Nathan Burke faced a tough challenge at 2019’s RSA Conference, the largest annual gathering for cybersecurity professionals. As the CMO of cybersecurity asset management firm Axonius, Burke was tasked with presenting his company’s case for being named the “Most Innovative Startup” among the conference’s Innovation Sandbox contestants. Burke knew he’d be facing fierce competition from a number of companies that, at least on the surface, were more exciting and sensational than Axonius’s. He had 10 slides and three minutes to convince the judges. 

“Sometimes constraint breeds creativity,” Burke explained recently, speaking to Fortella’s Rahul Sachdev on his company’s podcast, CMO Stories. “I was like ‘why not just address the ‘unsexiness’ of asset management head on?’ We referred to asset management as the Toyota Camry of cybersecurity, where other technologies like deception and automation — they get all the press, those are the Ferraris and Lambhorginies. None of the other things in cybersecurity can be truly effective unless we know what we have to protect. So for me the answer was to play up that ‘unsexiness’ but in a way that [says] ‘This is unsexy, sure, but it’s critical. It’s foundational.’ And just being able to use that hook, it was kind of disarming.” 

The strategy worked. Not only did audiences engage with Burke’s presentation, but Axonius won the coveted award and just one year later captured plenty of its own headlines when it landed a $58 million Series C investment. 

Burke is one of many B2B marketers who must find creative ways to market complex products in crowded marketspaces. He and Rahul Sachdev were joined by Rich Campagna, CMO at Balbix, provider of the industry’s first system for cybersecurity posture transformation, and Naomi Buckwalter, Director of Information Security & Privacy at Energage, an employee engagement technology company, to discuss the challenges that cybersecurity marketers face and what lessons marketers from other industries can take from their experiences. 

Here are a few of the many tips they had to share…

Start with numbers and quantifiable goals

Marketers typically have lots of high-level goals and expectations: raising brand awareness, demonstrating thought leadership, building customer loyalty, generating high-quality leads, driving revenue, and so on. Our panelists recommended simplifying your objectives by focusing first and foremost on what can be measured, and building your roadmap around those KPIs. 

“There’s an element of what I call the “Tyranny of the Urgent,” says Energage’s Buckwalter, when describing how she keeps herself and Energage’s executive team focused on what’s really important. “I have to admit, it’s a little overwhelming at times. What keeps me headed towards the ultimate goal is that I have a very specific plan that everyone agrees to, from the leadership on down, for what security is trying to accomplish. Using measurement and metrics, we then use those numbers to inform us on how we would reduce risk in certain areas of the business. I have that roadmap, and I stick to it, for accountability of the leadership team.” 

Burke says this mentality applies to marketing executives as well. “I think a lot of CEOs will expect a CMO to write stories and publish social media posts and do all these things that aren’t measurable, but I like to flip that on its head and start with what I expect my team to contribute in a way that’s as measurable as possible. And that way I can show value through things like customers and pipeline but also some of the softer measurements.” 

Zig when others zag

As Balbix’s Campagna astutely points out, marketing is unique in that no other department has to publish everything they do for the whole world to see. “How do you keep a message or your content strategy differentiated when not only all your customers can see it but all of your competitors as well?” he asks rhetorically. This leads to a healthy level of paranoia, Campagna points out, and is one of the things that keeps him up at night. 

But precisely because marketers can all see what their peers and competitors are doing, it creates an opportunity to zig when others zag. While most companies in complex industries will fall back on industry jargon and buzzwords, our panel advises marketers to instead rely on plainspoken language and more authentic terms to describe your product’s features and benefits. Similarly, if most companies are catering to their prospects’ fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), try appealing to more positive emotions such as hope and confidence. 

As Nathan Burke puts it, “If everyone else is using FUD, I should do something else to stand out.”

Humanize your audiences

Because most buyers and decision makers at B2B enterprises have important jobs with lots of responsibilities, it’s easy to forget that at the end of the day, they are just people, like everyone else. They like a good laugh, they crave entertainment, and they want to connect with other people in deep and meaningful ways. Even Buckwalter admits she and her fellow cybersecurity buyers can take themselves too seriously sometimes, but says that a reminder of their humanity from marketers can help develop a true, one-to-one relationship, which is essential for any of the purchases she makes. 

Balbix takes this strategy to heart by publishing plenty of entertaining, playful content intended to grab people’s attention by making them laugh. As Campagna explains, this is an excellent way to engage targeted audiences. His company has published a cybersecurity-themed cookbook, a children’s activity book, and a comic strip, “The Adventures of CISO Ed and Co,” that highlights the everyday frustrations and heroism of an ordinary InfoSec team. “We recognize that we sell to cybersecurity professionals, but they’re also humans. Does a comic strip directly influence decision-making? No, but it generates some discussion with fun, lighthearted stuff and appeals to our buyers as people, and at the same time it educates them on what we do.”

There is plenty more exceptional advice to be found in the actual discussion.

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