Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Stop Thinking Statistics Tell Your Story! With Mitch Mayne

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.
 

Exploring Roles from the Trenches to Leadership with Corin Imai

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.
 

How to Make a Viral Meme for Cybersecurity with Dean Pe’er

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.

Unlocking Product Marketing Strategies with Andy Tzortzinis

 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.

Building Trust, Culture, and Communities with Tyler Shields

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!

Episode Replay: Is Your Marketing Annoying to Security Folks? How to Fix It with Dani Woolf

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. 

Replay Episode: Life After Layoff With Amy Fair

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.
 

Video Influencer Marketing: Keeper Security’s Strategies, Tactics, & Results - Replay from CyberMarketingCon 2022

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!

The Successes and Failures of Being a CMO with Charles Gold

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.
 

It’s Okay to Be Funny - Even in Marketing! Replay from CyberMarketingCon 2021

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.