Episode Transcript
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You were listening to bb revenue acceleration, a podcast dedicated helping software executive stay
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on the cutting edge of sales and
marketing and their industry. Let's get into
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the show. Hi You, welcome
to be to be a revenue acceleration.
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My name is Orion mutier and I'm
here today with Gilli Nets, or from
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illusive networks. How are you today, Gili? Hey, right, I'm
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great. Thank you for inviting me. No Price, absolute pleasure. So
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today we will be talking about the
evolution of marketing in Cyber Security, but
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before we go into details, can
you please tell us a little bit more
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about you, your marketing journey within
the BB cyber security market and your experience
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with net market? Sure. So, I actually have been doing marketing in
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the securities space for the last almost
twenty years. We startups and also with
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technology corporates. I started with a
company called Lbit. It's an international technology
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company with the defense, homelade,
security and commercial programs, including see four
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I sr, which is command control, communication, computers, intelligence and surveillance,
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and then I wrote at Finn John, which is a start up that
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offered a secure web gateway solution.
From there I moved to m systems,
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which is a flash storage solution company
that was acquired by the leader in the
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space called Sandisk. It's an American
company and although it's in storage company,
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I did work at the Mobile Security
Solutions Group. So security again. After
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that point, the majority of my
focused as a market here was the traditional
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marketing, like product design, packaging, user interface of the solution, events,
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conferences, public relations, website content
and so on. Okay, that's
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that sounds wonderful. Something that's interest
me than and is a twenty years experience
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in the stable security market and the
fall Tro you've been obviously walking from different
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companies as well. So I'd like
to under songs from your perspective what you've
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seen, or where you have seen
the markets evolving and where, well,
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the major changes that you witnessed from
a marketing perspective in the Saber Security Market.
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Yeah, that's a good question.
So from a marketing perspective, around
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ten plants years ago, the marketing
to a shift, you know, from
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the traditional marketing I was telling you
about, into playing a bigger role from
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a business perspective, working together with
sales to generate pipeline and revenues. So
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with that new systems were introduced into
marketing from sales force that was used up
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to that point by sales people,
through marketing automation tools like Eloqua, Marquette,
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hub spot of course more digital constant
contents, indication and so on.
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The the switch for me start started
in my episode with the Standis, but
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mostly it was in my time with
SEMANTEC. So after Sundays Guy, I
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started working for semantic. I was
there for eight years. So that's,
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you know, huge software company.
At the time when I joined it was
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Twentyzero people and actually they were combination
because they bought a lot of companies throughout
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the years. One of them was
very task, which is a storage and
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disaster recovery company, but then half
of the portfolio was security. We're talking
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about, you know, hundreds of
products the semantic is offering, and so
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my career and knowledge evolved a lot
with that company and with the business.
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So for the last two years with
elusive as a VPPI marketing, I was
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back to the startup environment, doing
everything from strategy to execution. Now getting
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to the other part of your question, from a technology perspective, there has
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been a lot of changes, but
I just refer to the changes which were
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imposed due to the increased connectivity in
the past few decades. So about twenty
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years ago the connectivity started to rise, you know, with the introduction of
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cell phones, Internet, set light
and so on. A few years later
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connectivity became even more advanced with Wi
fi, smartphones, social media, online
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shops and so on, and so
these connectivity aments brought with them a lot
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of breakings, like progress and productivity
for businesses and for the people. However,
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it started creating security gaps which attackers
could exploit and continue to exploit,
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and so, in the past decade
and simple, connectivity became more hyper and
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cross connected with the introduction of cloud
thus, byod that tax surface expands.
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Is Businesses to, you know,
choose to be agile and have to be
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agile and innovate, and so they
adapt, they adopt mw technologies of connectivity.
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So at the end of the day, attackers leverage this increasing security gaps
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due to connectivity and the attacks become
more advanced throughout the years as the organization's
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adapt this technology transformation, and so
also from hacking tools where and are expots
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through the years, and so they
allow even the lower level attackers to execute
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sophisticated attacks and so organization to bridge
the gaps with cyber investments and this,
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you know, this is what I've
been seeing in the last few years.
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That's really interesting from a marketing perspective
personally because, as you just describe very
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well in a very simple web that
I liked it because it was very,
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very articulate, the cyber security market
has been evolving and I think what a
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witness from my perspective is that new
solution are coming to solve problem that people
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have not add yet. We almost
like an urance or prevention for something that
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may put in should really happen.
And I think from marketing perspective, from
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doing the markets here role, you
almost have to you know, it's a
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different way of selling. It's a
when you add see mount take and they
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have maybe hundred product, but a
good part of them may be commodity product.
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People may know. It's about pis
about people being about able to find
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you. When you actually living with
new solution, trying to be on the
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edge of that that market, trying
to be innovator in that market, then
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you have almost to create your own
market. So from a marketing perspective,
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and it's maybe also a very simple
question and the most celebrate, but I'll
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go with it again. But would
you think is driving the marketing strategies to
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engage with the market? Is it? Is it actually the market here that
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needs to find new tactic to create
demands around new solution, or is it
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the buyer, the actual end user
that you know, as you mentioned,
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everything got digit all people are telling
us that. We hear from the lake
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of Gardners serious decision and all those
people at customers are doing more and more
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research online before buying something. But
again, if you're selling them save your
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security in a solution that they may
not know about because it's not a prand
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the develop experience. Yet you got
expect them to find you online of do
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a research online. So I guess, majst question is, when you are
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into that innovative parts and creating the
demon do you have to add up to
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the customers or do you have to
create your own tactic as a Marketerel to
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go and find them? I think
you know at the end of the day,
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and I'm not sure if it's answering
your question, the cyber security market
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is become very, very crowded,
with a lot of companies and like you
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said, innovation that needs to breach
the gap of what you know, the
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technology has created and we need to
find the creative way to break through the
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noise right and to get the attention. So with all those companies, cyber
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companies and startups, of offering a
great variety of solutions and they, by
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the way, they cater to the
different attack life cycle stages, you know,
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from prevention to preemption, detection and
response. We are all fighting.
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We, I mean the vendors or
you know, we are all fighting for
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the customers budgets and attention. But
we have to remember that there are different
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stakeholders for the different solutions, depending
on the industries and the segments. I
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think there are a few things to
think about, to name a few key
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ones right in the short time that
we have. So one thing, of
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course, what is what is your
go to market strategy? For example,
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do you do through the channel,
partnerships or direct right sales and marketing?
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There are many other go to market
decisions to make, but this is really
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completely different. Maybe episode with you. But then another consideration to make in
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your journey to get the attention of
the customer. Then who is your ideal
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customer? Profile and what are the
functions to play, decisionmaking or in even
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influential or functional rules that you need
to interact with and how? And so
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then you need to make sure that
you are clear not just on your customer
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or the ideal customer profile, but
also on the use cases and the challenges,
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and then optimize your company's messaging to
be balanced between the solution features and
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the benefits that they pose to the
different use cases. I would say the
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next step is, you know,
really rolling up your sleeves with, you
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know, tactics and execution that aim
to get the attention of your customer and
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at the right time. I think
the context for me is a combination of
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the use case and the timing.
So you need to be there in the
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right context, in the right time
and with the right, let's say,
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solution for the use stays at stake. And for me, the keys to
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deploy a combination of tactics into a
multi touch approach, from leadership with speaking
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engagements, I mean thought leadership,
with speaking engagement, articles, analyst relations,
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blogs, white papers, all of
that kind of stuff, through demand
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generation, with conferences, events,
appointment setting with be Dr's. You know,
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companies such as yourself that offers such
services, contents, indication programs and
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more on the digital side, like
advertisement, social post engagements, different op
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it amplifications, by the way.
Today, thank you. Can See more
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and more, and I believe Gardner
was mentioning that as well, they see
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twenty five percent of the marketing budget
going towards the email ads, organic search,
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you know, Seo Social and so
on. That's a really important pillar
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in your plan. And and finally, also not just the thought leadership and
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the demand generation, but also pipeline
acceleration is also very key, because often
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you can see situation where market tars
create a lot of leads but then there
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reason even even convert them into appointments
and and early stage opportunities. But then
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the challenge will be to convert the
early stage opportunity to the next stage and
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the next stage seeing them going up
the pipe. So pipeline acceleration, whether
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it's with customer references or ABM programs, you know, targeting specific accounts.
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That's that's in the Natchell I guess. Yeah, lots. That's for you
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for I think it so to also
your question. You you haven't so my
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question. I guess. The only
element I would add thatuch is a the
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question I would ask you is how
much of the tactics, so without going
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into the details, but how much
of the tactics are a kind of trial
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and measure versus, you know,
tactics that are actually you're replicating something from
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another company or from something that you've
done in the past? Because we're talking
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about evolving. So with involvement,
with evolution, I'm expecting a constant change.
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So I'll do you as a back
it to adapt your tactic. Is
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it just about measuring the results of
each compaign? Is it about listening to
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people like Gardner and going to the
events and picking up ages? I would
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you evolve with the market and alogy
you make sure your tactics are evolving with
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not only the cyber security market,
the way by other are interacting, except
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etc. And also what we mentioned, the crowded market. So you need
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to be a bit different. So
I'm interested to those on all you,
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without going into details, but how
you have been able over the years to
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always keep on your tools and evolving
with that market evolving around. So it's
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been different depending on the company that
you work with. So you know clearly
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it's very different from a corporate to
start up. But even within it start
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up, it depends if you are
in a very early stage start up where
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the category is still not defined,
or whether you are in a later stage
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start up when the category is defined, customers are locating budgets, analyst already
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talking about the company and so on
and so forth. This really makes a
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difference, for one, the tactics
that you deploy to how you measure them
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and then how you evolve. As
an example, you know, the very
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early stage start up that doesn't have
any any relationships with prospects, customers.
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Maybe it's even a very new category
of technology. Yeah, I imagine gjority
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of these investment will will be,
you know, one on the PR and
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analyst relations, but secondly, if
you want to generate demand, if you
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want to collect contact in order to
do some digital marketing, especially today in
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the age of GDP, are you
can just, you know, buy list
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and market to them. So what
you usually would be doing a lot is
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going where the customers already are,
because they will not come to you.
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So you go and you spend a
lot of money on events and conference sponsorships
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because the market is already there.
So you just pay for a booth and
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pay to be on stage and then
when you are there physically and and all
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the crowd is around there, whether
you know whether your sponsor infosecurity in Europe
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or our say, or any other
smaller activity in any country, then you
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go to where the customers are.
Once you obtain, you know, stronger
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relationships, more thought leadership and awareness
in the market and relationships possibly also with
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channel and with other partners, then
you have more flexibility on what you can
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do. Clearly. Clearly, you
also will invest in, you know,
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in Seo, for organic so people
will find you when they search Google for
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the related topics. But as time
evolves and your company evolves with you,
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you can look at additional tactics within
the marketing so that your demand generation will
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not only come from these conferences and
events but, idea, from a variety
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of different tactics, as I mentioned
before, in sort of like almost an
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equal ways. Or you're not only
dependent on one thing. You can do
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contents, indication, you can create
a lot of content, you can do
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appointment setting, you can do a
PM. But going back to how I
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started, it really depends on the
startup, on the industry, on the
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on the category, if it exists, and really on the stage of the
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start up. But of course,
today, in today's world, you always
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have to be data driven, numbers
driven, check what brings you most profitability
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each campaign, each expense, and
understand, you know, for one company
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Webinars will work, for another they
will not work. Sure so, also
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the customer. Also the customer many
times will will be the difference of what
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you choose to do. Yeah,
absolutely, and I think I think to
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your point as well. Do the
more of the organization, the closer you
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will be to the founder of the
closer you will be with the people who
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actually spend the money and the more
likely you are to be able to report
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on a return and making sure that
you know if he even if you've got
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to tactic that will take a little
bit of time to really develop and generate
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opportunities and deals and revene. For
the cells team, you are more likely
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to be scrutinizing in a small organization
and a large one. Having said that,
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we've got some very large customer scrutinize
things quite a lot, which is
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really good on them, because this
is the way you would work. So
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thanks for that, JEM. Really
appreciate your time and insight on the on
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the question today. I think it
was really useful to get your views and
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mentioned the fit is some very interesting
point which kind of led me to the
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question of if someone wants to get
in touch with you, so someone from
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audience, we've got a few of
our listener as well, can to carry
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on the conversation. If you will
be on the podcast or a due to
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00:15:26.789 --> 00:15:31.149
the networkx or whatever, what is
the best way to get old of you,
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00:15:31.269 --> 00:15:33.110
Gideon, to find you? The
best way I would be on Linkedin.
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Anyone can get in with me and
I'll be happy to to chat and
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to help and thank you, of
course, sorry for inviting me to this
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episode. I was very happy to
participate. Many thanks for your time.
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You was great having on the show
today. operatics has redefined the meaning of
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00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:56.450
revenue generation for technology companies worldwide.
While the traditional concepts of building and managing
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00:15:56.490 --> 00:16:02.690
inside sales teams inhouse has existed for
many years, companies are struggling with a
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00:16:02.769 --> 00:16:07.559
lack of focus, agility and scale
required in today's fast and complex world of
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00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:15.799
enterprise technology sales. See How operatics
can help your company accelerate pipeline at operatics
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00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:21.350
dotnet. You've been listening to BEDB
revenue acceleration. To ensure that you never
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00:16:21.389 --> 00:16:25.669
miss an episode, subscribe to the
show in your favorite podcast player. Thank
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00:16:25.669 --> 00:16:26.750
you so much for listening. Until
next time.
