June 1, 2022

Content Marketing Strategies for “Securing Your Cheese” with Karen Walsh

by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Listen Now

Content Marketing Strategies for “Securing Your Cheese” with Karen Walsh

June 1, 2022 Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

00:00:00

Show Notes

We’re joined by Karen Walsh, Founder and CEO of Allegro Solutions, on the podcast today to talk about the good, bad, and ugly of cybersecurity content marketing. As a compliance expert, former professor, lawyer, and kickass cybersecurity auditor, Karen shares her formula for content marketing success, educates us on educating our audience, and even gives us a quick peek at one of her many talents outside of the cybersecurity space. 

Timecoded Summary:

  • [01:17] Introducing Karen and the concept of GRC (governance, risk, compliance)
  • [04:27] Educating your audience through correct usage of webpage real estate
  • [13:02] Discovering the formula for solid content marketing copy
  • [22:46] Throwing out a few vague and unhelpful content marketing “bad words” 
  • [34:41] Kicking ass in cybersecurity as a woman, a marketer, and a freelancer

Sponsor:

Thank you to our sponsors and producers Hacker Valley Media! Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings run an amazing studio, which produces not only the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast, but a bunch of other shows that you're going to want to listen to as well. You can check these all out at HackerValley.com

 

Do we really need to explain this again? 

When explaining the essentials of educating your audience, Karen encounters more than her fair share of clients who think they don’t have to explain or educate as much as they do. Education cannot be made with assumptions or without proper research into your audience. Although many of your potential clients may understand the terms you’re using, explaining and educating instead of assuming will avoid making an “*ss” out of anyone. 

“Have high standards of educating those who are coming into your website. They need to know things and they're not going to take that next step to convert if they don't understand and if you haven't educated them.”

 

How do you mix in SEO in order to be telling a good story to your buying audience, but also try and rank for terms for when people are searching?

Karen believes that SEO and content marketing is a formula, and bases a lot of her work around the essentials of that formula. These are three challenges that X industry has when trying to do Y security functions. Through explaining the challenges faced and the methods that could be used to solve them, you’re training yourself to not only educate, but to take up essential website real estate with impactful on-page SEO.

“I mean, it's formulaic. You set out a business problem that you're looking to solve, right? You define what that business problem is, and when you're defining what that business problem is, you focus on certain terms.”

 

What are your top marketing buzzwords to avoid on content?

Karen loves many things about content marketing, but there are some words that she cannot stand, including frictionless and actionable. For Karen, these words are vague and unhelpful in your marketing, leaving more questions than answers for potential clients. Get specific and explain why or how what you can provide separates your company from the pack. Don’t fall victim to meaningless marketing words when specificity can help so much more. 

“And I think part of the problem with a lot of these terms is people haven't really thought about what they mean by the term and so, it makes them meaningless.” 

 

How do you earn respect in cybersecurity as a woman and a marketer who knows her shit?

There are already huge barriers for women in cybersecurity, especially when coupled with non-technical roles, such as marketing and writing—  both of which are Karen’s specialties. Karen explains that, for her, there’s also the third layer of being a freelancer. Oftentimes, cybersecurity companies are playing into their own internal biases without realizing it and hurting freelancers by assuming negative things about their skills and quality of work. 

“I know I'm a good writer. It's what I like doing. I don't want to code, but I have to make sure people don't treat me like I'm stupid because I don't do the technical job, which goes along with the marketing because they think marketing is fluff.”

----------

Spend some time with our guest Karen Walsh on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the Allegro Solutions website 

Additional resources mentioned in this podcast: Karen Walsh on Rate My Professor, Dark  Reading, Security Mag, Feedly’s cybersecurity feed, Help Net, Votiro, TryHackMe, Black Girls in Cyber, Tricia Kicks SaaS, Everest Shoulder Rest, Lindsey Stirling

Follow Gianna on LinkedIn

Catch up with Maria on LinkedIn

Join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, and keep up with us on Twitter

Keep up with Hacker Valley on our website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter

 

Read more

Recent Episodes

November 29, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

In this episode, Charles Gold, Chief Marketing Officer at ThreatConnect, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss why CMOs fail or succeed.  To begin, Charles shares his background in running global marketing organizations. He even started a technology comp...

November 22, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

When you think humor, comedy, LOL, or even LMFAO if you are fancy, cybersecurity isn't typically the first thing that comes to mind. But who says talking about ROI, demand gen, and marketing has to be boring? Humor exists in everything, and with so m...

November 15, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Welcome to Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing, where we explore the hottest topics in cyber marketing, interview experts and help you become a better cybersecurity marketer! In this episode, Amy Stokes Waters, Founder and Chief Executive Off...

November 8, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Competitive intelligence programs can be reactionary and one-dimensional due to squeaky-wheel syndrome and we-just-lost-a-deal-to-so-and-so-itis.    Learn from Alex Babar, Vice President of Solutions at Brinqa about 3 categories of competitive intel ...

October 31, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

On this week’s very special Halloween episode, listen as the hosts embark on a journey beyond the seven seas, a thrilling match filled with spooky stories and of course, lighthearted banter (one can’t help but laugh even in fear)... Sink your fangs i...

October 25, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Since #CyberMarketingCon2023 is coming on December 10th through 13th. We can’t help but replay some of our sessions from previous conferences. This week’s episode is from CyberMarketingCon2022. If you enjoy this session, you will enjoy this year’s li...

October 18, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

In this episode, Joseph Barringhaus, Director of Demand Generation at Sonrai Security, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss all things demand gen. Sonrai Security is a cloud security startup that focuses on identity, access, and permission in the cloud....

October 11, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

The time for #CyberMarketingCon2023 is fast approaching and we hope to see you in Austin in December. So mark those calendars and get your tickets, the conference will be from December 10th through 13th. It's filled with education, the best speakers,...

October 4, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

In this episode, Geordie Carswell, CMO at ActualTech Media joins Maria and Gianna to talk about the stuff no marketer wants to talk about right now: lead generation and content syndication! Can lead generation be a successful part of a demand generat...

September 27, 2023
by Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

In this episode, Jake Milstein, CRO, and CMO at Critical Insight, joins Maria and Gianna to discuss his unique perspective on serving underrepresented cybersecurity markets, the importance of establishing trust and personal connection with clients, a...