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: 

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 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.

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:

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.

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.