Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, welcome. In this podcast, we talk B2B marketing and what it takes to know your customer innovate and profit. We're glad you made it. This Is the campaign by 97th floor.
Hello everyone. Happy Friday. I am Paxton Gray and this is the campaign. It's a B2B marketing podcast about better knowing your audience, innovating beyond best practice, and converting visitors into customers. The Campaign is a Weekly conversation with B2B marketer marketing leaders designed to fit as much value as possible within 30 minutes. You can catch the campaign live on Fridays at 2 Eastern and you can find past episodes on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify and at 97Floor.com. So today we've got a really great topic on our hands. The B2B space is one that we have a lot of experience in over the past 20 years here at 97th floor, and I can say with certainty that it is evolving faster than ever.
AI is reshaping workflows and content strategy budgets are tighter than ever. Attribution needs to be super clear, and there are more companies going after the same audiences than ever before.
And nobody knows this better than people in the cybersecurity marketing space.
I can say that firsthand that that space is evolving rapidly.
Buyers are looking for real expertise, real insights, and real proof that your company understands their challenges. If your content's not sharp, relevant and insightful, it's going to get ignored. On top of that, AI is creating this world of sameness and standing out and doing something that everyone else is not doing is going to be key when it comes to creating content that is effective both in search but also just with users overall. In a highly technical industry, that becomes much more difficult. Things like cybersecurity and development. Most marketing teams, they don't have the needed technical expertise to produce content that's going to move a highly technical audience. So they need internal experts like SMEs, who they understand and actually work within the complexities of that industry. However, there's some challenges, particularly within cybersecurity space. Two thirds of cybersecurity organizations say that they don't have enough talent. So you're dealing with a smaller pool of SMEs, and according to a study by the HRDirector.com, half of cybersecurity professionals they say they expect to burn out in the next year. So it's a smaller pool of people doing more work and more likely to burn out.
Amid all of that. It can be very difficult to get enough of their time and attention to produce great content and According to Content Marketing Institute, 33% of B2B marketers say that getting time with SMEs is their number one blocker to producing effective content marketing. So SMEs are more valuable than ever. The companies that figure out how to tap into this expertise are going to be the ones that win in the long term. Which is why I'm super excited to talk about diving into how marketing teams can better work with SMEs to create content that's not just accurate, but is actually engaging to people that you're trying to target. So. So we're going to cover how to get time with these busy experts, how to translate their deep knowledge into compelling stories, and how to build a process that makes SME collaboration easy. So to that end, I'm excited to bring on our guest. Our guest is the Chief Growth Officer and co founder of Cybersecurity Marketing Society. She's enthusiastic about bridging sales and marketing efforts, promoting technology adoption, and crafting impactful strategies that drive sales pipeline growth. A proud marketing ops enthusiast, our guest firmly believes that marketing ops professionals should be integral to decision making processes. Please welcome Maria Velasquez. Maria, welcome.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we're so excited to have you on to tap into your knowledge of working with SMEs and how you've been able to crack that code. And ideally, we're going to walk away with some solid frameworks and action items that people listening can employee today, next week about how to tap into this super rich knowledge of SME. So to set the stage, let's maybe start with one question, which is perhaps obvious to some, but I think a good beginning place. What Advantage does using SMEs and content give to a B2B brand?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, that sets the stage for that trusting relationship between the cybersecurity vendor and the cybersecurity practitioner, which essentially is the buyer you have. As a marketer, you usually have a hard time finding confidence in your content if you don't come from a technical background. And let's face it, most marketers don't. There are some of those unicorns who have made the leap from being a practitioner to a marketer, and I know of a few of those and they're doing amazing things. But for the rest of us, English majors, political science majors, and even marketing majors, we don't come with that knowledge of the security engineer, the architect, and just the technical knowledge as a whole. And most of the time we are hired and are expected to fully ramp up within a few months. And be confident out there not only with the strategy and the tactics, but also the messaging and the content. And so if you are blessed enough and you're a marketer at a cyber security company that has internal SMEs, then great. But even with that, you kind of have to navigate the waters of, well, what kind of subject matter expert is it? Are they on the product team? Are they on the engineering team? Do they have the personality to be on camera or on a podcast? Or do they just want to be behind the computer writing a blog or two once a month? So yes, so it's, it's definitely a challenge. And I. You said crack the code and I don't know if anybody's ever been able to crack the code. I think being human and creating true relationships internally is probably gonna help you at least, you know, enrich your strategy with some engaging content. Content that makes sense and content that will be valuable to the security practitioner.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. We host an annual retreat for clients and partners and other marketing thought leaders. And this last year when we held it, one of the most attended topics was this concept of working with SMEs better. And so I can say when you say no one's cracked the code. Yeah, you're right, no one has cracked the code. It's an ongoing work in progress.
How to tap into this. So you, you talked about some orgs have them within the organization and some don't. If you're a marketer working in an organization that you don't have these like engineers or the right kind of people within your org, what would be step one into finding them outside of your org?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd find one. I'd find a freelancer. There are plenty out there. There are marketers, true marketers. They understand content strategy, they understand what your content should look like and sound like on your website. The format really just that content pillar and cluster strategy. There are those marketers out there that are also technical and understand cybersecurity. In fact, that's really. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: So you would recommend finding not an engineer freelancer, but a marketer that has the technical expertise or both.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: I mean, why not have a bunch of different types of talents and skills?
Because of course, there's bandwidth, there's availability. I mean, we're seeing that within the, the community. The Cyber Security Marketing Society is we, we have this network now of marketers, both freelance and in house, full time marketers who exchange services and help each other out, whether it's Editing your research report for the year before it gets published, or helping you craft that messaging architecture for your new product that you're launching. A lot of product marketers that are seasoned product marketers in cyber security that could help. So I would say find both. And, and we are seeing also now a nice shift of cyber security practitioners wanting to build their brand. They're becoming content creators, they're creating their podcast, they're speaking, and they're making that a big part of their, I guess, their career adjacent to what they do in the day to day as a cyber security practitioner. So there are plenty of those that are out there that are thought leaders that can help you.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Right. So there's lots of places to reach out to find these people, to build a bench basically of SMEs, is what you're saying.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yes, yes, absolutely. And if, if your CEO and your founder happens to be super technical or very, very knowledgeable about the product, lock them in a room for six hours and make sure you get as much content as possible out of them and reuse, recycle that content and make it last.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. So let's get to that. You're, let's say you're sitting down with the SME. If that's the founder, if that's somebody that you've built out in your bench or somebody within your organization, what is the framework? How do you extract that value? What's that process like?
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I usually love to default to video first, because from video you can create so many other types of content and really make it last. So invite them to one of your webinars. Right. And so now you have an hour's worth of content from them. You can make a blog out of it. You can create a cheat sheet with, you know, from the, some of the best practices that they shared on the webinar. You can, of course, rerun the webinar on demand and then you can create short snippets for social media from the webinar. And so there you have a multimedia library of content from one effort and you can, you know, you can continue to update it too. Right? So it can be about a topic and you talked about it in January, but there's an update in April. Just go back and have a quick touch point with that same person and then just update that content. Some things are evergreen and can last you a while, but if you do have a great relationship with that person and you can get them to commit to you, you know, once a quarter, give me a couple hours of your time. That's all I'll, I'll take. Right. If you kind of like promise them and set the expectation, then they're more willing to carve out that time for you. I think we see a lot of times the subject matter experts are reluctant to commit to too much with marketing because then it tends to be, you know, one request every day, one request every week. But if you tell them, look, I, I only want an hour and a half, let's go into, in the studio, recording room, or on a zoom call and I'm going to, I have everything prepared and I'll extract everything and download everything from your brain and then that's it.
So, yeah, there's definitely some, some tactics there, but you definitely need to understand their Persona and what kind of person they are. Like I said before, do they need media training? Do they like being on camera? Do they hate being on camera? Would they have an engaging and genuine conversation with a panel on a webinar? Or do they prefer to just have a gut check on your content that you wrote and kind of like with a red pen and correct it for you or edit it for you? Otherwise, if you are again lucky enough to have a subject matter expert that is okay being out in the world, then yeah, definitely tap into that. That's your champion.
And it's most likely somebody that loves marketing, likes to be close to the marketing team, secretly wants to be a marketer but can't. No, I'm just kidding. And so, yeah, those are like that perfect fit, I would say Persona for a subject matter expert internally. So yeah, just understand, you know, and, and there's definitely that human and relationship aspect too. Right, Right.
If you happen to not work remotely and you're working in the same office, go to lunch together, go to happy hour, or I don't know, play a quick ping pong game up in the kitchen together. You have to create that relationship so that they can want to help you in the future because ultimately they're making you look good as the marketer out there with really, really good quality content.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think of it as brand building for their own personal brand or is. Would you say it's a step too far?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Absolutely. And like I said, there are those that want to be out there, they want to build their personal brand, but just can't. And marketing is that perfect vehicle to do that.
Why not? Especially if you want to build your brand and become and be seen as a thought leader in your subject matter that you're already an expert in and that's what your company already sells, then it's perfect. It's a win win for both sides.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
So let's say you, I mean, I can't imagine that the first step is ping pong. I'd imagine there's probably a first step before that that says, hey, here's my intention and here's, I mean, are you talking about what they get out of it or are you surveying the company and identifying those SMEs with marketing aspirations? Like truly, what is the first step to broaching that subject with these SMEs? Who's, you know, it's not their job necessarily to spend time with you and to contribute and build this kind of content. How do you identify the people who are both willing to do it and would be good at it?
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes they self identify and they say, oh yeah, actually I love writing about that or I love writing technical blogs. Sometimes we see companies have like a, a different type of blog series for the technical content. And then of course the other type is the more thought leadership, educational best practices. So people love writing technical and they self identify or they just write on their own and just say, hey, marketing. By the way, I wrote this, I didn't know what to do with it. Do you want it on the website? And so if it's great and it, and it fits the topic and the timing fits, then why not. And then I think too, creating relationships with leaders internally, leaders of the engineering team, leaders of the product team. And they'll usually sometimes volunteer, tell people. Right. To help marketing with certain things and they know their, their team better. So yeah, I would, I would say definitely stay stay close to those leaders internally because they'll usually help you identify people that would be perfect for that.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah. What are some of the mistakes you see people make when they interact with SMEs that either cause it to not produce great content or over time start to diminish that relationship.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, gosh, I think just overwhelming the person with an entire year's full of strategy of content or podcast episodes or webinars, I think that can be super overwhelming just because they don't. While they understand their, their bandwidth and what their projects are for the next few quarters, there's a lot of surprises all the time and, and they get busy so they're always afraid of committing too much. So if you just set the standard in this and the expectations to be something a little bit more realistic and, and it can be just like a one time thing. Hey, I Want to try this thing out? It's a new idea. It'll only take 30 minutes of your time, and I promise it won't be like a repeated ask there. You open the door to, okay, fine, I'll listen. Even for those that are most reluctant, and if you make it fun enough and they actually like the experience, they'll come back and want to do more. But I think don't overwhelm them with like, I need 6 months of blog strategy from you or. Because then what happens is you want to be consistent with those things. Right. So let's say you want to start a podcast and you find somebody that is willing to do it with you. But you, you say, I want to produce and launch a new episode every week. That's pretty daunting on top of what they have to do day to day.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Right. So it's just a. Yeah, you're trying to emphasize that this is a. This is a marathon, not a sprint necessarily.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Ongoing, easy cadence for them that fits in with the rest of their work.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Exactly. And you want diversity and thought and voice too, in your content, whatever type of content you're creating, you should have a bench, an expert bench. Right. That you can tap into, because some people are on vacation and sometimes they're on paternity leave or maternity leave, and some people are, you know, you just never know. So you want like a nice diverse bench because they bring different points of views and different skill sets.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. When we work with SMEs in the agency model, usually I'd say the most common model is that they are kind of going through with a red pen on content that's been created, which is probably more common at the agency level.
Who. Who do you think is the best? Like, who should own, within most organizations, the responsibility of engaging and maintaining relationship with the SME. Is that an entire team activity or would you say that there's a specific role that is best suited for that?
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Gosh, it depends. It depends on the team size and the company size. Sometimes we see a full marketing team of 20 plus people and you have somebody that's focused on just analyst relations and one on just PR and a product marketing leader.
Those two, those three tend to be probably the ones that work closely with a lot of the subject matter expert. For analyst relations, you want to make sure you have somebody at the analyst briefing that knows what they're talking about. Product marketing, because it is the closest to the product and the engineering team and they tend to take a lot of what they put together and produce. Into marketing speak. So I would say those two. Otherwise, if you are a solo marketer and you're at an early stage startup, it's just you, you. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's challenging, but sometimes that actually creates more room for creativity and experimenting with different types of content.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: I've, I've noticed that one of the quickest ways to burn bridges and kind of lose engagement is to have them dedicate that time and end up not gathering all of what you needed to produce some good content, or having them spend a lot of time on something that then, you know, doesn't perform well or doesn't get published in a manner that they feel happy and confident with. How do you ensure that you. The time you're spending with them is well spent and you are gathering everything that you need without, you know, going over everything under the sun?
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I found that if they like the topic and they're close to it, then they're most likely to have fun and stay with you the entire time and give it their all.
Sometimes some of these subject matter experts also speak at events and they have already an arsenal of speaking sessions and abstracts that they've spoken about and they're comfortable writing more about or they're comfortable diving deeper into that particular topic. Try that first, because then at least you're not picking the topic for them and mandating that that's what they talk about and it's something that they're already very familiar with. Especially for those that are not super confident on camera or even on a podcast, if they're already talking about something they already presented internally, externally, at events, many, many times, then it becomes more natural. And if not, you know, make them part of the process of picking the topic and the angle for the conversation or the content, you know, catch them early on and say, hey, we're thinking about a blog series about this. I know that you've probably, you know, worked on this particular part of cybersecurity. Would you be open to helping us with one or two of those blogs? And that way at least they're, they're excited about it. Most of them are excited about showing off what they know and their knowledge about their particular function in cybersecurity. It's just, it's just a matter of understanding the type of platform and the type of content that they are excited about and comfortable with.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: I love that. I mean, and these SMEs probably are largely reflective of the audience you're trying to reach anyway. So if they are bored about a given subject, then the likelihood of your audience being bored is probably somewhat high versus if they're engaged and excited about a particular subject. It probably stands to reason that a lot of your audience is also going to be excited and engaged in that subject.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Exactly. And there's also the trust factor of the community. Right. So some of these subject matter experts have already established trust with the rest of the cybersecurity practitioner community. They have a following, they don't have to be viral. But there is that trust and there is almost like a sense of, I'm not going to sell my soul to the marketing devil and do and, you know, say things the way you want me to say, say them. I want to say it in my own tone. I want to make sure that I can stand behind what you're publishing in my name because that is my reputation in, in the community, beyond my job title with the company.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Right. I mean, that alone too, is going to make the content much more authentic and read well to the audience versus something that marketers would create, which sometimes can have a means to an end tone, which, especially in the cybersecurity space, I've learned, you know, they are very resistant to that kind of language and they, I think, more than most audiences appreciate, like authenticity and just adding true value.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Exactly. And I'll just say, you know, the marketing devil, but the devil is wearing Prada. So, I mean, the marketing job is definitely not easy. And in there, in the marketing team's defense, most of the time we do, we do know what we need to do from a strategy perspective or content. It's often just really challenging for lack of resources, lack of internal buying, and just lack of time.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: But yeah, so I'll always defend the marketing team and say, yes, we do know that we need to do better from a messaging perspective, marketing tactics, events, all of that. I think most of us do want to do better and we hear that regularly within the cybersecurity marketing community.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you also, yeah. You don't want to sit down with an SME and say, hey, what should we, what should we write about? You know, like, you want to come prepared, come with some data, some information about your audience, what you're seeing, trends you're seeing, and perhaps engaging with them from that perspective would be much more well received rather than saying, hey, how do I, how should I do my job? You know?
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Going to be some resistance to that. Yes, yes. Love that. So what do you do in terms of feedback loop? I know that it's important to show SMEs the impact of the work that they're doing with you. Have you found any good methods or processes or systems for making sure that they see the impact of the time that they spent with you?
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean doing a little bit of internal marketing and shouting about their, their help and just showing grat attitude. They, you know, as, as much as they would like to build their brand externally, there's definitely something to say about building your brand internally too. And you know, they, they get to show their boss, look, here I am actually, here's my impact. It's beyond just our team. My impact is directly impacting company growth and revenue growth even right for, for the right type of content. So there's definitely that. I've seen teams create kind of like a, a marketing newsletter internally to showcase. Like here's to announce, like here's what's going on, here's what you can expect from marketing. But here's also some of the amazing things the team has been working on and here's the impact, here are some of the results and then you do your shout outs. It's really as simple as that because like I said, subject matter experts, they love to show off what they know and better yet, when they show it off and it actually makes a great impact. Um, it's a nice stamp of approval for sure.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of validation. That's, that's awesome. I haven't heard of an. I mean, internal marketing. Yes. But an internal marketing newsletter like. Internal newsletter. Yes, but just specifically an internal newsletter dedicated to marketing and saying here's what's going on. I love that idea. I haven't heard it.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And it doesn't have to be a newsletter email per se. It can just be like a weekly slack message in a general slack channel. Right. Here's, you know, the latest from marketing and by the way, shout out to so and so. Thank you for helping us on the webinar. We had this many attendees and the sales team was able to book two meetings from that. I mean look, we, you tie it to revenue. That's. That's gold right there.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you have any creative ways of drawing out great insights that end up turning into great marketing when you're sitting down with these SMEs.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Yes.
If, if they share something that has to do with a day in the life of a, of that particular cybersecurity practitioner. Right. You can't really extract that from any research reports. I mean, yes, some. But if you say, you know, I am so stressed from the amount of alert fatigue that I get from my security tech stack over the weekend and it's prevented me from having good quality time with my family.
That's. That's marketing content right there. That's an idea for a webinar. Okay. Our tool happens to reduce the noise and not give you as much alert fatigue because the tool does it for you and only shows you the critical alerts that you really need to pay attention to. There. That's your angle. And just tapping into the emotion of that human. Because we are selling to humans. Sure, we're in B2B, but it really is human behind that computer screen. Then there, there's no better, there's no better way to just really relate and connect directly to that person.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: I love that.
Yeah. I mean that, that really communicates the idea of, look, how well we know your experience. We know it down to the minutia.
And if, if our marketing knows you this well, just imagine how well our product knows you and understands your needs and what you need.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Exactly. Just always adding value. I feel like. My, my. The rule of thumb is if they can find what's in your content, if they can find it with a simple Google search and everybody else is writing the same thing, then it's not valuable. Why should they spend the extra time on your website reading your blog, or why should they spend the one hour attending your webinar if you know AI can easily answer that question for them with one prompt?
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a really great take. And I do, I feel pretty strongly that across the board, not just in cybersecurity, but that should be the response to a lot of AI generated content is first person content. Here's my experience. Here's what I saw. Here's how I experienced your service or your product. That's just something that AI can't replicate, at least authentically, and should be something that we lean on pretty heavily.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Right. And that's what, that's what actually performs really well. Like on platforms like LinkedIn, you're seeing more and more marketing teams now utilize thought leadership posts from their subject matter experts in ads. Instead of just writing an ad message and creating this highly designed graphic and then launching it on a campaign. No, they're grabbing the authentic voice of their subject matter expert and they're boosting it and putting dollars behind it because they see the engagement is there and not on the other types of posts.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yep. Yep.
To wrap up, I'd love to know if there's any other trends that you're seeing right now, like first person perspective and content in the cybersecurity marketing space. Anything that you feel like marketers should be paying attention to or moving on right now?
[00:28:37] Speaker B: I mean, I think, you know, when we think about the audience and who we're creating the content for, there's definitely a shift and an expansion in that buying committee and we need to think about that.
So if, for instance, you're seeing that, hey, more and more CFOs are downloading my, I don't know, ROI of cybersecurity spend, then maybe you should think about content for the CFO as well and helping, essentially helping that CISO or the head of security team get buy in internally to spend more on the security tech stack. And with that, then it kind of like opens up doors for other subject matter experts in your company that could help you. Right. Tap into the cfo, if they're willing and say, hey, we're gonna write something about CFOs. Can I just pick your brain about how do you go about, you know, procurement approvals for whatever comes your way and how do you think about it? And there's most likely some sort of similarities, right. Between your CFO and the CFO on the other side, so.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, they at least can point you in the right direction of what's going to be relevant and what considerations they make when deciding whether or not to make an investment.
I love that. And so basically, yeah, building out a bench of SMEs that match the bench of your buying team and the decision makers and champions and users and I love that. That's brilliant.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Then you don't need a Persona spreadsheet and you don't need to make assumptions, right, about their pain points and what moves them and emotions and all of that. You have that right there.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I love this. This has been too short of a discussion. This has flown by, but it's so important. Like, I really do believe now brands should be doubling down on engaging and producing kind of SME related content.
That's always been true in technical spaces, but it's doubly true and should be spread out more. So this is super relevant in the day and age that we're in. And it's going to be table stakes for brands that survive and have marketing that functions versus those that kind of wither and just get lost in a sea of sameness. So I want to call out some of my takeaways that I was writing down as we were talking that I really love. One is Draw out those day in the life experiences for the content that you're producing from your SMEs. How can you communicate to them that like we really understand you and what your day to day is like? Tap into the emotion of your audience through your SMEs. Focus a lot on internal marketing and just really dedicate time to those shout outs to support those SMEs that are supporting you and and give credit for that and help them feel excited and see the impact of their work. Love that.
And then yeah, this line of if they can find it with a simple Google search then it's not valuable. Just as a straight rule, you know, if it can be answered really quickly, then by definition it's just not valuable.
Maria, this has been so great. Thank you for joining. I'd love to have you back to talk more about content in highly technical spaces and cybersecurity.
You've been super valuable. Thank you for joining today. If you'd like to hear more from Maria, you can visit cybersecurity marketingsociety.com you can also check out her podcast which is breaking through in cybersecurity marketing.
Maria, thank you for being on the show today. It's been so great having you.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And yeah, happy to come back and talk more cybersecurity marketing.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Great. Thank you for joining. Yeah, thanks for listening. The campaign is produced by 97th Floor, a 20 year old marketing agency that helps companies like McKinsey, Pluralsight and Check Point know their customers, execute innovative campaigns and drive profitable growth. If you have an allocated growth budget and product market fit, we'd love to do research and build a proposal for you. Visit us at 97th Floor.com and if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe. See you next time.
