.
“If you're building community, you're working with developers, you're working with individuals, you're working with smaller organizations, and you're putting a free or cheap product in front of them, whether it be discounted enterprise or freemium model, you're developing that trust.”
What are you doing for this user so they feel like they're being treated like an enterprise, even though they may be a team of one? 20:13
Self-service customers are rarely given the same treatment as enterprise customers in most companies, Peter explains, but Auth0 works hard to provide the documentation and ease of access needed to make things as frictionless as possible for those users. Additionally, validating an organization’s startup or nonprofit status can take time and create friction, too. Auth0 works with third-party organizations to quicken and simplify this process as well.
“Reducing customer friction to come on is key. Somebody signs up, don't make them verify their email, skip that step. Let them play with the dashboard. Let them build something, because guess what? They're going to verify their email at some point.”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Peter Wheeler on LinkedIn and his personal website
Lend your ear to Peter’s podcast, Hey, Good Chat!
And of course, who could forget Peter’s theme song? It’s My Life by Bon Jovi
Check out Auth0 on LinkedIn and the Auth0 website.
Learn more about Okta on LinkedIn and the Okta website.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
How do you make B2B cybersecurity marketing interesting? This episode brings Travis Hawley, the Director of Media at BlueVoyant, to the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast to find out. He talks about his background that led him to cybersecurity marketing, his current role at BlueVoyant, how companies can use emerging media to promote products or services, and indeed how to make B2B cybersecurity marketing more interesting. Plus, Travis shares the Facebook groups he created and introverts in cybersecurity.
Timecoded Guide:
[05:20] What BlueVoyant does and the stage of the company
[08:40] How companies with limited resources can use emerging media
[11:17] How to make B2B marketing engaging, educational, and sticky
[23:14] How to get your employees engaging and sharing content
[27:26] How to get founders or CEOs engaged and what to do if you can’t
[42:21] Travis’ Facebook groups and meme culture
What is emerging media and how can companies with limited resources use it?
Traditional media is your white papers, blogs, reports, email marketing, etc. Those have their place and are useful but emerging media is two-fold. But Travis believes it’s video but it’s also what new platforms arise (like TikTok). In terms of limited resources, work with what you do have. For example, if you have a two-hour long webinar already recorded, you can take that and break it up into shorter 30-second video clips. Now you have content already done you can simply post in your marketing campaign.
“If you have limited resources, you have to be creative. And you may not be able to do it at the scale you want. But you can still get video out there, even if it isn't the most ideal video experience that you want. Start small, start with what you have, and just start creating that account of the data of any kind of video and you'll most likely start seeing the results of that.”
How do you make B2B marketing engaging?
Travis says you need two big things: faces and voices. People want to engage with content featuring someone who looks like them and talks like them. Graphics and the like aren’t engaging enough. You need to feature the faces and voices of your target audience and/or your employees, because people don’t buy from companies; they buy from people. You can even do an animated video of text of someone's quote and their headshot.
“So to me, in most cases, all content will fall under two buckets: it's either educational, or I would say utilitarian, useful. Or it's entertaining. And then hopefully, the best of both worlds is if you can have overlap there. And if they are educational and entertaining, and there's overlap to some degree, then the content is sticky, you're gonna have retention.
How do you get employees engaged with marketing?
Again, faces and voices. In Travis’ experience, employees generally like to celebrate their co-workers achievements. So if you post a video of someone in one department and tell the rest of the company, it’s much more impactful than a paid actor. Because the employees know this person, they work with this person, they want to support this person. Employees don’t necessarily have a relationship with other employees, but they have a relationship with their co-workers.
“Employee advocacy starts from the ground up, any employee needs to be empowered to create content, to co-develop content, to ideate content, and to star in the content. And that's how you get people to want to engage more is to support their own colleagues.
What about founders, how do you get founders or CEOs engaged with marketing strategy?
Founders and C-suite executives are very busy people. So start with trying to figure out the value that marketing is adding to your company, go to the data. Show the founder the value and see if you can get buy-in from them but if you can’t, that’s okay. You can find other influencers and subject matter experts in the company who want to advocate for the services and the company itself. Employees are just as effective evangelizers.
“They're the leaders of the company. And they have the most knowledge and on the vision and on the services and things like that. But you don't need them, let's just be honest, you don't.”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon2022
Spend some time with our guest Travis Hawley on his LinkedIn or on his Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
“Brand marketing” may sound like just another branding buzzword, but this episode tackles this concept as a real strategy with data behind it. Kayla Rice, Senior Manager of Brand and Creative Studio at SpyCloud, joins the pod to discuss brand awareness, brand marketing strategy, refresh vs. rebrand, and so much more about all things branding. Learn how to make brand marketing a part of your marketing growth team, how to handle a big or small brand refresh, and how to balance your messaging across platforms.
Timecoded Guide: [03:20] Deciphering Kayla’s title: Senior Manager of Brand and Creative Studio
[07:48] Focusing marketing team members on seeing brand as influencing pipeline
[15:39] Comparing and contrasting brand refresh and rebrand
[23:59] Understanding the phenomenon of debranding
[34:28] Balancing your brand messaging across social media platforms
[40:58] Looking at metrics from a brand growing perspective
How do you get non-brand focused marketers to see brand as influencing a sales pipeline?
Focusing your marketing team on branding can depend on the size of the organization, according to Kayla. In smaller organizations, there are pieces to branding that every member of the marketing team can appreciate. Smaller teams also encourage members to work together to create the best experience for audience members and product launches, whereas teams at larger organizations can have less interconnectedness and less role appreciation.
“Whether it be launching a sponsored report, whether that be podcast ads, organic, social, there's so many levers your company can pull to really make people understand who you are, what you stand for, what you're trying to solve, and the people who are backing all of that.”
What’s the difference between a brand refresh and a rebrand?
Some marketing teams think they’ve changed color palette or logo and they’ve rebranded. Unfortunately, Kayla explains that this is not the case. A rebrand happens in situations when you experience an acquisition or you’re truly renaming your company. In contrast, a brand refresh is more of an evolution of your brand. It’s taking from what you’ve learned in your brand marketing campaigns and growing upon those lessons with your team.
“It really is so much more than just updating a logo or color palette, it's really digging into: What is your messaging framework? Who are you going after? It’s being able to speak to them where they are, meet them where they are, and then, dangling that carrot in front of them of what could be.”
How do you balance your messaging across social media platforms?
Kayla believes that balance across social media platforms requires staying flexible and adaptable. Marketing teams can and should adjust their tone depending on the channel and messaging. Social media should be more of a place to experiment and see what works with your brand and audience, as well as what doesn’t. Do your market research, adjust your content across popular social media platforms, and see where each step takes you.
“It's been really exciting to see and it's ever growing, and always new ideas and new things that we're going to do.”
What metrics should you look at from the perspective of growing your brand?
While metrics should be measured in different ways depending on the source, Kayla explains that website metrics should involve visits, time on the page, and click-through rates. From a social media perspective, follower count matters, even if it feels like a vanity check. More followers and visitors equals more eyeballs on your content and a larger potential user base. Kayla also advises not to forget about reposts, reshares, and interactions with your paid ads.
“If we're opting to do paid ads or podcast sponsorships, for example. Okay, what is their viewer or their listenership? What does their audience look like? How many times are we a participant in that? How many downloads were there?”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon2022
Spend some time with our guest Kayla Rice on her LinkedIn or email her at kayla.rice@SpyCloud.com
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
We’re joined this week by Jason Cenamor, Founder of the CISO Society, to talk about the community he’s focused on building for fellow CISOs, as well as his extensive background in cybersecurity events. Events aren’t always an easy topic for cybersecurity marketers looking to make the most of their marketing budgets, but Jason has the dirt on all things events; the good, the bad, and the downright scary. Looking to spot an event red flag before it wastes your time and money? Jason is your guy!
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Introducing Jason Cenamor & the CISO Society
[05:50] Transitioning from cyber event management into community building
[15:59] Noticing best event strategies & prioritizing transparent event vendors
[24:16] Understanding the value of custom curated events and targeted invite lists
[32:27] Building events better to provide value and community in cybersecurity
[41:59] Getting the best price from event vendors, no matter who you choose
Did you envision your career would shift towards community building, content creation, and networking?
Until recently, Jason didn’t consider his career path would’ve evolved and shifted into a focus on the CISO Society. Originally started as a side project, the CISO Society was born from Jason’s passion for building community and putting on hybrid in-person and virtual events. When the Society took off and continued to grow larger under Jason’s care, he realized more and more of his passion and energy belonged with the CISOs he was working with everyday.
“I started the CISO Society as a side project, because obviously, what's better than to start developing a network of CISOs that I could get access to for real market intelligence when I'm working with these advisory boards.”
What are some noticeable green lights of a good event vendor for cyber marketers to look out for?
While Jason dives deep into the red flags of bad cybersecurity event vendors, he also reassures us that there are incredible events out there. Jason recommends his favorite companies, including the always consistent Evanta, but more than that, he gives us advice on what makes a good cybersecurity event. Unsurprisingly for cybersecurity practitioners, transparency in invitees and agendas signify an event vendor is much more trustworthy.
“I think the key is how transparent the event company is going to be with the information they give you. A typical tactic of some event companies is to password protect their attendee list. In my personal opinion, all that does is show that you have something to hide.”
What are the event vendor red flags we should worry about?
We want the dirt on what makes an event vendor a waste of time or resources, and Jason delivers with a list of red flags. From password protected invite lists to calendars full of unpromising events to not giving money back, Jason has seen the worst of the worst in events. Despite the scary practices in place, Jason is happy to report that many of these elements are on the outs in the cyber world as we continue to call companies out and hold them accountable in groups like the Cyber Marketing Society.
“That is such an important question for any vendor to ask: How are you forming the agenda? Because that shows how much they care about the CISO experience or not. If they don't care about the CISO experience, they're not going to have a good audience.”
What sort of content makes a good event for CISOs?
Many of the event vendors Jason discusses with us have been approved not only by his own experience running events, but by his fellow CISOs in the CISO Society. But what really makes an event worth it for a CISO? Why are they showing up, and how can we help them show up more? Jason explains that CISOs thrive in a collaborative environment and don’t just want pitch after pitch of standalone presentations.
“CISOs actually provide more value in collaborative roundtable discussions, right? That will always be my recommendation. It's great to stand up and to do your thing, but it's better to be part of a conversation and then say, ‘Can I come to your office and do my thing?’”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Jason Cenamor on the CISO Society website, or send him an email at Jason@LoremAdvisory.com.
Check out some of the events Jason mentioned on the show: Evanta, HMG Strategy, C-Vision International, CXOSync, Security Current, CISOs Connect, PSI Alliance
Learn more about the CISO Society on their website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Serena Raymond, Marketing Director at DNS Filter, walks us through her career journey from social media content creation to Marketing Director at DNS Filter. Serena explains the recipe for virtual event strategy, including how to leverage social media and email marketing to gain speakers and attendees, as well as how your virtual event can translate directly to your sales pipeline. Serena also discusses her opinion on agency marketing company vs internal teams, and reveals her secrets for optimizing impact.
Timecoded Guide: [01:53] Moving from social media content creation to Marketing Director
[05:12] Getting started with virtual event marketing strategy
[12:52] Understanding what makes your virtual event worthwhile for sales
[20:25] Taking advantage of being on the internal side of marketing
[25:23] Comparing and contrasting agency and internal marketing
How should you host a successful virtual event?
A strong, successful virtual event should include both your company’s internal SMEs, or subject matter experts, and industry experts from outside of your organization. Serena recommends deciding first on the top tracks you want to pursue, before tackling speaker research. Once relevant, experienced speakers have been found, Serena explains that choosing an event platform that meets both your and your audience’s needs is essential.
“Our platform was a huge obstacle for doing a virtual event. There's so much vetting you have to do. I was kind of thinking, ‘Oh, we'll choose a platform and we’ll run.’ There's so much work that goes into that, and that was pretty eye opening.”
What is one key way to entice your desired audience to your virtual event?
Enticing your desired audience should start with LinkedIn and Google ads, which are consistently effective. However, Serena believes the key to your target audience resides with your speakers. Find speakers who appeal directly to your target audience and give them a high quality social media kit. Make it very easy for your speakers to share to followers and potential customers about your event with personalized images, text, and messaging.
“What I think was most key, above all else, was we had a lot of speakers who appeal to that audience. We gave them a really cool social kit, with the links and custom images with their faces, and they were able to share it with their audience on social media.”
How do you know if your online event is justifiable in terms of sales pipelines?The
justifiability of your virtual event extends beyond the pipeline and merges into retention. Your goal is to host an event that provides value to both your attendees and speakers. Serena recommends having sales touchpoints at your event, like a happy hour, where folks can gather and connect. Then, once you build that relationship, your sales and marketing teams can remind the potential client about the happy hour and follow up with them.
“We had a little happy hour after the event, and we had some customers come and we actually got great feedback from that. Our sales team was there and we chatted with that customer and took it offline, and we wouldn’t have had that conversation without that event.”
What’s the difference in effectiveness between internal marketing and agencies
With experience in both internal and agency marketing, Serena explains that a key difference between the two is that being at a marketing agency puts you on the “outside.” You’re not in the company’s Slack channels or taking part in staff meetings, and you don't have their customer service records. Marketers at agencies don’t have real buy-in or “skin in the game” when it comes to a specific company. The internal marketing teams, on the other hand, have crucial inside information that can help them perform better and boost employee engagement.
“One of the things I loved about being a marketer for a dedicated company, was I got to get really good at it. I got to go deep on the product and understand our audience. I got to listen in on demos, talk to customers, talk to people who aren't in marketing.”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon2022.
Spend some time with our guest Serena Raymond on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings are two very special guests on this episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. Chris and Ron are from Hacker Valley Media, the producers and sponsors of this podcast. Gianna and Maria chat with them about successful content strategy and marketing in cybersecurity, digital marketing successes and failures, and they drop hints about what to expect in their workshop at Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Timecoded Guide:
[01:51] Successful content marketing strategy in cybersecurity
[05:32] Successes and failures in cybersecurity marketing strategy
[15:01] Cyber Marketing Con workshop hints and teasers
What does a successful content marketing strategy look like in cybersecurity? Putting out content, including audio files, is just the beginning. You have to put out valuable content that’s not always looking to make the sale or fill the sales funnel. It’s also important to know that content strategy and successful marketing campaigns will change over time. You might be completely sold on your cybersecurity marketing strategy only to realize a few months later that you need to pivot. So putting out valuable content but staying flexible is key.
“Everyone should have a content strategy. If you're in business, you have to do content. That's just the name of the game these days.” –Chris Cochran
What are some successes and failures in cybersecurity marketing strategy? One of the biggest failures in content marketing strategy is when you’re trying to entice someone to come to an event but don’t give them any more information. The company tells the audience when and where but leaves out exactly what the event is about. That’s not enticing, that feels like the company is simply trying to fill out their sales funnel. They're not addressing pain points.
One of the biggest content marketing strategy successes is giving value to your community. Yes, you need to think about business objectives. But if all you’re doing is selling, it’s not a two-way conversation with your audience. It’s an inauthentic ad campaign when it's not offering value.
“So you have, whether it's a lead, whether it's me signing up for a demo, but I don't necessarily feel invited to this event, I feel invited to your funnel.” –Ron Eddings
“We can also serve people instead of sell to them in order to really build that community, build that engagement with everyone that you're trying to speak to.” –Chris Cochran
What kinds of things can Cyber Marketing Con attendees expect from Chris and Ron’s workshop?
Everyone wants to start a podcast, but not everyone will be successful at it. There are so many details to figure out, from platform to people to solutions to problems. Chris and Ron are going to help people learn how to start and submit your podcast effectively. And even more importantly, how to record and edit a popular podcast that actually has meaning and value to podcast listeners. You’ll learn the tips and tricks Chris and Ron didn’t know when they launched their first podcast.
“I would say the thing that we're going to talk about the most, some might say that it's harder than it looks: making a podcast that has impact. I would say podcasting is more nuanced than it looks.” –Chris Cochran
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guests Chris and Ron on their website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Elliot Volkman, Director of Brand, Content, and Community at Drata, joins us in this episode to talk about demand generation strategies, also known more casually as demand gen. Demand gen consists of targeted marketing programs to drive brand awareness and build interest for qualified leads in products, services, and more. Tune in to our discussion with Elliot to learn how demand gen intersects with sales enablement, brand, content, and even community.
Timecoded Guide:
[03:52] Demand gen vs. brand message
[07:40] The goal of demand gen in an organization
[14:48] How demand gen ties into content and community members
[22:45] Key metrics and KPIs to track brand awareness
[31:04] Experimentation and demand gen
How does demand gen differ from and bring focus to brand awareness?
Elliot believes that a lot of C-level executives mistake brand awareness for traditional marketing or product marketing. Brand awareness is more about what customers see when they encounter your company via search engine. Product marketing is instead about targeting specific personas. Demand generation fits into brand awareness because it’s designed to drive customer’s awareness of your company and build interest in your products, rather than directly marketing those products to them through product marketing strategies.
“The most important and critical aspect that organizations fail to pay attention to is building your brand, especially building voice and messaging around it that resonates.”
What is the goal of demand generation if not to drive sales?
A lot of organizations have an executioner and a product marketing lead, with various jobs for each role. Demand gen’s job is to take the webinars the executioner makes and the messaging the product marketer makes, and then guide those towards business alignment and increased brand awareness. Elliot emphasizes that demand generation drives sales, but does not drive lead generation. Demand gen is not supposed to chase leads the way a product marketing manager might, it’s instead supposed to build awareness.
“I think there's two aspects of demand gen, depending on the organizational size and what they do, but at the end of the day, the demand generation strategy does have to drive pipeline.”
How does demand gen tie into content and community?
Oftentimes, in Elliot’s opinion, marketing can rely too much on technology. While technology is critical, you don’t have to educate anyone on why it’s important. Demand gen focuses more on humanizing the brand and building something fully centered around the customer. You rely on internal experts to build a community that ties everything together from marketing to security to visuals, and beyond. And in the end, the customer should be the hero and should feel like one in your demand generation strategy.
“It’s about focusing on people, focusing on processes, and embracing technology, of course. At the end of the day, having our customers be a voice is absolutely critical to the success of our future.”
What are the KPIs to track brand awareness?
There may be numerous ways to track brand awareness, but Elliot explains that the main KPI is organic traffic to the website. The byproducts of increased organic website traffic include organic increases in demo requests, nurturing people through the buying process, and acting as fuel for the engine of marketing campaigns. There’s no direct selling in a demand generation strategy. You can avoid those most-hated marketing tactics, like when you cold call or appear in their already crowded email inboxes. Demand gen is all organic and based on nurturing the customer.
“We're not trying to brainwash people by any means, we're actually able to help educate them along the way. We build a relationship through that education and through those materials, and then, maybe they'll check out what our product does, or they've decided to download something, and we can continue to nurture them.”
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Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Elliot Volkman on LinkedIn, Twitter, and his podcast, Adopting Zero Trust.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Matthew Delman, Director of Product Marketing at LookingGlass Cyber, joins the show this week to discuss all things related to sales enablement strategy. Sales enablement helps businesses provide consistent messaging throughout all their content. This enables (Get it?) potential customers to have a seamless journey from discovery of a company to purchase of products or services. In this episode, Matt teaches us how to boost a sales cycle, streamline communication, and improve internal organization, all through the magic of sales enablement.
Timecoded Guide:
[02:48] Explaining sales enablement and how it fits into marketing strategy
[06:31] Transforming sales enablement into a faster sales cycle
[14:00] Integrating sales enablement into company culture
[20:20] Essential tools to include in your future sales enablement kit
What is sales enablement and why is it important?
The core of sales enablement is ensuring your message gets out to your marketplace with consistency. During this process, Matt explains that your team is supporting the buyer journey with one-to-many messaging. This ensures a consistent flow in each stage of the sales journey and enables each department to touch on the same concepts. Essentially, sales enablement helps your customer avoid confusion and pain points so that they can go from first contact to purchase seamlessly.
“When your buyers read your content, or they download a white paper, or they go to an event, and then, they're contacted by your salesperson, they should get an extension of that same message.” –Matthew Delman
How does sales enablement convert into a faster sales cycle?
Sales teams are usually hyper focused on making sales. While this fits their goals and metrics, this one-track mindset breeds confusion if they can’t find exactly the materials they need when they need them. In order to save the sale with potential clients, your sales team might create one-off materials that are a good fit in that moment, but do not match what the marketing team is saying. Successful sales enablement streamlines internal processes so that sales teams have exactly what they need, when they need it.
“Sales enablement is about training your sales team to make sure they're confident in talking about your solution, but it's also making sure that they can find the collateral that they need when a prospect asks for it.”
How do you get sales teams to buy into sales enablement and use the organizational tools you create?
Sales enablement starts with sales leadership, according to Matt. If you tell the sales manager that your sales enablement strategy will help them close deals faster, essentially every single decision maker will sign on. Once you have the leadership on board, the sales team will follow their guidance. You might have to do some negotiation in terms of support and positioning for the team, but once the sales enablement leaders understand it will increase business, it usually becomes an easy sell.
“With sales enablement, your whole goal is to make the deals move faster, to make them smoother, to essentially smooth out the lumps in the sales cycle because you are responding to your prospects' questions in a timely manner with consistent information.” –Matthew Delman
What are the key tools to include in a sales enablement kit?
Matt explains that a few tools need to be included in your sales enablement kit to ensure success. His list includes a unified pitch deck, educational videos or an educational call recording, high-level product trainings, and a few plug-and-play email templates. The pitch deck shouldn’t have the exact same slides for everything, but rather allow for customization within limits, a sample call can provide a real-time example of the sale, and trainings and templates make sure your sales team are knowledgeable and have structured responses ready at all times.
“You want to have your main points for each slide in the deck, and basically say, ‘Here's the main points that you should hit on this slide. How you say it, I don't care. But here's the main points.’”
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Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming CyberMarketingCon 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Matthew Delman on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Diane Shapiro, Social Media Manager for cybersecurity companies, joins us to discuss all things social media. As a social media strategist for top B2B companies, PR agencies, and cybersecurity industries, Diane has over 10 years of experience helping companies broadcast their messages on social media to gain engagement and meet business goals. This week, Diane talks to us about employee engagement, post scheduling, metrics of measuring success, and how to speak to your target audience online.
Timecoded Guide:
[02:03] Engaging employees in your cybersecurity social media strategy
[07:20] Encouraging employees to create company content on social networks
[14:11] Gamifying content strategy to further encourage online engagement
[19:40] Measuring essential metrics when reaching social media goals
[24:40] Crafting a strong message to your target audience through effective customer service
How do you sell employees on the idea of social media strategy?
It’s one thing to have C-suite higher-ups pushing out posts on social media, but it’s another thing entirely to have everyday employees engaged and sharing as well. Employee education in the form of webinars allow the opportunity to explain how every member of your company can play a part online. After training team members about the importance of social media, consider incorporating weekly reminders on Slack, or setting aside specific office hours where employees can ask questions about types of content they could be posting.
“I'll do a couple webinars where I communicate the important point that social media really thrives when you have both the company and individuals posting. Employees then can choose the content they know is going to resonate with their social media audience.”
Is there a method to encourage people to write their own posts?
In theory, we think social media is easy. We’re not writing a novel or a thesis, it’s usually just a line or two with a simple photo or graphic. In reality, employees outside of your marketing or social media department are already working full-time jobs, making it especially difficult to get people writing and posting about your company online. Making social media posts as easy as possible is key. Pre-draft posts, edit for your employees, and make it a one-click deal.
“What I've found in my 10+ years of marketing is that if you don't make posting easy for people, they don't do it.”
How do you motivate employees to post authentic content?
The employee engagement platforms can be a great asset when motivating employees to post authentically. For example, some platforms offer employers an opportunity to gamify the experience and turn it into a contest. The key is to make the reward something rare enough that employees feel motivated to participate in the content on their social media channels. However, Diane does warn to be aware: it’s not about the quantity of posts, it’s about quality and scheduling.
“If you've got seven posts in one day on one person's account, and none for the rest of the week, you're only getting the benefit of one of those posts, not all seven.”
What metrics do you measure to make sure your social media strategy is working?
There are two terms here that Diane wants us to remember: vanity metrics and non-vanity metrics. Vanity metrics on social media channels are things like follower count. Follower count can be useful, but followers can be bought to artificially inflate the count. Diane instead advises to look at non-vanity metrics, such as impressions, likes, comments, and clicks. Those metrics will reveal how much your posts are actually getting interacted with and can determine the reach of your account.
“All these platforms measure in analytics. Clicks from the social assets through to the company's website are things you really want to look at, because that tells us how much your posts are getting interacted with. That's really what matters.”
Links:
Grab your ticket to the Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Diane Shapiro on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Ross Haleliuk, Head of Product at LimaCharlie, joins us to talk about product-led growth (PLG) and its role in cybersecurity and cloud security. Ross leads us through exactly what PLG is and how SAAS companies can implement it into their product or service processes for customer acquisition, revenue growth, retention, and engagement. Whether you’re a small business or a big company, PLG can ensure your customers are happy with your products and fully engaged with your services— without even going through the traditional sales funnel.
Timecoded Guide:
[02:01] Defining product-led growth and how businesses can use it to acquire customers
[08:33] How PLG is different in cybersecurity and customer data
[20:06] Balancing a security risk with ease of installation and integration
[28:21] Understanding metrics, conversions, and the customer retention journey
[35:36] Best hiring practices for PLG companies interested in implementing PLG
What is PLG, and why is everyone talking about it? PLG stands for “product-led growth.” Product-led growth might just sound like another cybersecurity buzzword, but it’s actually a solid business strategy. PLG positions the product as the main drive for customer acquisition, revenue growth, and retainment. Instead of a sales person or team guiding the customer through their purchasing journey, the product itself is fostering engagement, building relationships with paying customers, and showing them its own value.
“The part that is incredibly important is that a potential customer has the ability to try the product before they start paying for it, before they purchase.”
How does PLG play out in cybersecurity? Product-led growth can be tricky to implement in a cybersecurity space for a few reasons. The first is that product-led growth requires individual contributors to be empowered to make decisions, try different products, and make suggestions about solutions to problems. This can be difficult to implement in large companies without buy-in from leadership positions. Second, many products in cybersecurity fall under the umbrella of “keeping people safe.” This can be difficult to quantify the specific value of to customers, which is a vital aspect of successful PLG strategies.
“The challenge with those kinds of products is: How do you say if it's working? How do you measure if it's working? If you haven't been breached, is it because nobody tried to do it, [or] is the product so good that it stopped it? Did you just get lucky? It's the value that becomes incredibly hard to measure.”
How is PLG not just giving away a company’s products for free forever? Implementing a PLG strategy means giving customers a chance to discover the value of your product for themselves, without having to go through a paywall or talk to a sales rep. If customers can immediately see the value of your product, they’re likely to keep using it— and that’s when your sales and/or marketing teams can step in. At the end of the day, PLG doesn’t completely replace a sales team or funnel, but instead makes it easier for your sales team to focus on high-ticket items and customer success.
“If a company has 500 people adopt the product, the freemium version in one of their departments, with only 5 people using it, it means that the sales team can now approach and have a conversation, potentially about expanding the 5 people deployment into the 500 people deployment. The sizing of the opportunities becomes easier.”
How do you measure the value of a PLG strategy in a cyber company? It can be difficult to measure the value of PLG in a cybersecurity company, but it’s not impossible. What marketers and sales reps need to remember is that there has to be a key event that a customer experiences in order for them to realize the product does what it’s supposed to. For example, if you have an alert set up for someone clicking a link in an email that they’re not supposed to click, that’s a tangible event and alert you can see. That alert shows your customer that the product or software is doing what it’s supposed to do, and therefore illustrates the value of your PLG strategy.
“Building a PLG product requires an incredibly deep knowledge of the customer's needs, motivations, expectations, and everything else that drives the purchasing decisions.”
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Links:
Grab your ticket to the Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Ross Haleliuk on LinkedIn or on his website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Additional Resources:
https://ventureinsecurity.substack.com/p/product-led-growth-in-cybersecurity https://ventureinsecurity.substack.com/p/h1-2022-cybersecurity-product-led https://ventureinsecurity.substack.com/p/plg-is-an-oasis-not-a-mirage-making https://ventureinsecurity.substack.com/p/to-bring-plg-to-cybersecurity-lets https://ventureinsecurity.substack.com/p/first-principles-thinking-and-how
Gianna Whitver, our fearless co-host, finds herself on the opposite side of the microphone this week as she talks about community— specifically the community of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society. From the founder’s story to present-day, Maria interviews Gianna about the journey of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, including how it was formed, who was in mind when it was created, and what’s next for our ever-expanding community. Have you joined the Society yet? You will after this episode!
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Carving out our own community for in-house cybersecurity marketers
[07:29] Aligning our community with the aspects of identity, participation, and rewards
[12:36] Encouraging participation & knowing the limits of the high-stress cyber industry
[16:22] Introducing our upcoming events at RSA and Cyber Marketing Con 2022
[24:45] Connecting our community with marketing job boards, networking opportunities, and a place that they can call their own
Can you walk through the founder’s journey of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society?
After connecting during a job interview, Gianna and Maria developed both a strong friendship and a mutually beneficial relationship as cybersecurity marketers at smaller companies. As many of our Society members know, there are very limited resources for cyber marketing specifically, and even less of those resources provide mentorship or intel. Right before the pandemic hit, an idea was born: What if there could be an entire group of cyber marketers helping each other online?
“Being cybersecurity marketers at smaller companies, we didn't have a lot of internal resources or people to bounce ideas off of, or people to ask, ‘What are you seeing in the market? What's the best practice in this area? What do you think about this event?’”
Community needs to align with identity, encourage participation, and provide reward. In your opinion, how did the Cybersecurity Marketing Society achieve these three?
The Cybersecurity Marketing Society is run by cyber marketers for cyber marketers, and we aren’t afraid to admit that we vet all of our applications for potential new members. While this helps with the identity of our group, it also encourages participation from our members, who know that the CMS is a safe space to inquire and seek more information without just being advertised to or manipulated. Not only is this safe space a reward, we also offer exclusive events, virtual and in-person, and produce assets like the 2021 State of Cybersecurity Marketing report.
“There are some groups I know of that require that you post once a day or once a week, and we actually don't require that. One of the reasons we don't is because we know that cybersecurity marketing can be a really, really intense industry.”
What does the Cyber Marketing Society have planned for Cyber Marketing Con 2022? What about at RSA?
Considering the Cybersecurity Marketing Society was born in 2020, we haven’t been able to execute in-person event opportunities for our members. However, Gianna has incredible news: in-person meetups and events are coming— twice! Join us at RSA on June 7th from 3:30 to 5:30 at the Press Club for a cyber marketing meet-up, and mark your calendars for Cyber Marketing Con 2022, happening virtually AND in-person in November.
“Beyond the internal core, the heart of this, which is the Cybersecurity Marketing Slack community, there's so many ways to get involved. There's so many ways to be rewarded and to feel the connection of the group beyond that, including our Cyber Marketing Con.”
What does the Cybersecurity Marketing Society mean to you personally, in your career and in your personal life?
For Gianna, the community of the Cyber Marketing Society isn’t just about the posts, the events, or the data shared; it’s also about the lives changed and the people helped by everything the Society does. Hearing feedback from cybersecurity marketers who have gotten a job from our job board, improved their budget with the insight they’ve received, and learned something new from what we have to offer has been invaluable.
“My ethos is that I treat everybody who joins the Society as if they're my best friend, and I have made some amazing friendships with some wonderful people, just based off of us congregating in a digital room together every day for the past 600 days.”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming Cyber Marketing Con 2022, and check out what we did during Cyber Marketing Con 2021.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Read the 2021 State of Cybersecurity Marketing report.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Breezy Beaumont, Head of Growth at Correlated, takes us into the new and noteworthy world of product-led growth this week. Working at a product-led growth cybersecurity company herself, Breezy walks us through the essentials of what product-led growth (PLG) is, top strategies in the PLG world, marketing team tactics for PLG cyber companies, and how data looks differently with this go-to-market strategy. Is the secret to tackling the market hidden in product-led growth? Breezy helps us uncover the mystery!
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Introducing the (still relatively new) concept of product-led growth companies
[05:38] Implementing PLG go-to-market strategies in the cybersecurity industry
[12:29] Breaking through highly competitive industries and being the first to market
[20:35] Understanding the product you’re marketing and achieving customer success
[26:16] Following the journey data takes in a product-led growth company
What is product-led growth?
Product-led growth, or PLG, has become a buzzword that cybersecurity marketers hear, but rarely do we understand PLG as a go-to-market strategy. If you can go to a website and immediately get started with a product, that is product-led growth. Putting product at the forefront of your company, especially if this is a product-led growth cybersecurity company, changes the roles within your organization and removes many barriers in the sales process.
“Product-led growth is a little bit of an umbrella term for a lot of things that people are probably a little bit more familiar with. Basically, it's a way of describing any way that you can go to a website and immediately get started with the product, it's easily accessible to you.”
What are some cybersecurity companies or cybersecurity use cases that you've seen work with PLG?
Although product-led growth can feel at odds with the cybersecurity industry, Breezy assures us that PLG works for companies in all areas of cyber, including identity management, IoT security, and security ops. While PLG can thrive anywhere, tactics can range from freemium product levels, free trials, or product preview options, all of which encourage a product-forward approach to the sales process. Breezy explains that even product tours are becoming an early element of product-led growth strategy for many cyber companies.
“It's all about reducing friction in the buying process, because the buying process today stinks. It especially stinks for people who don't want to talk to people that much. We shouldn't have to put up X amount of dollars before purchasing.”
How do you respond to people who say, "I don't want my competition to see my products?"
Cybersecurity teaches us to think twice and to act cautiously with our data and information, and cybersecurity companies can embody this mindset as well. Product-led growth can feel like foolishly you’re giving away all your assets and information to your competitors, but Breezy explains that your competitors already have access to previews and demos of your product. Instead of fearing your competitors seeing your product, focus on product-led growth as a means to becoming the first in the market.
“The competition is fierce. And so, I'd say first of all, your competitors are already seeing your product out there, but second of all, you want to be first in the market. You want to get that market share as quickly as possible.”
Do PLG companies have to have an official customer marketing team, or one customer marketing person that's fully in charge of customer marketing?
Roles change when an organization shifts from a traditional go-to-market strategy to a product-led growth strategy. Marketing is not exempt from these changes, and instead often acts as a huge part of the sales and revenue processes as result of these changes. Breezy explains that, although we’re used to each department having separate data silos and clearly divided roles, the streamlined data approach of product-led growth facilitates collaboration and communication.
“One of the big changes that happens in a product-led company is the data that we're working off of, on both the marketing side and across the company. In a lot of product-led companies, the entire revenue team, if not the entire team altogether, all work off of the same dataset.”
Links:
Get tickets for our upcoming Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Spend some time with our guest Breezy Beaumont on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Correlated on LinkedIn and the Correlated website.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Carol Meyers is an Independent Board Director, Advisor, and Investor. She has held CMO positions at companies like Rapid7 and LogMeIn, along with numerous consulting and advisory positions at cyber startups. Carol develops go-to-market plans that drive growth and strategy in businesses. In this episode, she shares her wisdom for building a successful go-to-market strategy…and career, covering inbound marketing, target audience development, start-up hiring, and career self-confidence.
Timecoded Guide:
[01:59] Struggles faced and advice for young women starting out in tech
[03:28] Carol’s components of a go-to marketing plan
[12:10] Who to pick for your team at a start-up
[19:41] Ways to measure success
[28:41] How advisory boards can be your cheerleaders
What are the ingredients of a go-to marketing plan?
Carol says to have a solid plan, you have to have the resources and information prepared to best support your channels. If you are unable to tell your channels who you are and what you’re selling, then your business isn’t ready. It’s all about knowing your buyer; who they are and how you can solve their problem. It's also important to consider why they should choose you to solve it. Once you have a clear plan and ways to measure and test it, you will be better suited for taking the first step.
“It's not that someone has to spend money to buy your solution, but they have to invest their personal time to evaluate your solution and to think about the problem that you're solving for them.”
What are the most important metrics to keep an eye on?
The most important metric is also the most obvious; that customers are buying and using your products and services. You might see your audience in varying stages that may not match the one you’re in. Be sure to look at all the stages of conversion. Some that are not on the traditional pipeline might get overlooked when they play a big part in lead generation. Carol reminds us to keep a sharp eye on micro-conversions; while they may not be counted in the pipeline, they can still play a huge factor in a sale or lead.
“Your number one goal in marketing is you've got to be a part of revenue, you've got to be driving revenue.”
What is the role of an advisory board?
Carol explains that the role of an advisory board can look different from company to company. In her experience, a set of challenges are brought to the board, and then they present possible solutions and advice for that problem. There is also a one-on-one side to being an advisor, which is one of her favorite aspects. Talking through roadblocks and bouncing ideas creates a valuable and intimate relationship between advisors and company leaders.
“Having a group of advisers around you and people who can even just be a cheerleader for you can be really helpful.”
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Links:
Connect with Carol Meyers on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Grab your ticket to the Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Additional resources: BlackKite Security, Security ScoreCard
David Brown is the Director of Global Partner Marketing for ZeroFox, a computer and network security company based out of Baltimore, MD. David has over fifteen years of experience in the international B2B marketing field. He joins us as we discuss partnership channel marketing. David believes it's a positive direction for businesses to go in the future of marketing.
Timecoded Guide:
In this podcast, David covers:
- [1:06] The breakdown and variables of channel partner marketing
- [13:36] Where your program partners are and what they need from you
- [21:24] Tactics to enlist new partners for small companies
- [35:19] How David’s early career prepared him for cybersecurity marketing
What is channel partner marketing?
This fresh approach to marketing allows for a broader market and network, while also increasing revenue for the companies involved. When partnering with another company through channel partnership, both remain independent. They share the benefits of re-selling and distributing each other’s products. Not only that, the partners act as influencers for each other’s brands.
“Really, what we're looking at with partner marketing is working with another organization in order to amplify your sales and marketing capabilities.”
Why is channel partnership the future of marketing?
David thinks everyone can benefit from a channel marketing partnership, especially when it comes to inbound marketing. This may be his hot-take in the industry, but he has seen the growth and advantage of inviting other companies to endorse your products. With these channels comes influence, and David believes that influence is the new currency of business.
“And when the channel team in the partnership team is more integrated into sales, marketing, and product, it seems to be a lot more successful.”
How does this fit into sales?
Your channels are out there building brand awareness, relationships, and networking. As they drive engagement up, leads will follow suit. It also gives the sales team more resources to get the job done. By creating a partnership program that works alongside your sales team, hitting target goals becomes much easier.
“My job, and people that I work with on the marketing team, is to take our limited resources and direct them at those partners that are starting to build that momentum and go out there.”
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Links:
If you have questions or want to chat, email David at dabrown@zerofox.com or message him on the Cybersecurity Marketing Society Slack!
Find David Brown on LinkedIn.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Grab your ticket to the Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Additional resources: ZeroFox, Crossbeam, Cybersecurity Marketing Con, Forrester, Menlo Security, Tierra Security
Joining Maria and Gianna this week is Clark Barron, the Demand Generation Manager at Nisos. He has a background in cybersecurity marketing, photography, and independent film, and is an avid gamer. Clark shares his unconventional ways of lead generation through websites. Every marketing campaign might feel like it says the same thing, but Clark defies the user’s expectations to bring in user interest and stand out in the field.
Timecoded Guide:
In this podcast, Clark covers:
- [5:48] Marketers are hackers of different colors
- [9:14] Campaigns that changed the game
- [15:08] How Clark tracks his unprecedented marketing campaigns
- [22:31] Communicating with leadership to try your ideas
How can marketers apply this approach to messaging branding?
Marketers have more influence and power than they often realize. The similarity between hackers and marketers is that marketers are gathering data in an ethical manner. Both are building personas, exploiting pain points, researching, and reaching vulnerabilities. Clark believes that is the power of choice to be good ethical marketers.
“Marketers, a lot of times, don't realize the kind of powers that they have, they have to make a choice to use them for good. That's the way I look at it.”
How have specific campaigns you’ve implemented changed the game?
Clark started his process by evaluating voice and brand identity. He sat back and watched what others were doing. Noticing that all the cybersecurity websites were saying the same thing over and over, Clark decided to take action in a wacky way. He developed a marketing strategy that changed the game.
“Subvert their expectations from the very beginning. They're expecting one thing, and they're getting something completely different. We know what they're expecting, but instead, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna say, ‘Enjoy a completely different cybersecurity landing page.’”
How do you have conversations with leadership to go along with these ideas?
The first step is to have those conversations. If the CEO or higher-up doesn’t understand marketing processes, then you need to have those conversations with them. Long-term growth is what you should be working toward. Before you cast out the big campaigns, you have to have small wins so you’re better prepared for a marketing plan with bigger risks.
“A lot of bigger organizations are not going to be able to do this. I have that level of self-awareness that I know that, however, what you can do is change the way you look at conversations with leadership.”
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Links:
Find Clark Barron on his website or LinkedIn and check out his blog here!
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Grab your ticket to the Cyber Marketing Con 2022.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Additional resources: Nisos, PhishFirewall, DEF CON, Cybersecurity Marketing Society, Celeste
Sky Kennedy, Video Storyteller and Content Creator at Studio Sky, joins us to talk about her expertise— video! Inspired to become part of the cyber world after her work with Cylance, Sky loves teaching the cybersecurity industry about the amazing stories we can tell through videos. Whether you’re a one-person cyber marketing team on a shoestring budget or a corporate marketer looking for your next project, Sky shares the tips and tools marketers need to use video content to connect with their audience.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Sky’s history and background in cyber with Cylance
[05:52] Video projects at Cylance and their influence on Sky’s work today
[08:50] Customer testimonials and the value of emotional connection in video
[17:09] DIY video content ideas for low budget marketers
[24:53] Video marketing budget breakdowns for cybersecurity teams
In your opinion, what makes a good customer testimonial video?
Testimonials can feel repetitive and disingenuous when customers repeat what a company already says about themselves. “You’ve got a great cybersecurity solution,” is nice to hear, but Sky believes that the value of a good testimonial is in the connection a customer feels to the organization. When a customer is willing to explain how the organization helped them behind-the-scenes, connected with them after their product was purchased, and solved their problems beyond the surface-level solution, that creates a testimonial that makes an impact.
“The best testimonials, in my opinion, are about how the company and the product and the people are really there for the customer, which engages the whole emotional side.”
What important aspects of video storytelling are critical to making sure your message gets across?
When cybersecurity professionals tell Sky, “I want a video,” the unfortunate reality is that they rarely know what kind of video content they’re looking for. Sky believes in upfront input and understanding with all of her clients. She goes in depth, asks a lot of questions about what they’re looking for, and guides them every step of the way to ensure success. The end goal is to show off the value of this company, of the products and solutions they create, but Sky understands that she needs to know their value inside and out in order to showcase it.
“I’ve created a list of questions about what a customer wants, what their expectations are, how much they want to spend on the project, and what their timeline is all about. I cover the whole issue of what their expectation is for this particular video that we're going to create.”
Can you share some DIY tools for marketers making video content on a shoestring budget?
We’ve interviewed some one-person marketing teams on the podcast before, so we wanted to ask Sky about what low budget video marketing might look like. Sky explained that the videos filmed on smartphones and edited on simple applications can still make an incredible impact. Numerous commercials, viral videos, and even Oscar-nominated films have used smartphone cameras. What matters more is the value of the content from a messaging standpoint. Use your small budget to show off how much you love your organization, not how much you love your new camera.
“My whole goal is to not use cameras. Not because I don't like video cameras, but I am not a camera technician. Cameras cost a lot of money, and they take a lot of effort and energy to learn how to use them.”
What advice do you have for marketers struggling to convince leadership to allocate a part of their budget to video?
While small teams with meager budgets might have to make something out of nothing, marketers with larger teams and larger budgets have to make value out of their video investment. Sky encouraged us to consider how much content can come from just one video. A couple of minutes of well-planned video content can be broken up, edited, and used in many ways. It’s never just a video. Instead, it’s numerous marketing assets and an invaluable look at the behind-the-scenes of what your organization does and how you can differentiate yourselves from your cybersecurity competitors.
“We can take that video, we can cut it up, and we can use it in a variety of different ways. So, that $5,000 investment, when we amortize over 20 or 30 elements that we're using it in, ends up being only a couple hundred dollars per element.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Sky Kennedy on LinkedIn and on her website, or shoot her an email at SkyKennedy@StudioSkyVideo.com
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Ashish Rajan does SO many things. He is the producer and host of Cloud Security Podcast, the Head of Security & Compliance at PageUp, a Course Instructor at SANS Institute, a Faculty at IANS, a trainer, an AWS builder, and the founder of the DevSECOps Melbourne meetup and Cybersecurity for Startups— and he even has time to have beef with Ryan Reynolds. We asked Ashish on the podcast to find out how he does it all in cybersecurity, as well as his thoughts on cyber marketing and the latest focus on PLG.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Introducing the many roles of Ashish, including his meetups with Cloud Security and DevSecOps in London
[05:21] Missed cyber education opportunities with Ryan Reynolds’ 1Password commercial
[15:02] Vendor process for product purchasing, right from the mouth of a CISO
[25:07] Product lead growth (PLG) and how security product become eligible for PLG
[34:44] Ashish’s strategy for consistent multi platform social media marketing
Recently, you were in London for an event. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Ashish takes his many roles in cyber and tech super seriously, managing to schedule a variety of professional meetups and live streams on his trip to London. Originally planning to travel for personal reasons, Ashish found himself working with DevSecOps, planning a meetup for Cloud Security, and working through a very different, yet very tech savvy live stream setup. Consistency is key from Ashish’s perspective— rain or shine, he’s been running this live stream for three years, which is a huge commitment but a worthwhile investment in his audience.
“The whole thing took exactly a week to plan, and I think it was really fascinating that we just announced a meetup with the DevSecOps London group over there. We had about 120 people turn up for that event. That was great.”
What was your opinion on Ryan Reynolds’ ad for 1Password?
Ashish had some choice words on a recent Ryan Reynolds’ commercial online, but we wanted to pick his brain even further. Does Ashish have beef with Ryan? It turns out, not really (although he is definitely open to working with him), but he does think Ryan and 1Password missed an opportunity to further cyber education. With that wide of a platform and that prominent of a figure, Ashish would have liked to see Ryan and his team break down the necessity of strong, secure passwords, as well as advocate for everyday people to consider the security threats they might encounter.
“I thought: Why not use that video as a way to educate and piggyback on the thing that Ryan Reynolds was trying to talk about? But give it a more cybersecurity value spin. So, the video that I made was more around what he was really trying to talk about.”
What are your opinions about marketing in the cyber vendor space?
As a CISO friend of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, we know we can count on Ashish to notice and pay attention to solid marketing strategy in the cyber industry. A major pain point, not only for us, but for Ashish, has been a lack of creative freedom amongst marketing teams in the industry. Ashish has felt honestly disappointed by the tough constraints that certain cyber companies have placed on their marketing departments, including forcing them to color inside the lines of board and investor opinions on marketing strategies.
“I feel the true marketing is where you're just giving value. Someone buying the product is literally just a byproduct of this. You've given so much value, it doesn't make sense to the person to not buy the product.”
Can you expand on your thoughts around PLG?
PLG, or Product Lead Growth, just might be the future for developers in the cyber community. Developers have a voice, and Ashish has encountered a few companies ready to listen to those voices— even though their competitors still might not be. Using ease of adoption, or how fast someone can get used to your product, and time of value, or how fast a developer can see the results of your product, PLG is not only achievable, but profitable. PLG is already happening, according to Ashish, and it's only a matter of time before companies will have to start asking themselves: How do we convince the developers?
“Once you've got there, is it going to take 1 week for them to get the result? Or, is it going to be a few seconds? No developer is going to spend more than an hour waiting for this result.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Ashish Rajan on his website, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
The Candy Industry website has a candy-related podcast.
How do marketers get “blocked” by cybersecurity practitioners? We’re making a list with Ken Underhill, CEO of Cyber Life. Along with what NOT to do, we’ll also talk about his awesome career in cyber and his most recent work with his company’s training program, Cyber Life School. Using his years of experience and his reputation as one of the funniest guys in cyber, Ken sheds some light on low-cost educational opportunities for future security practitioners, discusses his new book about crushing your next job interview, and even shares what might be next for Cyber Life’s television show.
Timecoded Guide:
[00:00] Introducing Ken beyond his accolades & reputation
[07:12] Seeing the human side of technology marketing
[13:34] Private InfoSec communities & cyber safe spaces
[20:00] Future guests & technology topics on Cyber Life’s TV show
[23:45] Hacking your next security job interview with expert advice
Can you tell us about your journey in networking and building your brand?
Although Ken has a strong personal brand, he’s completely willing to admit that he took a less traditional route to get there. Focusing less on branding and more on giving back to his community, Ken’s personal brand happened because of his other actions, not because of his focus on personal professional development. Sharing his authentic self with the world on tv, in speaking engagements, or at networking events doesn’t scare Ken, even though he considers himself introverted. It’s instead all about sharing what he’s learned, no matter how small, in cybersecurity, in the other industries he’s been a part of, and in his personal life.
“Look back a couple of years, or even just six months, right? You were a different person back then. You've learned something since then. Whatever that is, share it.”
What are some ways that cybersecurity marketers or marketing cyber products have fallen short or failed you as a security practitioner?
As a security practitioner, Ken represents the people we market directly towards as cybersecurity marketers. Considering his role in our security audience, we were curious about what he considers the dos and don’ts of cyber marketing. Ken’s biggest cyber product pet peeve actually centers around too much focus on the product itself. If you’re spending all your focus and energy on just considering the technology and not acknowledging the humans you’re marketing towards, Ken believes that you’re just shoving tech down someone’s throat and not making an impact.
“I think the mistake a lot of people make, especially around technology products or services, is they think it's just technology. You have got to remember that there's a human on the other side there.”
What are some exciting things in the works at Cyber Life?
With his roots in podcasting and content creation, we’re excited to give Ken the spotlight to share his company, Cyber Life, and the amazing work they’re doing. Currently, Cyber Life centers their services around a television show, which Ken loves being a part of because of its combination of podcast-style interviews and Bill Nye-esque learning segments. However, education television isn’t the only thing Cyber Life is doing these days. Considering Ken’s low income upbringing and his passion for educational programming, Cyber Life School exists alongside Cyber Life to democratize cybersecurity education and offer free training for security practitioners, regardless of their stage in the industry.
“At Cyber Life School, we've democratized cybersecurity education. Everything's the ‘pay what you can’ model. If you grew up like me and have no money, you can still afford to go there, because it's free. If you want to pay, you can pay, if you want to pay at a discount and support us, you can do so.”
Can you tell us about the book you co-authored, Hack the Cybersecurity Interview?
Alongside television, education, and security, Ken has most recently dipped his toes in the water as a writer. Co-authoring a book with Tia Hopkins and Chris Foulon, Hack the Cybersecurity Interview will be hitting the shelves soon and is already available for pre-order on Amazon. Using years of experience interviewing and being interviewed for cybersecurity jobs, Tia, Chris, and Ken share personalized advice about the process of job searching and interviewing for open cyber positions. Customized to include numerous types of security practitioner roles, this book is a major resource for future cyber professionals and for cybersecurity marketers looking to better understand their audience.
“Pretty much every interview I've ever been in has the exact same questions, they go off a checklist for the behavioral interview questions. So, the ones in that chapter of the book are things you want to study, definitely, no matter what job you're going for.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Ken Underhill on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Cyber Life on their website and LinkedIn.
Check out Ken’s book, Hack the Cybersecurity Interview.
The Candy Industry website has a candy-related podcast.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Rodrigo Leme, Marketing Director at Right-Hand Security, joins us this week to cover the often ignored topic in cybersecurity of marketing to small and medium-sized businesses, or SMBs. Covering the concepts of business use cases, security awareness training, and post-sales support, Rodrigo explains the ins and outs, the good and the bad, the tips and the tricks of cyber marketing in the SMB world and when we should consider the bottom line (hint: it’s probably more than you think).
Timecoded Guide:
[03:14] Talking to non-technical customers in SMBs about cybersecurity and security awareness training and getting to the root of their problems and pain points
[08:30] Seeing past the term of SMB to understand the people you’re marketing to and what a good culture of cybersecurity can bring to them
[23:39] Advocating against fear, uncertainty, and doubt when marketing to SMBs and the importance of focusing on what’s good for your people, not what’s scariest
[29:09] Understanding the importance of post-sales support, engaging with customer feedback, and recognizing what customers want to see from your services
[35:39] Exploring strange and unusual business use cases and seeing the commonality of empathy for pain points in marketing
Rodrigo, can you tell us about marketing to the SMB customer?
We don’t always get a chance to dive into SMB marketing with such a knowledgeable source, but Rodrigo invites us to consider the differences between an SMB and a large company customer throughout this episode. First, consider the size of a team you may be working with. Instead of having a CISO or a head of security, a business owner may be working on security themselves, hoping to find guidance from you on how to move forward in a small team. Additionally, Rodrigo warns that many SMB clients may not see the security opportunities beyond their tech goals, such as a restauranter seeking to add WI-FI to their offerings and missing additional security awareness strategies that need to be pointed out to them.
“The SMB customer has problems on the surface that he knows he has, like, ‘I want Wi-Fi in my restaurant for my guests.’ And he has issues that he's not aware of, or he has opportunities he's not aware of, like he may have security issues behind that Wi-Fi access that he doesn't know about.”
Can you tell us how Walmart used cybersecurity for PR?
According to Rodrigo, good cybersecurity is even better for PR. This idea could be held up with a myriad of examples, but one Rodrigo is particularly enamored with is Walmart’s prevention of gift card scams. With the ability to prevent scams and return funds before customers lose their money, Walmart has saved their customers over a million dollars and have been praised for this initiative by major news outlets. Although this is a drop in the bucket within an ocean of an issue, Rodrigo points out that saving any customer any amount of money and preventing them from being scammed in any way leads to massive PR benefits, especially when you can show off how well you understand your customer’s pain points.
“Let's say that you're protecting those customers from getting into scams that make those people lose their mortgage money, or whatever. You're saving them a million, even if it's only a million, that's good PR. That only happens if you understand the end customer pain points, not the immediate pain points of the organization.”
What are your thoughts on FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in marketing to these SMBs and in these business use cases?
We’ve discussed the idea of FUD before on the podcast, and how it’s never a good cyber marketing tactic to exploit someone’s fear, uncertainty, or doubt. Although our examples have ranged from large corporations to individual consumers, we wanted to talk with Rodrigo about his perspective on marketing for SMBs and the danger of FUD. Rodrigo, considering himself a positive person with a lighthearted demeanor, finds using FUD in marketing to SMBs to be manipulative and redundant. Rodrigo argues that not only do small business owners fear for their security, they also come to Right-Hand with a desire to enhance their security already in mind. They don’t need to be scared further if a positive approach could be just as influential.
“I do not like fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I do believe that, since we're in the education business, I do like educating. We do believe in empathy. We listen to our customers, we do ask the ‘why,’ to understand the pain points of the customers.”
What are some best practices around supporting the post-sales process, after you've sold a product?
Marketing so often focuses on the beginning of the sales cycle. We love to reach out to new customers and encourage those doing their research to check out our products, but we don’t always talk about what happens after a sale takes place. For Rodrigo and his team at Right-Hand, the post-sales process requires its own understanding of your customer and their security goals beyond what they might see for themselves. Following up with customers post-sale not only leads to high-quality feedback for Rodrigo and his team, it also allows for them to see where support is still needed for their customer, including analyzing the results of their security awareness training and setting up further opportunities to reduce human risk.
“Are we really reducing human risk? If we're not: How can we help them? Can we help them leverage the services? Can we sit down with them and help build stronger content training content? Are they having problems creating content for the training?”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Rodrigo Leme on his website and LinkedIn
Learn more about Right-Hand Cybersecurity on LinkedIn and their website
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
Sherry Lowe, CMO of Exabeam, joins us this week to talk about marketing strategies during the pandemic as well as representing women in the male-dominated industries of tech and cybersecurity. With CMO experience at Druva, Expanse, and Exabeam, Sherry explains how her encounters with sexism in the cyber industry inspired her to pursue high-level management and board opportunities, including her work with FirstBoard.io, and how she’s pivoted to focus on digital marketing during the uncertainty of COVID-19.
Timecoded Guide:
[01:55] Witnessing changes in cybersecurity marketing tactics and practices as the online and digital world continues to influence our audiences
[04:11] Shifting away from events-based marketing budgets during the COVID-19 pandemic and embracing more digital cyber marketing opportunities
[08:29] Changing her strategies and altering her marketing budget when joining Exabeam as the CMO, especially considering the timing for the pandemic
[15:17] Acknowledging progress being made for women in cyber, while also keeping in mind the impact of the pandemic and the economy on mothers working in tech
[20:18] Dealing with sexism and toxicity in the workplace, especially in male-dominated industries, and advocating for more women in marketing and in leadership
How has cybersecurity marketing changed from when you started?
With a storied career both behind and ahead of Sherry, we were excited to ask her about what she’s seen change the most since beginning her career in the cyber industry. Her answer? An increased focus on digital marketing and online content. When Sherry started, websites were not the focus for many cyber companies, versus today where websites are a hugely influential part of the marketing team’s job and generates the best leads for the majority of cyber and tech companies.
“A really huge shift that I've seen over the years is just how powerful driving prospects to your website is. To interact on the website, not just to land on it and read something, but to actually do something there. Those conversion rates are going to end up being really some of the best leads that you ever see.”
Can you pinpoint any specific changes that happened at Exabeam and in cyber marketing, specifically around the pandemic?
Although cyber marketing has changed in leaps and bounds since Sherry became a part of the industry, the pandemic brought a huge shift in the marketing perspective and the marketing budget for cyber marketing and for Exabeam. Joining Exabeam during the pandemic, Sherry was admittedly horrified to realize that a large majority of their budget, nearly 80%, was focused on marketing at in-person events. With the pandemic making travel restricted and group gatherings nearly impossible, Sherry quickly pivoted their efforts and their budget to digital marketing, striving to engage customers online and continue to innovate their outreach beyond what it would be in an event setting or at large gatherings.
“Cyber security marketing loves the trade show. They love the big box trade show, and it was a forced shift for the cybersecurity industry because COVID changed all of that. If you were not a digital-first marketing organization when COVID hit, you had to do that shift so quickly.”
What's the mission of FirstBoard.io, and what ceilings are you trying to break?
We’ve accomplished so much in the cyber world, continuing to bridge the gap between where men and women are represented in the industry. However, Sherry points out that a large majority of company boards fail to provide strong opportunities for women in cyber and in tech. Hoping to give more women the opportunity to serve on their first boards and get a start in leadership in the industry, Sherry became a founding member of FirstBoard.io.
“Right now, women are just not as represented as men on boards…and there's a tendency to keep using the same women on boards. So, we're trying to expand it, so that opportunities go beyond just the same four or five women.”
Do you have any advice that you could share with people listening today about workplace toxicity and sexism?
There’s thankfully a lot of emphasis around creating safe work environments for any company, but especially in cyber these days. Unfortunately, Sherry has seen the reality of what it’s like to experience unsafe work environments first-hand. After being harassed on more than one occasion by a male coworker, Sherry spoke up and had to cope with the consequences of doing so, losing friends and leaving her job after doing so. As difficult as this situation was, Sherry is thankful for the realization that brought her: she could be a CMO, she could be a leader in cyber, and she could build a safer environment for the women that worked with her.
“Everyone always says, ‘If you see something, say something,’ but what they don't tell you is the sentence that comes after that: ‘But prepare for the consequences of saying something.’ That's the sentence they forget to say after that, and you have to weigh that for yourself.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Sherry Lowe on LinkedIn
Learn more about Exabeam on the Exabeam website and LinkedIn
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter
We invite Jennifer VanAntwerp, Principal at JVAN Consulting, to talk about taking the challenge of cybersecurity marketing by the horns. Her secret weapon? Kindness. Jen shares stories with us about her marketing journey to becoming a consultant, explains her development of the 10 Commandments of Kindness for Cybersecurity Marketers, and reminds us why communities like the Cybersecurity Marketing Society are so important for marketers and for the cybersecurity industry as a whole.
Timecoded Guide:
[02:12] Explaining Jen’s background in automotive marketing and healthcare, as well as connecting those industries to her newer roles in cybersecurity
[08:36] Breaking down Jen’s 10 Commandments of Kindness for Cybersecurity Marketers and revealing which commandments feel most important for the industry currently
[18:34] Taking the challenge to develop handouts and merchandise beyond cheap plastic pens and unoriginal assets that don’t leave an impact on your audience
[23:40] Avoiding falling into the marketing trap of FUD: fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which is especially common in the cybersecurity industry
[32:08] Wrapping up Jen’s commandments with reading the room, avoiding common lies in marketing, and connecting better with our cyber community
You’ve worked in the automotive industry and in healthcare, what have you seen from those two industries be applicable in cyber?
Jennifer VanAntwerp has a very impressive marketing resume, including work in the automotive industry and the urgent care side of the healthcare industry. We were curious about differences, especially with Jen being relatively new to the cyber marketing world. The biggest difference, which we’ve actually discussed previously on the podcast, is the skepticism of the cybersecurity audience. Cyber professionals are already worried about the online threats we see emerge every day, but they're also skeptical, sometimes, of the tactics marketers use and the buzzword-y, almost meaningless language we can fall victim to.
“There's always a new element or facet of cybersecurity that you can go into, but I would say the biggest difference between cybersecurity and the two other industries that I worked in, is the audience. Our audience is very, very skeptical. We've almost trained them to be.”
What do you think are the pros and cons of being a generalist in marketing?
With Jen having experience outside of the industry, she considers herself more of a generalist in her cybersecurity marketing tactics. She’s entirely willing to admit that she’s not the most technical marketer of the bunch. Although this presents a well-rounded mindset for the companies she consults with, she acknowledges that there may need to be an extra set of hands to do some technical explaining or a lot of extra time to do her research. There’s always something new to learn in cyber marketing, but it’s important to point out that it can be overwhelming, which is one of the reasons Jen developed her 10 commandments.
“It's a blessing and a curse. It's a good thing, because I can see the big picture, do a lot of the strategy elements, and understand what levers to pull, but with some of the levers, I might need a specialist to assist in that regard.”
Can you tell us about which of your 10 Cyber Marketing Commandments are the most important and why?
With these 10 marketing commandments, Jen shares all the basics of not only being a good marketer, but also being a good human in the cybersecurity industry. One of the most important commandments is the first of the 10, which is to respect your audience’s time. Everyone is busy, with a lot on their plate, and not acknowledging that in your marketing tactics not only can annoy your audience, but it can be a waste of time for you, as well. If your audience doesn’t have the time for your current strategy, you won’t get through to them.
“That's one of the things I love about the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, is that it is a way for us to share ideas and do that coopetition thing. Even though we might be competitors, we can still share ideas within the space, but I feel like it's a good chance for us to have constant reminders of what not to do.”
What is so special about commandment 10: give back to the community?
Although all 10 commandments offer lessons to be learned for our fellow cybersecurity marketers, commandment 10 emphasizes community and the importance of giving back. This can be traced all the way back to Jen’s mother, a passionate volunteer always lending help to her community. She’s been incredibly influential on Jen’s opinion of community, and the Cybersecurity Marketing Society has given Jen one of many opportunities to give back. From volunteering to donating, mentoring to offering someone a shoulder to cry on, your community needs your help, and the 10th cyber marketing commandment says just that.
“I ended it with that one, because I feel like that's the one that's going to keep going on forever. It's like commandment number 10 lives on for the rest of time, because those little acts of service within your community, they spread tenfold.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Jennifer VanAntwerp on LinkedIn.
Read Jen’s original 10 Commandments of Kindness for Cybersecurity Marketers.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Zereen Ali, Cyberforce Q’s Marketing Coordinator, brings her one-person team to the podcast today. Together, we talk about being new to cybersecurity, finding educational resources for cybersecurity marketers, and growing with Cyberforce Q from regional to national. With a variety of skills under her belt and a work history that includes automotive marketing for a tier-one supplier, Zereen has become a vital part of Cyberforce Q’s success. She hopes to take this company even further with leveraging partnerships and managing data quality.
Timecoded Guide:
[03:08] Transitioning from an automotive to cybersecurity marketing position
[07:07] Structuring her work calendar around her one-person digital marketing team
[12:40] Approaching Cyberforce Q’s scaling from a marketing perspective and utilizing former automotive marketing strategies
[16:15] Marketing campaigns and techniques that have worked and haven’t worked for Cyberforce Q
[20:19] Joining the cybersecurity industry during the COVID pandemic
What is it like moving from automotive to cybersecurity marketing?
After leaving the automotive industry during the pandemic, Zereen saw an opportunity in cybersecurity marketing to grow her content strategy skills, as well as learn the technical side of the cybersecurity industry. Leaving behind the more rigid and traditional world of automotive marketing, Zereen joined Cyberforce Q and immediately felt the personal impact that increased security has on their clients.
“In cyber, you can really feel that impact because you’re protecting people…We’re really protecting the end users in a lot of cases, and it feels really fulfilling.”
What marketing educational materials have been the most helpful for you?
New to cyber, Zereen found herself with a lot to learn about the ins and outs of Cyberforce Q and their competitors’ products and services as well. Focusing on researching and networking, she joined our Cyber Marketing Society and has found an incredible community willing to answer questions and provide feedback for people just like Zereen. New to cyber, or looking for fellow cyber security marketers? Check out the Cyber Marketing Society!
“[Cybersecurity Marketing Society] is such a wonderful place to start because you get an instant network…you can ask anyone any questions.”
How does being a one-person team impact your work and your schedule?
From her experience in automotive marketing, Zereen has gotten used to small marketing teams and high accountability. In her role at Cyberforce Q, Zereen is a one-person marketing team. From email campaigns to content marketing to website editing, she has a high volume of work and often collaborates with only an intern or two. To manage this workload, she keeps a tight schedule and a flexible calendar that allows for last minute changes.
“The brand touches every single piece of your organization. How I interact with clients, how our sales team interacts, and how our technical team interacts all need to have some strain of our vision within it.”
What is the next marketing strategy for Cyberforce Q?
In the transition from regional to national, Zereen has been focusing Cyberforce Q’s marketing strategy around leveraging strategic partnerships and increasing opportunities for Cyberforce Q to be seen as a subject matter expert. While partnering with other companies and organizations helps potential customers learn about Cyberforce Q, using speaking engagements and other educational opportunities to share knowledge and explain case studies builds trust in their knowledge of cybersecurity.
“[At Cyberforce Q], we are really trying to position ourselves as that subject matter expert.”
Links:
Spend some time with our guest Zereen Ali on LinkedIn and Facebook, or shoot her an email at zali@cyberforceq.com.
Learn more about Cyberforce Q on their website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn.
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn.
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter.
Lori Cohen, fractional CMO at Chief Outsiders and former VP of Marketing for Percona, joins us this week to talk about the importance of your brand— not just your branding. From popping balloons with Veridium to saying “Mongo Wrongo” with Percona to falling in love with Made In pans, Lori explains how brands earn the right to live in our heads through keeping it personal and not being afraid to have a little fun with longer term strategies.
Timecoded Summary:
[03:27] Navigating brand identity and metrics in a high pressure environment
[07:48] Effective guerrilla marketing through thought interruption
[15:39] Showing up beyond the gimmick to create an impactful convention experience
[25:01] Getting in the heads of your audience and earning brand recognition
[33:36] Personalized communication and its impact on audience connection
Be sure to check out the photos and videos of the Mongo campaign, referenced by Lori, here!
How do you navigate that brand when you're in one of these venture-backed, high pressure, high performance environments?
When talking about branding goals, Lori is quick to explain her distaste for short-term goal measurement and how much focus certain brands spend on MQLs. Although short-term metrics can seem extremely successful, longer term projects with larger goals often lead to higher chances of profitability. Although it might take some convincing, Lori advises her fellow marketers to ask for the resources for longer term projects over the MQL-focused short-term.
“No one likes to talk about it. Nobody likes to put money towards it, and everybody confuses brand with branding. So, those are even some places that we can start.”
Can you explain how you go about sourcing these creative things instead of just sorting by cheapest?
As Lori explains her adventures in brand marketing, one question we kept asking ourselves was: How can we do that? It’s easy to fall for cheap marketing materials, like coffee cups and
pens, but those items rarely connect to our brand’s message. In Lori’s experience, the best way to source these creative ideas is long-term planning, similar to other marketing strategies she endorses. When we make our swag a part of our brand message, we avoid the gimmicks.
“It wasn't just a gimmick for gimmick sake. We got to translate that message into the pain that we know everybody feels and then demonstrate our technology.”
Tell us why you prefer that consumer brand over others. What is it that they do that's really good in brand building?
For an example of a brand that speaks to her heart, Lori tells us about her love of Made In. Made In makes pots, pans, and assorted cookware for people just like Lori, who are passionate about high quality tools to make high quality meals. Made In speaks to Lori and inspires her loyalty not only through living up to their high quality purpose, but for their consistent messaging and their focus on the right audience.
“They want to speak to me. They don't want to speak to my friend Robin, who we may look alike in terms of our demographics, but she has never cooked in our life. They would be wasting a fortune to go after her. They're really going after people like me.”
How would you feel if our brand disappeared?
Brands make their way into our heads and have the permission to stay there through connecting with us on a personal level. Lori is quick to remind us that, no matter how our customers and potential clients are connecting to us, there needs to be a personal approach to what we do and how we speak to them. From making sure our emails aren’t just automated by no-reply accounts to reaching out with fun messages and memes, we only can succeed with inspiring brand loyalty when we make ourselves worthy of that loyalty.
“I'm not saying it's easy, but the ones that do that well, I think they actually get invited into your home and begin feeling about your brand in a different way. And then your emails seem less spammy, and maybe more welcome in their inbox.”
Spend some time with our guest Lori Cohen on LinkedIn, Twitter, the Chief Outsiders website
Additional resources mentioned in this podcast:
Follow Gianna on LinkedIn
Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn
Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter
Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter
We’re joined by Karen Walsh, Founder and CEO of Allegro Solutions, on the podcast today to talk about the good, bad, and ugly of cybersecurity content marketing. As a compliance expert, former professor, lawyer, and kickass cybersecurity auditor, Karen shares her formula for content marketing success, educates us on educating our audience, and even gives us a quick peek at one of her many talents outside of the cybersecurity space.
Timecoded Summary:
- [01:17] Introducing Karen and the concept of GRC (governance, risk, compliance)
- [04:27] Educating your audience through correct usage of webpage real estate
- [13:02] Discovering the formula for solid content marketing copy
- [22:46] Throwing out a few vague and unhelpful content marketing “bad words”
- [34:41] Kicking ass in cybersecurity as a woman, a marketer, and a freelancer
Sponsor:
Thank you to our sponsors and producers Hacker Valley Media! Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings run an amazing studio, which produces not only the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast, but a bunch of other shows that you're going to want to listen to as well. You can check these all out at HackerValley.com.
Do we really need to explain this again?
When explaining the essentials of educating your audience, Karen encounters more than her fair share of clients who think they don’t have to explain or educate as much as they do. Education cannot be made with assumptions or without proper research into your audience. Although many of your potential clients may understand the terms you’re using, explaining and educating instead of assuming will avoid making an “*ss” out of anyone.
“Have high standards of educating those who are coming into your website. They need to know things and they're not going to take that next step to convert if they don't understand and if you haven't educated them.”
How do you mix in SEO in order to be telling a good story to your buying audience, but also try and rank for terms for when people are searching?
Karen believes that SEO and content marketing is a formula, and bases a lot of her work around the essentials of that formula. These are three challenges that X industry has when trying to do Y security functions. Through explaining the challenges faced and the methods that could be used to solve them, you’re training yourself to not only educate, but to take up essential website real estate with impactful on-page SEO.
“I mean, it's formulaic. You set out a business problem that you're looking to solve, right? You define what that business problem is, and when you're defining what that business problem is, you focus on certain terms.”
What are your top marketing buzzwords to avoid on content?
Karen loves many things about content marketing, but there are some words that she cannot stand, including frictionless and actionable. For Karen, these words are vague and unhelpful in your marketing, leaving more questions than answers for potential clients. Get specific and explain why or how what you can provide separates your company from the pack. Don’t fall victim to meaningless marketing words when specificity can help so much more.
“And I think part of the problem with a lot of these terms is people haven't really thought about what they mean by the term and so, it makes them meaningless.”
How do you earn respect in cybersecurity as a woman and a marketer who knows her shit?
There are already huge barriers for women in cybersecurity, especially when coupled with non-technical roles, such as marketing and writing— both of which are Karen’s specialties. Karen explains that, for her, there’s also the third layer of being a freelancer. Oftentimes, cybersecurity companies are playing into their own internal biases without realizing it and hurting freelancers by assuming negative things about their skills and quality of work.
“I know I'm a good writer. It's what I like doing. I don't want to code, but I have to make sure people don't treat me like I'm stupid because I don't do the technical job, which goes along with the marketing because they think marketing is fluff.”
Spend some time with our guest Karen Walsh on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the Allegro Solutions website
Additional resources mentioned in this podcast: Karen Walsh on Rate My Professor, Dark Reading, Security Mag, Feedly’s cybersecurity feed, Help Net, Votiro, TryHackMe, Black Girls in Cyber, Tricia Kicks SaaS, Everest Shoulder Rest, Lindsey Stirling
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This week, we interview David Leichner, the CMO of Cybellum, currently residing in Tel Aviv, Israel. We talk to David about his move from America to Israel, his admiration for Israel’s focus on cyber startups, his decades of experience in sales and marketing, and his dedication to relationship building -- no matter what he’s marketing!
Timecoded Guide:
[01:17] David’s personal and professional journey to Cybellum
[05:03] Israel’s transformation into a cybersecurity startup mecca
[08:44] Creation and mission of the Cyber Elite
[18:32] Tying together marketing and sales in the cyber world
[31:27] Passions David has outside of being a CMO
How did you get to where you are today to be the CMO of Cybellum?
From his start on Wall Street to his current position in Tel Aviv, David has worn many hats. After taking advice from a VP of Engineering in Israel who advised him that marketing may be a better place for him, he realized his unique perspective and experience working hands-on in cybersecurity and software gave him a leg up and made him a very well-rounded marketer.
“One of the things I realized was that most marketeers at the time didn't really understand technology. I had an advantage that I understood technology on one side, and then I also understood marketing and then, later on, sales.”
How has Israel evolved into a place known for very successful cybersecurity vendors?
As a kid, David dreamed of living in a country like Israel, and his dream became a reality when he moved to Tel Aviv to work for the Bezeq. He quickly learned about how much energy Israel focuses on hands-on cybersecurity and tech training, especially in the army. With many resources available for this education, it's clear how Israel has risen to the top of this industry.
“Israel is cultivating, not just in cyber, also in data analytics, also in a lot of biomed technology. There are all kinds of technologies that have come from military bases, and then are commercialized for use in industry.”
Can you give us some of your secrets to making a relationship between marketing and sales successful?
With experience in marketing and sales, David is our expert in where those roles need to intersect to be successful. Throughout our discussion, David explains that marketing is a creative role, but the credit to closing deals and making profits can be equally divided between sales and marketing for them to thrive together.
“I mean, we have a fun profession here in marketing, we get to try new things, we get to innovate, we get to be creative, we get to go out to conferences, and to meet people all over the world. It's a great profession.”
What are some other things that marketing can learn from sales?
David’s tips and tricks don’t stop with sales and marketing collaboration, they extend also to the relationships cultivated between you and your clients. David has realized that through being genuinely interested in learning about his clients and their problems, he forms an authentic connection and a real sales relationship beyond a quick pitch.
“I think, whether you're doing email sequences, or you're doing events, or you're doing podcasts, whatever it is, you should always have in mind that you have to build the relationship. You're not selling features, you're selling benefits, you're selling value.”
Spend some time with our guest David Leichner on LinkedIn and on the Cybellum website
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“Marketing is too often sidelined from the bad news about the product and from the good news about the competitors. What we do is cool, but we don't do everything and that is okay!”- Allan Alford
No one knows how to get product marketing in front of a CISO better than, well, a CISO! In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by Allan Alford, CISO and CTO at TrustMAPP, to talk about his biggest takeaways from his time spent as a CMO. Allan shares his tips on bringing more personality into cybersecurity marketing, why building your personal brand is just as important as building the company’s, and the best ways to position your marketing to the CISO community. Lastly, Allan shares his philosophy on meeting customers where their challenges are and acknowledging your competition.
If you enjoyed our guest as much as we did, be sure to check out his show, The Cyber Ranch Podcast
Guest Bio:
With 20+ years in information security, Allan Alford has served as CISO four times in three industries. Alford parlayed an IT career into a product security career and then ultimately fused the two disciplines. Alford gives back to the security community via The Cyber Ranch Podcast and by authoring articles and speaking at conferences.
Links
Follow Allan Alford on LinkedIn and Twitter
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
“If you want to do something that no one has ever done before, you have to be different.” Nathan Burke
In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by Nathan Burke, Chief Marketing Officer at Axonius, to talk about how Axonius approaches innovation and creativity – from company culture to marketing practices. Nathan explores his desire to shake things up in cybersecurity marketing and ways to position both your brand and message in a way that is both unique and effective. He announces his biggest project yet!! – working with CrossFit champion and kickboxer, Amy Bream and US Olympic gold medalist, Simone Biles. He shares how the campaign emerged, from ideation to conception, and his intentions for the future.
Stop by the Axonius booth, #943, during RSA Conference in San Francisco from June 6-9, 2022, where both Biles and Bream will be making an appearance!
Guest Bio:
Nathan Burke is the Chief Marketing Officer at Axonius. Passionate about bringing new technologies to market to solve real problems, he has held marketing leadership roles at Hexadite (acquired by Microsoft), Intralinks, MineralTree, CloudLock (acquired by Cisco), and is a frequent speaker and contributing author on topics related to the intersection of collaboration and security.
Links:
Check out Amy Bream’s promo video, Axonius’s video submission to Simone Biles, Simone Biles’s promo video, and Dinner With The Biles
Follow Amy Bream and Simone Biles on Instagram
Stay in touch with Nathan Burke on LinkedIn and Twitter, and read more about this campaign on the Axonius blog.
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Hear more episodes from Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by Liam Barnes, Head of Demand Generation & Programs at Bionic, to talk about his transition from SEO to Demand Gen and why he thinks SEO is a ‘confused industry.’ Liam explores the need for more intentional and strategic SEO practices, shares his tips for capturing buyers that are lower in the funnel, and why he chooses not to invest in paid search/PPC. Lastly, he shares his key marketing tools as well as his favorite BBQ restaurants in Texas…plus much more!
Guest Bio:
Liam Barnes is the Head of Demand Generation and Programs at Bionic, an Application Security startup. He has previously worked at Harness and consulted for companies like Sumo Logic.
Links:
Check out Liam’s key tools Metadata and Clearbit, as well as Canva, LinkedIn, Zapier, and Slack
Get your ‘Liam approved’ Texas BBQ fix at Terry Black’s, Roady’s truck stops, and Snow’s
Stay in touch with Liam Barnes on LinkedIn and Twitter, and listen to his podcast
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Hear more episodes from Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
As cybersecurity marketers, we are always in search of ways to get our content in front of the community and stand out from the noise. This, at times, seems like an impossible endeavor – but what if we told you your CISO network could be your missing link?
In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by the Vice President of Marketing at Continuity, Doron Youngerwood, to share his experience in establishing successful influencer marketing strategies. Doron dives into the key elements when building an influencer program, how he leverages his network of CISOs to build trust within the cybersecurity community, and the positive impacts the program has delivered both in business and the cyber community at large.
Guest Bio:
With a successful track record in B2B tech marketing, Doron has driven significant growth for both early-stage startups and well-established enterprises for 17 years.
Links
Stay in touch with Doron Youngerwood on LinkedIn
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast.
In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by the Vice President of Demand Generation at Tessian, Ronen Shetelboim, to explore his philosophies on company culture and relationship building in the workplace. Ronen shares his tips on remote hiring, how personality tests have helped him become a better, more empathetic leader, and the key to building strategic relationships. Lastly, Ronen reveals why helping others achieve success can greatly impact yours as well.
Guest Bio:
Ronen Shetelboim is a marketing leader and avid learner that is passionate about helping companies scale through developing data-driven, revenue focused marketing. He currently serves as the Vice President of Demand Generation at Tessian
Links
Learn more about the Johari window, as mentioned in this episode, here
Stay in touch with Ronen on LinkedIn and subscribe to his newsletter here.
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast.
In this episode, Gianna and Maria are joined by the Senior Public Relations Specialist at Sotero, Sonia Awan, to talk about all things PR in cybersecurity. Sonia explores the challenges of standing out in cybersecurity public relations, her tips for crafting a newsworthy story, and ways to improve your relationship with reporters and news outlets. Lastly, Sonia shares her thoughts on HARO’s usefulness and her philosophy on getting the most out of your content.
Guest Bio:
Sonia Awan is a seasoned Public Relations professional with over 19 years of experience in technology PR specializing in cyber security. With a degree in Journalism, Sonia has been working with companies in the US and abroad, bringing focus into branding and visibility. She is the principal at Outbloom PR.
Links
Check out Sonia’s fireside chat here and visit the Haro website
Stay in touch with Sonia Awan on LinkedIn
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast.
In this episode Gianna is joined by Richard Melick, Director of Product Strategy at Zimperium, to have an honest conversation on why cybersecurity marketing sucks and how we can do it better. Richard takes a deep dive into his thoughts on product misrepresentation in cyber, ways in which marketing leadership can better support their teams, and how 'The Great Resignation' in cyber and burnout culture are creating unforeseen problems in the community. The two share their stance on white papers and how to make swag that is both useful and memorable. Lastly, Richard explores his philosophy that all good marketing starts with sharing stories people can relate to.
Guest Bio:
Richard Melick has spent over a decade advancing through the security industry with his considerable experience and focus on the stories surrounding enterprise attack surfaces, hacking, and cyber attacks. He has presented various thought leadership to global audiences, including RSA, GISEC, Infosec London, and more.
Links
Stay in touch with Richard Melick on LinkedIn and Twitter
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In this episode, Nimmy Reichenbery joins Maria and Gianna to discuss the highs and lows of building a marketing program from the ground up at Siemplify. Nimmy explores the building blocks of successful marketing teams, his first few essential hires, and why branding is a crucial element in the early stages. Lastly, Nimmy shares his biggest wins and takeaways from his journey at Siemplify.
See the famous SOCStock conference here. Fingers crossed for future SOCStocks!
Guest Bio:
Nimmy Reichenberg is a four-time CMO and cybersecurity industry veteran with 20+ years of experience growing B2B technology companies. He is passionate about building, leading and mentoring world-class marketing teams and working with companies to solve their security challenges. He currently heads security operations marketing at Google following the acquisition of Siemplify, where he served as CMO.
Links
Stay in touch with Nimmy Reichenberg on LinkedIn Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn Connect with Maria on LinkedIn Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
Gianna is joined by the Director of Demand Generation at Cybersixgill, Dani Woolf, to discuss her core marketing values: empathy, trust and loyalty. Dani shares her philosophy on creating meaningful, customer-centric experiences, how to identify customer challenges and buying motivations, and how asking the right questions can help transform your marketing efforts. Lastly, Dani shares the story behind the uncomfortable encounter that sparked a great friendship with a cybersecurity practitioner.
Follow Dani’s newsletter and her podcast launch at the Audience 1st Substack!
Get the book Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into your Customer's Expectations, Align your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business by Adele Revella at Amazon or the bookstore of your choice!
Guest Bio:
Dani Woolf is a swimmer turned marketer. She has been applying lessons learned as a distance freestyler to B2B organizational success for the past 10 years. Dani's core specialty is in digital marketing with a focus on net new customer acquisition via digital channels - website optimization, SEO, SEM, social media, conversion rate optimization and marketing automation. Dani currently serves as the Director of Demand Generation at Cybersixgill.
LInks:
Stay in touch with Dani Woolf on LinkedIn and Twitter
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
Getting your marketing in front of government customers can be a very difficult endeavor, especially when traditional marketing tactics don’t apply. In this episode, Mary Yang joins Gianna to discuss the strategies she uses to connect her message and product with her FedGov clientele. Mary breaks down the importance of leveraging thought leadership and content marketing and why understanding your audience and their needs is a critical ingredient in your government marketing strategy.
Guest Bio:
Mary Yang is the Chief Marketing Officer of LookingGlass Cyber Solutions and is an expert in cybersecurity marketing in the federal government industry. She has more than a dozen years of experience doing everything from creating sales collateral to nurturing campaigns and corporate messaging.
Links:
Download and read the NIST framework that Mary mentioned here: https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework
Stay in touch with Mary on LinkedIn and Twitter
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
How do you make your brand stand out in a sea of cybersecurity marketing? Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh idea, a killer pitch, and a wee-bit of luck. In this episode, Samuel Tyler shares the story behind Bugcrowd’s famous out-of-home RSA campaign and his advice on how to make your brand stand out in the crowd.
Guest Bio:
Samuel Tyler is the Senior Manager of Corporate Marketing at Bugcrowd. Samuel is a B2B marketer working at the intersection of cybersecurity and data. He has an interdisciplinary background in growth-stage product marketing and brand management, plus a wealth of hands-on skills in creative direction. As a professional by day, and scholar by night, he passionately integrates discipline, intuition, and experience to deliver work that's both effective and evocative.
Links:
Read the blog wrap-up and get more resources from this episode here
Stay in touch with Samuel Tyler on LinkedIn
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Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In this episode, Maria takes a turn in the hot seat to talk about her favorite subject: improving sales and marketing alignment. Gianna and Maria explore what a healthy sales and marketing relationship looks like, how a combination of communication and incentives can help educate your sales team on the MQL process, and their tips for rolling out an account based marketing strategy. Lastly, Maria takes a moment to gab about her love of food.
Key Takeaways
00:42 Maria’s bio
01:19 Why Maria loves sales alignment
02:24 The “ideal” sales person
04:15 Goals and KPI alignment
06:31 Mindset and tactical tips
09:25 Being patient and flexible
12:17 Communication, documentation and incentives
18:14 Do BDRs belong in marketing or sales?
23:22 ABM steps and strategy
27:49 Asking the right questions
30:30 Dishing out marketing tips & good food
Links:
Check out and download Maria's Pipeline Spreadsheet and SLA Template!
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In this episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, Gianna is joined by the VP of Marketing at Spyderbat, Seth Goldhammer. Seth shares his perspective on how and how not to be successful in product marketing, why role clarity is essential when establishing your marketing chain of command, and his excitement in building out marketing programs and functions at a virtual startup. Lastly, Seth gives his advice on how to work alongside strong personalities and shares the story behind his favorite film of all time!
Key Takeaways:
01:27 Seth’s bio - from screen writing to marketing
06:25 Why product marketing?
07:59 What’s your motivation?
09:41 Alignment and role clarity
13:21 Decision making - who’s responsible?
15:30 Communication is key
21:04 Working with strong personalities
22:55 Seth’s favorite film!
Links:
Stay in touch with Seth on Twitter and LinkedIn, and check out his favorite film, Apocalypse Now, as well as the RACI matrix
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In this episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, Gianna and Maria are joined by CEO and founder of InterQ Research, Joanna Jones. Joanna does a deep dive into the qualitative market research process, why focused market research can take product and services marketing to the next level, and how to leverage your product team to help drive company support buy-in. Lastly, Joanna gives a crash course on focus groups and what you need to get started.
Key takeaways:
00.34 Bio
03:13 The qualitative research process
05:19 Participant sourcing and engagement
08:00 Will there be food?! - Gianna has to know!
08:48 Remote focus groups
10:03 Qualitative Vs. Quantitative research
12:20 Company support buy-in
15:54 Is there an ideal time?
18:23 Focused driven research
21:15 Focus groups 101
25:21 Stay in touch with Joanna!
Read the blog wrap-up and get more resources from this episode here
Stay in touch with Joanna Jones on Twitter and LinkedIn, and at InterQ
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast
In the first episode of Breaking Through In Cybersecurity Marketing, Gianna and Maria are joined by JupiterOne’s self proclaimed “accidental CMO,” Tyler Shields. Tyler shares his three step approach for building out marketing programs at startups, how to establish company culture remotely, setting realistic expectations with internal stakeholders when building community at companies, and why your company is in need of a “talking head.” Lastly, Tyler spills the beans on the true mastermind behind his Yeti swag and the current marketing models and platforms he’s engaging in.
Key takeaways:
00:40 Bio
02:10 Tyler’s 3 step approach for startup marketing
06:39 Remote working - communication is key!
09:54 Trust building and authentic leadership
11:06 Establishing company culture remotely
13:43 Accountability and teamwork
15:35 What’s in store for JupiterOne in 2022?!
18:18 Building community - foundation first
22:54 Setting realistic expectations
24:28 Spokespeople and “talking heads”
27:03 Favorite swag and the true Yeti mastermind
31:35 Product-led growth and establishing value
34:10 Social media, podcasting, and modern marketing models
35:41 Platforms - Youtube, Shopify, Slack, and the whole gambit!
39:01 Stay in touch with Tyler
See photos of Tyler’s favorite swag, a list of the tools mentioned on this episode, and get the episode transcript here
Stay in touch with Tyler on Twitter and LinkedIn, and JupiterOne
Connect with Gianna on LinkedIn
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Follow the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on Twitter or learn more at the Cybersecurity Marketing Society website
Check out more from Hacker Valley Media and Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast