Over the course of four days, experts from top cybersecurity companies gathered to deliver talks, panels, and sessions at CyberMarketing Con 2020. The Cybersecurity Marketing Society organized this event in order to give professionals knowledge and advice on a range of topics.
In this session, Nathan Burke delivers a presentation on how applied empathy and obsessive conversion to friction can help in all aspects of cybersecurity marketing such as creating a story that matters to prospects, experimenting in an industry of “play it safe”, and planning with facts rather than emotion. Nathan Burke is the Chief Marketing Officer at Axonius, and he is a frequent speaker and contributing author on the topics related to the intersection of collaboration and security.
Your Prospects Don’t Care About You
When someone reaches out to a prospect, most of the time they are doing it wrong. They make it all about themselves and what they want, and that is not what the prospect wants to hear.
What do they care about?
- Personal/Ego
- Positive: Make me look smart, make me happy, etc
- Negative: Don’t bore me, don’t make me waste my time, etc
- Professional
- Positive: Give me less work, make my life easier, etc
- Negative: Don’t give me competitive work, don’t waste my time, etc
- None of these involve money.
What You Care About – Prospects
- Positives:
- Getting prospects to: understand the value, give you contact info, convert to SQLs, turn into customers, etc
- Negatives:
- Ensuring prospects don’t: misunderstand the value, bounce, say “no”, leave bad reviews, etc
The key is to align what your prospects want and what you want the prospects to do. There are no conflicts between the two, therefore you should both be able to get what you want.
Your Story Matters
In cybersecurity, it is easy to use a marketing approach focused on features and functions, however this doesn’t usually help relate your product to any problem that anyone is trying to solve. Consumers are not buying your product, they’re buying what they’re able to do once they have it.
Story Framework
Burke’s presentation was filled with meaningful stories, one of them being how he helped his company win the RSA Innovation Sandbox. A conference is held where ten finalists at cybersecurity companies each give a 3-minute pitch, and one walks away with the title of Most Innovative Startup. During the pitch, he used the exact story framework mentioned before, and Axonius still uses the same presentation to this day.
- What is the problem and why does it exist?
- Show how the problem has evolved over time.
- Then you summarize. One thing to note is that you haven’t mentioned your company yet.
- State your company’s approach.
- How does the product work?
- Show your demo. How is the product unique?
- The point of the pitch is to make them make a decision.
Your Sales Team Doesn’t Care About You
What do they care about?
- The same things as the prospects.
- Personal/Ego
- Positive: Make me look smart, make me happy, etc
- Negative: Don’t bore me, don’t make me waste my time, etc
- Professional
- Positive: Give me less work, make my life easier, etc
- Negative: Don’t give me competitive work, don’t waste my time, etc
- Most of these involve money.
What Do You Care About – Sales Team
- Positives:
- Getting salespeople to: understand the value, tell your story, qualify someone as in or out, give you feedback, identify trends
- Negatives:
- Ensuring salespeople don’t: misunderstand the story, butcher your story, keep all leads untouched, silently grovel, etc.
Your Board Doesn’t Care About You
All that branding stuff is great and all, and I know you’re generating a lot of leads. But what they really want to know is: will my investment make money?
What do they care about?
- Personal/Ego
- Positive: Make me look smart and let me make decisions
- Negative: Don’t waste my time, don’t question my expertise
- Professional
- Positive: Make me look like an expert and make me money
- Negative: Don’t waste my time, don’t burn my connections
- Most of these involve money.
What Do You Care About – Board
- Positives:
- Getting board members to: give constructive advice, make connections, promote you, believe in your strategy
- Negatives:
- Ensuring board members don’t: try to get rid of you, think you’re an idiot, second guess you
Takeaways
The key takeaways from David Burke’s session are that in your marketing approach, you should focus on the problem at hand and your approach to the problem. You shouldn’t talk about your company until the end of your pitch. It is easy to get carried away in outlining the details of your product, but what prospects really want to hear is how their life will become easier after you solve their problem.
Get to Know Nathan Burke
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.
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