in this week's episode we're going to be
talking to Pete and marketing director
of thing tilt on how to effectively
market cybersecurity services coming up
[Music]
hey everybody
hope you're doing well thanks for
joining us if you're new here this is
simply cyber a YouTube channel designed
for helping cyber security professionals
take their career further faster
now a lot of us in the industry have you
know technical skills hard skills
pentesting how to set up a saw how to
run a security program and a lot of
businesses can use that service but
sometimes it's difficult if you're
trying to freelance or spin up your own
small company it's difficult to get
clients and to effectively communicate
and market to them a lot of times
business relationships are built on
trust but how do you establish that
trust and that credibility well today
we're going to be interviewing Pete
Preston the marketing director at think
tilt who's an absolute brilliant
marketing expert on you know engaging
customers and telling the right
narratives and and different you know
communication vehicles for getting to
those clients now the method in which
I've interviewed Pete is through simply
cyber life this is a new service that
I've started and it's a compendium to
this YouTube channel simply cyber live
will be Thursdays at 4:30 it'll be a
live stream interview typically an
interview but sometimes I'll be doing
technical walkthroughs and I really want
to promote community engagement
collaboration please join please comment
ask questions we'll take questions from
the audience
and we'll kind of help shape the
narrative and do a collaborative
interview session or a collaborative
meeting so I'm really looking forward to
doing that and hope you are too
all right so let's get right into the
meat of this interview and find out how
Pete's gonna help us market our
cybersecurity services
welcome to the show and thank you for
being here I really appreciate it
thanks Jeremy I'm excited this is really
cool yeah so real quick I do want to
point out that the point of the show is
to help cyber security professionals
take their career further fast
and on to that point as far as marketing
goes which really isn't a cyber security
related capability but it's certainly
necessary I'm sure people maybe you
could just jump in and tell us you know
about marketing and what might be
effective techniques that people
watching should know about well first of
all I want to say again thanks for
having me just for backgrounds
I've known Jerry for a long time so I
may not be in cyber but I've followed
Jerry's journey from computer geek to
where he is today and I have to say I've
been very proud of watching his journey
but I've also got to learn a lot just
from watching him and listening to him
and and honestly I think I've been a
guinea pig a few times for some of your
from some of your experiments so I've
been living living the the cybersecurity
life through Jerry I guess so where I'd
start with is one of the questions that
you asked me ahead of time is just what
are some like hot or effective marketing
techniques right now and I think that's
it's a tricky question because there's
so many things that you can be doing and
so I guess I'm kind of curious like
what's the are we talking to in the
audience right now like business owners
people are working for cybersecurity
firms that want to help them grow yeah
yeah so I would I would say that within
the cyber security space there's a you
know there's your big players like you
know Deloitte and Booz Allen and stuff
like that but there's just a whole host
of people who have developed really
incredible skills either on the
offensive side or the defensive side
that want to you know basically market
it and and monetize it and some people
like myself you know with my little side
business coastal information security
group you know it's a it's a two-person
group and we go help small businesses do
stuff there's also a lot of couples you
know a couple two three four or five
people who do penetration testing but
those people are the ones in the
audience but also there's people who
have freelance skills where they're not
really maybe trying to start a business
but what they're trying to do is a side
hustle so those are kind of the two
perspective
that I think would be the audience so I
think one of the first places I always
start and it's it's always good to start
there is well there's two things there's
one is strategy before tactics so kind
of come up coming up with what's your
approach going to be don't just decide
I'm going to do you know XY and Z things
like I'm not going to just I'm gonna
start posting to I'm going to be on
Twitter all the time or I'm gonna start
you know I'm gonna post videos on tic
toc if the people that you want to sell
to you aren't there then there's no
point to that and that brings me to the
second thing which is really
understanding who you're trying to work
with and we call that buyer personas or
customer personas you may have heard
them called customer avatars but what
you're looking for is a really good
understanding of who it is that you want
to work with and who you best support
and serve so really getting a deep
understanding of the people that you
want to be working with is is usually
the best place to start and that helps
you kind of set the strategy set the
tone set the messaging and all that sort
of stuff basically finding out who they
are what their problems are and how you
fit into their either their business or
their life yeah so you would just
mentioned you know not using tik-tok to
target a you know a senior level
executive at a company or something like
that how do you how do you say you
identify what your target audience would
be like I like I want to help smaller
healthcare providers right like you know
10 person company 20 person company but
how do you map that to know that tic toc
is not an appropriate medium to market
or that it is an appropriate medium well
I think so that comes along with
understanding who they are right and
really immersing yourself are they
putting yourself in their shoes and
understanding or you can even just go
ask them and say you know where do you
find your news where do you hang out
these days it would be you know which
Zoomer rooms are you in or which
LinkedIn groups you and and just
understand like where they're putting
their attention and then that's kind of
where you need to be so LinkedIn is a
great spot for b2b we're doing this live
on LinkedIn right now and I mean this is
kind of
if I had to pick a platform this would
be the one to connect with business
owners right so this is a probably a
good place to start but depending on who
you want to be serving if that happens
to be someone in say like the travel
space Facebook may be a better place but
it's just understanding starting without
understanding who they are and then
where do they kind of hang out and then
digging deeper into that you know so
going maybe into a specific platform and
seeing which groups they're in or which
newsletters they subscribe to who are
the influencers that they follow that
kind of thing interesting so I was
actually just about to ask you like how
do you how do you find out where they're
hanging out without being creepy about
it but I guess basically what you just
said is you on LinkedIn particularly you
can look at a profile and see who
they're linked to and what they
subscribe to so is are you suggesting
using a little bit of recon and are in a
obviously a non-creepy way yeah I think
that that's totally fine right I mean
it's if it's public that's great and you
can kind of follow those threads another
way is to simply just pick up the phone
and call somebody and you know if friend
family is a good place to start but you
know again just going back to like that
travel thing if you have if you want to
work with say someone that does safaris
or businesses that run safaris or
whatever that for whatever reason just
go look him up and give him a call and
see if you can have a chat with him
that's honestly the the fastest way to
figure it out just go directly to the
people which is not often done but so if
you could mix those two things where
you're actually talking to your
potential customers to understand what
they want
mm-hm and then also following them
online and seeing you know where they
kind of where they show up whether were
there news sources what are they what
are they talking about
yeah so is there is there a good way to
identify a potential customer or a
potential client that's actually
interested in you know learning more
about a service like yours or is it
really just kind of trying door handles
until you find one that's unlocked well
look I think I mean if you want to get
into like some specific ways of
attracting those people to use doing
something like
this is a great way of front of people
that if you want to if you want to start
building connections within an industry
what better way than they just start
talking to people and you can always
record it you can do live shows like
this you can do newsletters where you
interview people over email and send
that out to prospective customers and
you just just start getting yourself
into those networks and start having
those conversations with people a way to
identify someone that might be
interested in working with you is just
now are they coming back to you like if
you're sending out content like this if
you've got a youtube channel if you're
regularly posting on LinkedIn with
helpful tips you know who's putting
their hand up who's showing that
interest we're talking with Peter
Preston marketing director of think tilt
online marketing cybersecurity services
so Pete obviously when you're a small
firm you've got you know cash flow most
of us would have cashflow problems I
mean the occasional you know person's
got a infinite money but what kind of
budget friendly options would you
recommend for someone or or if they're
only gonna buy one thing and invest
money in it you know what kind of
suggestions would you offer books are
always a good place to start no I don't
mean that to be to be Kiki but you know
there's some really good books on on
building a business on marketing it kind
of depends on where you're at in your
planning if you're just getting going I
think simple things like showing up on
LinkedIn regularly can be very helpful
if you don't want to spend any money
it's just it's it's like any sort of
building any sort of business it's sweat
equity right you just get in there you
set yourself a calendar reminder on the
on every day saying I'm gonna spend 15
minutes on the din or I'm gonna I'm
gonna read articles and I'm gonna share
my thoughts on that you know just start
building your authority a little bit and
showing up and really showing up is 90%
of starting anything just as I said at
the start is if you're gonna if you're
going to get started strategy before
tactics so think about who you're
selling to how you're going to talk to
them and really that planning will help
you decide what are the things that
you're going to do and then if you start
to get some momentum and you start to
set aside some budget for that marketing
for that growth then you can start
thinking about do I need tools should I
invest in support like outsourcing some
certain help but that's where I would
start is just really taking a really
good look at who you want to be selling
to and then you get for the least amount
of money but it may take a lot of effort
mmm okay so to the inverse of that I
mean is there anywhere that you should
that you should not be cheap on or
should not you know what I mean you
know I think there's always this urge if
you're a business owner to kind of do
everything yourself right like well I
can do that I can build the website I
can write the blog post I can be on like
dinner every day I can be the one
recording the videos but you kind of
have to ask at some point is it is it
worth me being the one doing that or
would it be better if I can pay someone
to show up on LinkedIn for me on my
behalf or write that write this blog
post or do this research and provide
some points that I can then talk about
so it's really just like leveraging you
know how much is your time worth mm-hmm
and you know it can it can it be done
more efficiently if you just if you
spend a few bucks on it so there's that
real urge to just get in and begin one
that that's everything you know that
whole like I should know what's going on
in my business which I don't disagree
with but at some point your time is
better spent serving customers then
being the guy that's you know putting up
a WordPress website or messing around on
Squarespace
so yeah just leverage your time and
value your time I think that's a really
important part okay looks like we got a
question coming in from the audience
let's bring Matt in all right so we've
got two questions here any specific
guidance for in the United States as a
501c3 as a
nonprofit organization on how to better
market themselves and then the other one
kind of stems around don't you kind of
need to lead business owners into
discovering that they they have a need
they may not be out looking right now
but you you know helping them discover
that they do have a need for your
product and sometimes in cybersecurity
that's a big issue is that a lot of
think Gerry did his uh his thesis on
this was a lot of people just don't
realize the risk that they may have that
they're dealing with or they or they
think that they that they're also
they've got a clear yeah it's not a
problem until it's a really big problem
right so like oh there's one of the time
so I guess from the the nonprofit side I
think it kind of goes back to what we
talked about before is you do your
planning set that strategy and decide
what you want to work with and before
you go and spend a lot of time or money
and effort down a particular path try to
talk to as many people that you're
trying to serve as possible and really
understand from them like what are those
pain points that you're helping them
solve have they spent money on solving
this problem before because if the
answer is no then it's probably not that
big of a problem and you kind of need to
understand are they going to engage with
your services if you if you offer it to
them do they understand what you do and
that'll help you kind of get that
positioning right and that messaging to
say we understand very clearly that you
have this problem and this is how we
solve that problem at you know a cost
that is that works for everybody so I
think just getting started
it applies to nonprofits org or a
for-profit business really it's just
understanding who you're selling to and
spend the time to do that and it feels
like you're not going anywhere
necessarily but you're building up a lot
of that potential energy that as soon as
you have a really good sense of
what people need then the gates open and
you can run out with that and start
talking to people and start selling if
customers don't know that they need the
service well that's a very different
problem so not uncommon unfortunately I
think in in cyber and security there's a
lot of people that feel like you know
I've I use two-factor authentication on
my email what can go wrong and so
there's probably you know like I'm
personally aware of a lot of these
things because I've known Jerry
basically but if I if I didn't I'd be
you know wonderfully ignorant of
everything around me and just kind of
plotting along mashing on my keyboard
hoping that everything was okay
so I think I think not to be a broken
record here but just knowing who those
people are that you can best serve and
then understanding what do they think
their problems are and trying to
position some information that you can
share with them just get it in front of
them and say you know ask questions like
do you have to factor authentication
enabled on like your G suite accounts
the answer's no it's like well then
here's something that could possibly
happen to you and you don't want to
scare people but want to open their eyes
to the fact that there are these threats
out there so it's just a lot of like
educational kind of material that you
could provide and use your expertise to
say you know this is where most people
think they are then the reality is that
you know you're being tracked on every
website that you go to and every time
that you open an email with a suspicious
link in it that is a potential threat
and you can ask questions like have you
ever I've been getting things recently
in a personal email account that all it
is is some name random name someone I've
never met before and a PDF attachment no
subject line no text no nothing you know
and it's just ask these questions like
do you ever get an email that looks like
this yeah and I put my hand up
I get those all the time now for some
reason in the past week I've gotten like
20 of these and you know there's a
parity my super curious like I want to
know what's gonna happen if I do it but
I know better so you know ask questions
like that and get people thinking like
oh yeah I've seen that and another
challenge I've seen relative to like
leading a business owner into to finding
that they need you is especially this is
specific to cybersecurity and I'd be
curious in anybody else has experienced
this but I have you know talked to
potential clients before and they said
why do I need UI IT guy so there's a
there's a you know knowing what the
difference between IT and what security
is is something that many of the
professionals take for granted as an own
difference so so I'm just gotta have
that conversation like back it up about
what the difference is before you can
even explain why you need to help them
you know yeah yeah well it's it's it's
hard when people don't actually
understand and no fault of their own
right it's not their business to know
yeah and so yeah there's a lot of
Education that needs to happen it I'm
sure everyone is listening understands
that right like you or probably
constantly running into people saying
don't need that Thanks like oh you guys
are just you know you're just trying to
scare me or something like that I've
heard a lot of that around cyber
security where it's just like
everything's fine you know I think you
can breach we've got a question coming
in from from Matt so let's bring him in
ok so you mentioned this earlier about
opening a web site and getting track so
you know privacy advocates and many
information security professionals have
long had a philosophical difference with
marketing when it comes to privacy and
tracking and data ownership and
aggregation and today we're seeing
people in states and countries were
becoming a lot more sensitive to opening
a browser and having a session an
attempt to place 20 beacons you know
crackers and who owns that data and the
kid
can the company sell it or exchange that
data how do you see that that impacting
what you do and how marketing firms are
interacting with online data exchanges
now that's a that's a big one so I think
by and large there's there's a lot of
awareness on my side of the house like
we talk about this all the time is how
are we capturing the data are we making
sure that you know we're we're looking
after it what are our policies
internally around management of that
data I think till we have we have
customers pretty much everywhere like so
we have to be aware of what's happening
with GDP are and different countries in
different regions how we're supposed to
be handling that data so we are paying
attention to it and trying as best as we
can to stay on top of that and comply
with everything I'm I think the the
higher level question there is there's
there's the ethical question of like how
much detail should I know about any one
person as a marketer or as a business
and what what we're starting to see is
some companies are deciding basically
saying like I don't want to know that
Matt you opened the last email that I
sent you 15 times at these times of day
and then you specifically clicked on
this link and then you went to this
website and you know we can follow that
that entire path which is pretty much
possible a lot of businesses are
deciding we don't we don't need to know
that that's not our business our
business is understanding the greater
trends so if we send an email out to
10,000 people how many opened it not
specifically Matt but say we got 3,000
of those 10,000 people to open it that's
great okay so what came of those those
clicks in those opens and they're just
looking at trends and sort of that macro
level information there are a lot of
companies that do have the Facebook
pixel installed on the website so
Facebook's tracking you and then they've
got Google that's looking at you and
they're using that to micro-target
which
philosophically I don't personally agree
with but it kind of comes down to that
individual business level so that's
something that we think about you know
how are we going to use it
we like to we'd like to know on a
person-by-person basis that we're
working with you know have we
communicated with them before but that's
kind of the point to which we go we're
not saying looking at every little bit
detail and saying you know well all
right Matt open the last email about an
hour ago that's calling them out and
doing that so I think it's coming down
to a business by business decision and
as people in general become more aware
of all of this I don't know you could
call it like data or incursions on their
privacy that they're going to be aware
that you know more and more companies
are tracking them and doing this and you
know there we've started to see a bit of
a tech backlash right over the past
couple years and I think this privacy
thing will fuel that and people will
look to certain companies to say will
they say they don't they don't track me
so I feel more comfortable going with
them so a great example of that is a
company called fathom analytics so it's
anonymous analytics and that's that's
their selling point it's like look we
can give you all the data that you
actually that we feel you really need to
manage your business but your users are
anonymous and you can tell them that and
they can feel comfortable that they're
not being followed down every path that
they take on the Internet by you in your
business so yeah helps address next it's
it's a tough it's a big question yeah
and I really feel like like the kind of
explosion of Cambridge analytic it was
like a watershed moment where people
were like oh wait a minute like you know
I never had a problem with privacy
before but now I didn't realize you were
like you know stereotyping me or like
figuring me out based on which Disney
Princess I am you know so looks like
that we got some more questions coming
in from the audience which is great I do
I've got I've got one from two or
one from Stewart and he'd like to know
how do you test different messages to
see which one will resonate with your
strategy the off audience that you've
decided to target and Matthew Weaver
would like it to know if you were to use
one social media platform for
cybersecurity marketing which one would
it be all right so how do you test
messages and he put them out there and
see what comes back at you honestly like
this is not trying to oversimplify this
but just just put them out there and pay
attention to what happens and you're
probably going to have to repeat the
messages multiple times it's not going
to be enough to just post once to
LinkedIn and see what happens and
because and this is this is something
important to remember too is that every
time that you push something out you
can't assume that everyone's seeing it
right so this is kind of like taking a
page out of a politician's playbook can
kind of have to go on that that tour of
if you consider say LinkedIn every time
that you log back in there it's like
you're at a new stop and you just have
to keep repeating the same message over
and over again because if you have an
audience of a hundred people a hundred
thousand people one to two percent of
the people are going to see your posts I
mean that's a sorry kind of state of
things I think but that's just the
reality right so don't be afraid to put
the message out there again and just pay
attention to what comes back to you if
people are liking it commenting on it
sharing it if you're getting messages
back about it and you can also just
again go offline and have phone calls
with people and just see what sticks in
conversations with the right kind of
people that you want to talk to you so
[Music]
it's it's not a super scientific answer
but yeah just keep keep pushing on it
and seeing what comes back to you and if
you get positive reinforcement honor
great
sometimes you can put a message out
there and it kind of attracts your the
wrong people and by wrong I don't mean
bad people but maybe not your ideal
customer let's say or for the people
that you want to be sort of resonating
with so just take note of all that and
the other question was that for me yeah
yeah you had to pick one if I had to
pick one well I mean if I if I go on the
assumption that we're talking cyber is
selling b2b I think LinkedIn is the
place to go so short and sweet on that
one to go a bit deeper on that that you
can the search functionality on LinkedIn
is great then you can really narrow your
focus down if you have a specific
industry specific roles that you want to
target and talk to victim would be the
best place to go for that I think yeah
and I've noticed I mean to your point
that you just made about having to
repeat your message repeat your message
personally I've noticed I use LinkedIn
and I use Twitter right I do YouTube but
that's really you know one way and on
Twitter I'll I'll put something out and
it's like I mean it's like throwing a
paper airplane in a hurricane like just
well it's gone and that's the end of it
whereas LinkedIn I feel like there's a
little bit of stickiness to it and it'll
it'll kind of come back up depending
it's almost like consensus driven if
people are liking and it'll kind of
stick around looks like we actually have
a couple more questions Pete we're
getting close to the end or you are you
good to take a couple more questions
yeah all right great I'm glad that
everybody's enjoying this you're on that
alright so for a company who does have
limited funds how important would you
say it is to get into your local trade
shows and you know that type of thing
with your businesses yeah I think I'm a
big believer that you should test
everything right and there's you don't
know if a particular channel is going to
work until you actually try it and if
I think I think in-person networking is
great the question I would ask is you
know if you go to these trade shows are
the right people going to be there and
that's the same for trade shows that's
the same for like local networking
groups like BNI or anything that's on
Meetup for example you just have to ask
the question who's there and if if you
want to work with banks let's say and
it's a trade show for like concrete
polishing then don't go it just depends
on who the audience is that that is
going to be at one of these events and
you know can you meet the right kind of
people I'm a big fan of just going out
and meeting people and seeing locally
who's around but if you're going to do
networking and I'm guilty of doing this
that you do networking for the sake of
networking without any sort of intention
behind it but if you go into it knowing
like my target customers are going to be
at this event here's a list of them so
marrying a few things here so if there's
a if there's a show or an event on go on
LinkedIn find out you know in your area
who's going to this thing can you find
people that like if you look on the den
go that guy I want to work with that guy
or that lady is the VP of security at a
bank like I need to meet with her so
you'd make a list ahead of you ahead of
time and just go into it make some
contact ahead of time so you can have
meetings when you're there instead of
just kind of hoping that you have these
you know moments of serendipity so you
can control a lot more of that so that's
just know who's going and if it's going
to be a value to you okay
I think thanks Tina I think Matt's got
another question for the audience yeah
I've got I've got one from Charles
Garrett here what kind of content would
you suggest making if you're doing
LinkedIn videos maybe ones that are
trying to educate your client yeah I
think that's always it's always helpful
[Music]
I think Jerry can probably talk to that
better than me just having having you
but I think experimenting with it and
just sharing what you know is always
great do some behind the scenes type
stuff like this is what I'm working on
this is what I'm learning and you know
you could be a bit vulnerable with that
too and say here's a problem that's
recently come up here's how I'm thinking
about solving it yeah it's a it's a good
point Pete and you know I know this is
your interview but I have been doing a
lot of this kind of intelligence
gathering and you know please give me
your thoughts on this if you're going to
use LinkedIn to publish content and
connect on a established credibility be
identify clients and potentially make
those kind of connections plus I'd say
making a video you're giving value like
I've personally I feel like in today's
market you can't just be cold calling
and saying I can solve your problem
without even understanding what the
problem is you have to give something
give some value and then you can kind of
begin the conversation I would use
keywords or hashtags so you know don't
go buckwild but yeah people are
beginning to use hashtags to to
basically make their feed relevant to
what they're interested in because you
connect with a lot of people and to use
Pete's example financial sector if
that's where I'm going to target but I'm
connecting to a bunch of healthcare
people because I work at a kinetic
medical center you know I don't I want
just to look at my feed for financial so
I use those hashtags so if you can throw
those hashtags in there you'll get
picked up by the by the filter and then
drop in to the right people's feeds yep
and to go to go a little bit further
than that to is like right now
especially and he's doing exactly what
we're doing right now is just having
conversations with people and record it
and put it out there and I think
especially in b2b right now and on
LinkedIn in particular video is great
but building the network within the area
that you're interested in working in is
always going to benefit you and if
you're the one that's sort of building
that community you're the one pulling
people
and saying here's some things that we
should all be talking about reach out
and connect with people it's actually
probably easier than you think
people are interested in having a chat
and if you go out to them and say I
think this I'm not selling anything all
I want to do is understand what you do
understand what your problems are and
let's have a chat and can we record it
so you can publish a podcast if you want
to do video I'm a big fan of video you
get you get video you get audio you get
text if you transcribe it you can a
twitch then you can just push that out
everywhere and it's all just high-value
stuff if you're talking to talking to
people who are willing to share some
really cool info thanks a lot Pete
really appreciate your thoughts and you
know all of your guidance there on how
to market cybersecurity services now
real quick if you enjoyed that hit the
subscribe button definitely hit the like
button let me know you enjoyed the
content and you know I'll keep producing
this material thanks and until next week
stay secure
[Music]
you